Anything good from Copenhagen?

Barry Brook is feeling very, very pessimistic about anything at all useful coming out of Copenhagen:

In December, we’ll see politicians from all manner of countries strutting around on the world stage saying how seriously they take the climate change issue, why delay on action is unacceptable, and why the world must move towards a low carbon economy — “blah di blah blah blah“. They’ll most certainly earnestly commit to a definite emissions reduction target for some far distant date (probably 2050), and will probably also agree to some vague notion of an in-principle x% cut by 2020 (choose whatever value you want for x — it’s meaningless). Everyone will then head home, and the world will go on cranking up the carbon, much as before.

Then, as we continue to dither and meander our way through the next 10 or so years, the squeeze will start to be felt, with the grip of increasingly severe climate impacts (most notably extreme events and some unanticipated abrupt changes), and energy insecurity, inexorably tightening. Oil and natural gas prices will rise substantially, as unavoidable production shortages begin to seriously constrain business-as-usual. Those who can pay for the oil and its derivatives, or those who have the large remaining reserves, will be set inequitably apart from the rest. Continued rising temperatures, increasingly severe short-term events, persistent rainfall shifts (each with a decent chance of sudden step changes), and so on, will make the reality of global warming starkly apparently to all but the most delusional pea brains. At some point — well within the next two decades I suspect — humanity will, under considerable duress and societal upheaval, move at last into emergency mode.

The only problem with that scenario is that it does indeed appear possible that global warming might not take off again in a big way for 5 to 10 years, thereby failing to supply the crisis that Brooks thinks is necessary, and instead give the re-invigorated skeptics air to continue their campaigns.

In an ideal world, a hold in temperature increases for long enough could actually give some breathing room for the development and deployment of new technology. But, in the very real battle of science, human nature, and politics that is underway, its by no means certain how it is going to play out.