Copenhagen’s ended.  So what have we got?  The “Copenhagen Accord”, a 2-and-a-half-page document of vague commitments (the BBC does a good job of explaining the key points here).  Not a legally-binding treaty – and they haven’t even set a date for creating one.

Crucially, there are no numbers and no dates mentioned in the document.  Not even a global target of how much the planet should reduce emissions by 2050, let alone targets for each country.  The closest it gets is saying it “recognises the scientific view that” global temperature increase should be kept below 2 degrees Celsius.

UN deals are normally arrived at through consensus: not this one.  The Accord was worked out in a small chat between the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa, and the UN has “taken note” of it, not approved it.  I’m not sure what’s happened to the text they’ve been negotiating for the past two years since Bali in 2007 – did that get thrown out the window, or just pushed into a corner?

Our “leaders” who spent hours agonising over the deal have tried to put a positive spin on it.  Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General, said: “The ‘Copenhagen Accord’ may not be everything everyone had hoped for, but this decision … is an important beginning.”  Gordon Brown: it’s a “vital first step”.  Barack Obama: “I believe that what we achieved in Copenhagen is not going to be the end, but rather the beginning.”

It’s as if they’re squinting at a picture they’ve spent hours painting and saying “well, if you squeeze your eyelids real tight so they’re almost touching and then look sideways at it, then it looks alright” – because it’s so smudged and blurry, the original hoped-for image lost after two weeks of daubing and remixing old paint colours.

The language has shifted: what was a deadline, the climax of two years of the “road map” decided on in Bali in 2007, has now become a “beginning”.  But however much you play with words and squint your eyes, this was an opportunity missed.  After 17 years of the UNFCCC, carbon dioxide continues to be pumped into our one and only atmosphere – from coal-fired power plants, from factories, from cars, planes, cutting down trees.  People in vulnerable places continue without guaranteed cash to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The world continues to heat up.  Despite the fact that we know it is heating up due to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere put there by human activity.  We know we can stop it.  But at the moment we are not stopping it.

The world carries on – but not quite the same as before.

We’ve just seen “the biggest meeting of heads of state and government in the history of the United Nations and possibly in history,” according to UNFCCC Information Officer John Hay.

More importantly, a global movement of people has been galvanised.

The campaign organised by 350.org has “altered both the tone and substance of these negotiations”, according to delegates who approached 350.org campaigners at the summit.  On 24th October, 5200 events in 181 countries highlighted the importance of a treaty based on the science.  As the conference took place, thousands of people fasted for climate justice.

12th December saw another global day of action, organised by tcktcktck, with thousands of candlelit vigils and massive marches in major cities.  100,000 people from numerous and varied organisations marched in a huge demonstration in Copenhagen itself.

In the last few days, a petition organised by Avaaz was signed by nearly 15 million people and read out on Wednesday during a sit-in on the floor of the conference centre by youth delegates.

40,000 marched through London on 5^th December for “The Wave”, the UK’s biggest climate demo yet.

That kind of thing doesn’t just stop after two-and-a-half pages of an “accord” is waved in our faces.  We’re not done yet.

So – Mexico City, December 2010.  At least protestors won’t be freezing in the cold next time.  Hasta luego, amigos…