Climate Change Summit Ends With Lukewarm Statement of Intention

The final accord was hammered out in last-minute talks between Mr. Obama and the leaders of China, Brazil, India and South Africa.  The other 188 nations grudgingly agreed to "take note" of the pact, which will shape the next round of negotiations in Mexico in 2010.

Many had hoped for legally binding limits on carbon dioxide emissions, but disagreements on how to measure pollution and who should cut more could not be overcome.

The final agreement outlines a system for monitoring and reporting progress toward national pollution-reduction goals, and paves the path for hundreds of billions of dollars to flow from wealthy nations to countries who will be most harmed by changing climate.

Although poorer countries wanted a goal of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the deal calls for a 2 degree limit above preindustrial levels by 2050. (The planet has warmed an estimated .75 degrees already).

Mixed reaction to Copenhagen agreement

	Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai of Kenya, center, with other attendees of the UN climate conference in Copenhagen.

“The world’s nations have come together and concluded a historic — if incomplete — agreement to begin tackling global warming,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the environmental group the Sierra Club.

But Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, a Sudanese diplomat who represented a Group of 77 developing countries, said, “The developed countries have decided that damage to developing countries is acceptable.”

The 2 degree target will “result in massive devastation to Africa and small island states,” he added.

Obama administration pushes Congress to act

	Former vice president and environmental activist Al Gore unsuccessfully urged Congress to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in the 1990s.

The new agreement supersedes the former agreement, known as the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire in 2012. Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the agreement in 1998, but it was never ratified by Congress.

Many conservative U.S. lawmakers argue that rigid limits on greenhouse gas emissions would harm the economy.

President Obama is also limited by Congress, but has taken steps recently to force the legislative branch to act.

Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency, an independent agency in the executive branch, formally declared that greenhouse gases are endangering public health.

If Congress fails to enact limits on power plants, factories, cars and other appliances, the EPA will, White House officials warn. 

The president has called for a 17 percent reduction in U.S. emissions by 2020 from 2005 levels and an 83 percent cut by 2050.

How to count emissions?

	As a side effect of rapid industrialization, China now has serious pollution and smog control problems.

One of the biggest barriers to an international treaty is a disagreement over how to measure emissions. China and India argue for a model based on the size of the economy-- gross domestic product (GDP), not simply total emissions.

While China is now the number one carbon emitter in the world, it still lags behind the United States and Europe in per capita emission.

"Developed countries should not make requirements of developing countries that are unreasonable," China's top climate envoy, Yu Qingtai, said at a news conference in November.

China has pledged to reduce its carbon intensity, a measurement of the CO2 that is emitted per unit of economic activity, by 40 percent to 45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.

India has also tied its emissions goal to production, saying it will reduce the ratio of emissions from 2005 levels by 20 percent to 25 percent by 2020.

Disappointed climate negotiators hope that the next meeting will be more productive.

“This progress did not come easily, and we know that this progress alone is not enough,” President Obama said as he left Copenhagen.

 “We’ve come a long way, but we have much further to go.”