As we enter the second week of negotiations of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change at Copenhagen, which looks no more likely to produce a binding agreement than the first week, it's funny to remember how different things were just a year ago.

A year ago, there was still so much hope for Copenhagen. Heck, people called it "Hopenhagen."

Representatives from nearly 200 nations would be getting together to sign the successor of the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. It would be a better treaty, with real teeth. Developed countries, which had been emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere with abandon in their race for industrial dominance would agree to mandatory reductions in emissions levels. They would also give financial aid to help developing nations develop cleanly.

This was not as naive as it now sounds.


Countries were seizing upon the global economic crisis as an opportunity to invest in clean energy -- a "Green New Deal" that would unleash innovation and investment and power a more sustainable economy. China -- China!, who had just surpassed the United States as the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases -- announced it was dedicating a full quarter of its $586 billion stimulus package to green initiatives. In the United States, the world's largest historic emitter, President Obama called for returning emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a 15 percent decrease, and for cutting emissions down by 80 percent by 2050. With these two on board -- together responsible for 40 percent of global emissions -- it looked like the world would follow along.

Alas, life happened.

The United States went through several costly bail outs; couldn't muster political enthusiasm for emissions caps; and was distracted by war, health care and recently, White House party-crashers.
A few weeks before the climate change conference started, President Obama acknowledged there would be no legally binding agreement at Copenhagen. This leaves our world leaders like guests at a wedding that was just cancelled by the bride, tempted to pack up their gifts and go home.

Will they?

They could still surprise us. They could, as they said they would, work on the template for a binding agreement to be signed next year. Or there could be partial deals.

Whatever they do, they need to do it soon, as time is running out. In estimates that some experts now say were overly optimistic, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that our global emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other atmosphere-warming gases have to peak by 2015-2020 in order to stay under 2 degrees Celsius of warming.

At that threshold, scientists say the Earth will start to experience disastrous and irreversible damage. If 2 degrees doesn't sound like very much, keep in mind that only 6 or 7 degrees of warming would spell probable extinction.

Bad things are already happening. More extreme weather patterns unleash hurricanes and other calamities, making life unpredictable in many parts of the world, including the United States. Rising sea levels mean that low-lying island nations like the Maldives will disappear under water this century. Droughts in certain places and floods in others have spread diseases and famine, and led to forced human migration and humanitarian crises. And I'm not even going to talk about the polar bears.

Delaying action on climate change is bad for the planet, bad for the economy, and bad for people. It's not too late; there are many things we can do to mitigate climate change and adapt to our new surroundings. But we must act soon to give our children a world fit to live in.

Louie Gilot is a former reporter for the El Paso Times. In 2009, she was an intern for the United Nations Special Team on Climate Change in New York City. She writes about green living and climate change on the border on her blog, www.lagreenga.com