Yes, the Copenhagen climate summit, possibly the most important global conference in decades, was disappointing. No binding treaty to enforce international greenhouse emissions standards emerged. No standards were agreed on that would likely save Tuvalu and other members of the Alliance of Small Island States who see the waves of rising seas lapping at their homelands, including such near neighbors to the U.S. as Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas.
Larger countries, for example, agreed in principle that global temperatures shouldn't be allowed to rise more than 2 degrees Celsius over preindustrial temperatures; the AOSIS members want 1.5 degrees.
But the conference was far from being an utter failure. It seared the numbers 2 (degrees Celsius rise in temperature) and 350 (parts per million—the safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 40 ppm less than the 390 we have now) into the minds of concerned people the world over.
Making sure that happened was Bill McKibben and his crew at 350.org, who together with the Center for Biological Diversity have filed a petition calling for the Environmental Protection Agency to limit CO2 in the air here to 350 ppm.
The groups filed the petition Dec. 2, just days before the EPA stated its intention to regulate CO2. The action sparked a feud between environmental groups because some disapproved of using the Clean Air Act to attack the problem; Sierra Club attorney David Bookbinder called the petition "a really dumb idea" and said the Club would side with industry in opposing 350.org if it sued to force the EPA to act. But 100 organizations have now signed on to the petition and the Sierra Club is represented among its supporters, which include renowned NASA climate scientist James Hansen.
