EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The Copenhagen summit, billed as a historic meeting about nothing less than saving the planet for human habitation, ended this weekend with a low-key accord that was rejected by poor nations, described as "disappointing" by EU leaders and condemned by NGOs as a "shameful, monumental failure."
After two years of preparations and ever grimmer scientific assessments of the state the planet is in, from its melting ice-caps to acidifying oceans, in the small hours of Saturday morning (19 December), it all came down to a deal agreed to by about 25 heads of state and put together outside the UN process by a clutch of countries led by China, South Africa, India, Brazil and the US.
The five-page-long text, which only "recognises" the need to limit global temperatures to rising no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but does not require that this happen, was itself only "recognised" by the 193 countries attending the Copenhagen summit and not approved by them.
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