Climate Change and Low Expectations

The UN's Conference of Parties on Climate Change has been meeting for 17 years. In 1997, it produced the Kyoto Protocol, supposedly to hold industrial nations accountable for the impact of greenhouse emissions. But two years ago in Copenhagen, heads of state, including President Obama, could only produce a two-page, nonbinding agreement to help poor nations cope with climate change, and details are still being debated. The Kyoto pact will expire at the end of next year. This week, the latest so-called Earth Summit is underway in Durban, South Africa.