Low Expectations for Climate Summit: Can Copenhagen Still Be Saved?

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Nevetheless, Hedegaard seems ready to fight for her desired result. "Copenhagen should include a deadline for when to close a legally binding agreement," she maintains.

Sweden's special envoy for climate change, Lars-Erik Liljelund, feels similarly. His country is going into the discussions holding the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union. He agrees with the Danish strategy. "We support this since we think it is important that (Copenhagen) delivers," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE. However, it's already been clear to him for six months that the conference was not going to result in any legally binding treaties, he says.

The Europeans have certainly done their bit to lower expectations of the Copenhagen talks. The main problem has been that the EU nations cannot agree on how much money developing countries should get to help them adopt any climate change objectives (also known as "adaptation" in the official jargon) and to reduce their greenhouse gases ("mitigation"). However financial aid to help deal with climate change is a central demand from the side of the developing countries.

Environmentalists don't even want to think about what might happen if Copenhagen's only result is a non-binding statement of vague intent. If we want to keep global warming to within two degrees Celsius -- in other words, the amount of warming whose effects, in the opinion of scientists, can still be halfway controlled -- then there can be "no alternative" to a binding agreement, says Stefan Krug, head of the political unit for Greenpeace Germany. "Anything else would represent a total failure of the Copenhagen negotiations," he concludes.

APEC Announcement Could Be Positive

Observers are unsure how to interpret the setback announced by leaders at the APEC summit. An optimistic reading of events would be that the countries involved want some extra time because they are serious about reaching a strong and binding agreement.

"It would not make any sense to agree on an international treaty that represents the lowest common denominator," Schellnhuber argues. "It would be better to reach an agreement later which had more ambitious targets."

Dröge agrees. "There's no point in pushing for something in Copenhagen that is just going to be overturned by the US later," she says.

However, a more negative interpretation of events would be the following: The US and China have secretly agreed to do as little as possible regarding climate change for the time being. Observers suspect that a simple calculation could lie behind this scenario: As long as one side can plausibly accuse the other side of sabotaging the negotiations, nobody will suffer any significant political damage. "Under this scenario, you can imagine that the US Senate and China will act together to torpedo any agreement," Bals says. In Washington, a far-reaching climate change bill has been bogged down in Congress for months.

Climate Change Poker

Or is it all just a clever ploy? Is the sobering outcome of the APEC summit already a tactic in the Copenhagen negotiations?

"China and the US have more room for maneuver than they are currently admitting," Krug says. "Obama could actually already agree to legally binding objectives for CO2 emissions without waiting for Congress. He could also make financial promises to developing nations and make those commitments dependent on greenhouse gas reductions." The hope remains that, in the end, Obama will give some ground because he will otherwise face potential political damage at home.

The ironic thing is that global warming is apparently slowing down. "Psychologically, that is of critical significance," Schellnhuber says.

Admittedly, any half-way informed politician will know that the stagnation in global warming that is currently being observed can only be temporary. As late as 2007, global warming still had a signficant influence on the political debate, Schellnhuber says. "But public pressure has decreased in the meantime," he concludes.

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• Part 1: Can Copenhagen Still Be Saved?
• Part 2: The One Goal Copenhagen Must Achieve