The end of a fairytale.

Once upon a time there existed a group of nations who gathered together in a land called Copenhagen to sign a treaty that would protect their collective kingdoms from the evils of climate change and ensure the livelihoods of their people for years to come. Despite years of obstacles and reasons to believe otherwise, the agreement was signed in the nick of time and they lived happily ever after. The End.

Do you buy this? Me neither.

While this story may seem unbelievable in its simplicity, I think we were all still hoping for a fairytale ending to this climate change dilemma. Sadly, negotiating this treaty has proven to be anything but simple.

As I had unfortunately anticipated, the climate talks held in Barcelona failed to overcome the developing-developed country divide that has threatened to derail any prospect of an international agreement to come out of Copenhagen next month. The talks in Barcelona marked the final five days of official negotiating time before the international climate change community will descend upon Copenhagen, Denmark for the UNFCCC’s COP-15 Summit.

No longer are there hopes for an agreement before this year’s end but, rather, the new goal for Copenhagen appears to be the setting of a new timetable for the agreement of an international treaty. In other words, our previous timetable didn’t work so let’s try to set a new one and see if this one sticks.

It is easy to point fingers and make developed countries the villain in this scenario; they are the most responsible for the pollution, have less to lose through global warming and yet have the most finances available to assist with mitigation and adaptation. And, in a fairytale world, all it would take is a charming prince or a clever old godmother to make this a clean and simple polluter-pays scenario. But, in the real world, there are too many obstacles that will continue to stand in the way of a satisfactory and timely international environmental agreement.

The United States, the Rudd government, or even China (a somewhat still developing, yet all too emissions-heavy, country to remain blame free) seem like logical scapegoats for our lack of decisive and sufficient action in the lead up to Copenhagen. Yet, rather than place blame for our lack of agreement, perhaps we were setting ourselves up for disappointment in believing that we could achieve an agreement in time to prevent the dreaded 2ºC threshold?

We have witnessed time and time again the arduous (and often-unproductive) process of UNFCCC meetings and summits. In national arenas, political, economic, and scientific debates continue to quell any meaningful climate change legislation and often lead to bitterness and frustration between groups. And still, many of us remained hopeful that things would work themselves out on the national and international level in time to put the finishing touches on our carbon-friendly Christmas presents.

Now, I like to pride myself on being a glass-half-full sort of person, but maybe we should stop hoping for a happy ending to these climate change debates. Sadly, we are running out of time and we need to start planning for a post-Copenhagen world: one where emissions targets will remain unsatisfactory as national politics and economics continue to win out over the international collective good. Our emissions targets to avoid a 2ºC rise may not be met and our leaders will likely continue to disappoint us with their lackluster legislation. While reality may not be nearly as happy as our fairytale ending, it is something that we need to face in order to prepare ourselves for the road ahead.


Paige Andrews is a regular contributor to Change2 and is currently the Director of Research at Climatico which provides independent analysis of international climate change policy. Paige will be attending and reporting from COP-15 in Copenhagen this December.