No-one can be served by a pompous climate summit in Copenhagen which doesn’t bind the world’s major countries to a real reorganisation of energy consumption.

Certainly no-one outside the Liberal-Conservative (Danish) government.

Another parade performance would be one step forward and two steps backwards for humanity.

Following the announcement by the Democrats in the United States that they neither can nor will bind themselves to concrete climate targets prior to the summit in December, the likelihood of success in Copenhagen has fallen to zero.

The dream of Denmark as the stage for a global rescue plan has burst.

Today is the day that Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen (Lib) is to speak to world leaders in New York, and nothing seems to suggest that before Christmas he will be able to repeat his predecessor’s golden words from the triumph of the EU Summit in 2002: “We have an agreement.”

From summit to bummit
On the contrary, the Climate Summit risks becoming a fiasco.

The Americans are, and will continue to be, decisive in the negotiations for a more ambitious replacement for the Kyoto Protocol.

As long as Congress is not ready to give President Barack Obama a clear mandate, the other major countries are not going to bind themselves to extensive reductions in CO2 emissions either.

The United States has already short-circuited the process once, when Congress in 1997 refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

Time for Plan B
The globe cannot manage without America. Again. As a result, the Climate Summit at Bella Centre will, at best, be an important officials’ meeting on the road to an agreement.

At worst it will be a charade, without heads of state and government in the leading roles.

The time has come to consider a Plan B. The most obvious would be to call for a new conference next summer, so the Americans have time to negotiate a quota system.

The responsible parties must consider reality. Otherwise efforts to keep temperature rise below two degrees will simply dissipate.

Summer
At today’s meeting, that has been called by Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon in New York, we’ll be hearing yet more clichés, apologies and non-binding words without real political backing.

The world needs action instead. Rather a binding global agreement in six months than more empty promises in 12 weeks.

The Climate Summit in Copenhagen should not be cancelled, but the highest level séance with global VIPs should be postponed until early summer.

The major countries must really be ready to sign an agreement, rather than just promising the Moon at some time in the future, when they no longer have responsibility for anything themselves.