Two of the writers I respect the most on environmental issues–Bill McKibben and Fred Pearce–have new pieces on Yale Environment 360.

Pearce is first, with Looking for a Silver Lining in the Post-Summit Landscape:

So the accord was a flawed diplomatic triumph. The show is still on the road. But a triumph for the planet? Not so fast. Across the Bella conference center, scientists who had evaded the tight attendance restrictions on observers were crunching numbers. And the scientists were gloomy.

The accord may set a goal to limit global warming to 2 degrees C (3.6 F), but it provides no emissions targets on how that should be achieved. On the basis of the commitments so far informally made by nations — which will be appended to the accord as countries sign it — the best estimates are that it will set the world on track to warming of between 3 and 3.5 degrees C, according to Michiel Schaeffer of the consulting group, ECOFYS, and Niklas Hoehne of Climate Analytics, who provided climate analysis for many nations at the conference.

Why this gap between rhetoric and reality? The first problem is the targets themselves. High hopes that many nations would up their promises in Copenhagen came to nothing. The U.S. would not go beyond its pre-conference promise to cut emissions by 14 to 17 percent from 2005 to 2020 — which more or less wipes out its increases since 1990 — the baseline used by the European Union for its pledge to cut by 20 percent. A European offer to go to 30 percent if others were generous was not activated.

China stuck with its pre-conference pledge to cut carbon intensity — that is, emissions per dollar of gross domestic product — by 40 to 45 percent between 2005 and 2020. That sounds good, but will not be enough to halt rising Chinese emissions. And as Premier Wen Jiabao helpfully told the conference, it is actually slightly less than the 46 percent reduction achieved between 1990 and 2005. So, it is arguably no more than business as usual.

…

The environment group WWF — reaching roughly the same conclusions as Climate Analytics and ECOFYS — calculates that rich-world promises to make cuts of 15 to 19 percent in their collective emissions between 1990 and 2020 could, once the loopholes are taken into account, result in an actual increase in emissions by 4 to 10 percent. Another unpublished assessment by Simon Terry of the Sustainability Council of New Zealand puts the increase at 2 to 8 percent.

…

For all the travails and disappointment of the last two weeks, it is still possible to be optimistic that the world is approaching a genuine tipping point in how we get our energy. Will it come in time to prevent tipping points in the climate system? Frankly, nobody knows the answer to that.

See the post for much more, including a discussion of said loopholes.

Next is McKibben, with Copenhagen: Things Fall Apart and an Uncertain Future Looms:

It’s possible that human beings will simply never be able to figure out how to bring global warming under control — that having been warned about the greatest danger we ever faced, we simply won’t take significant action to prevent it. That’s the unavoidable conclusion of the conference that staggered to a close in the early hours of Saturday morning in Copenhagen. It was a train wreck, but a fascinating one, revealing an enormous amount about the structure of the globe.

Let’s concede first just how difficult the problem is to solve — far more difficult than any issue the United Nations has ever faced. Reaching agreement means overcoming the most entrenched and powerful economic interests on Earth — the fossil fuel industry — and changing some of the daily habits of that portion of humanity that uses substantial amounts of oil and coal, or hopes to someday soon. Compared to that, issues like the war in Iraq, or nuclear proliferation, or the Law of the Sea are simple. No one really liked Saddam Hussein, not to mention nuclear war, and the Law of the Sea meant nothing to anyone in their daily lives unless they were a tuna.

…

From the beginning, the most important nations chose not to go the route of truth-telling. The Obama administration decided not long after taking office that they would barely mention “global warming,” instead confining themselves to talking about “green jobs” and “energy security.” Perhaps they had no choice, and it was the only way to reach the U.S. Senate — we’ll never know, because they clung to their strategy tightly. On Oct. 24, when there were world leaders from around the globe joining demonstrations, they refused to send even minor officials to take part. Instead, they continued to insist on something that scientists kept saying was untrue: The safe level of carbon in the atmosphere was 450 ppm, and their plans would keep temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) and thus avoid “catastrophic consequences.” (Though since 0.8 degrees C had melted the Arctic, it wasn’t clear how they defined catastrophe).

…

In fact, the biggest stumbling block to the kind of semi-dignified face-saving agreement most people envisioned was China. According to accounts I’ve heard from a number of sources, Obama met with 25 other world leaders after his press conference for a negotiating session. It was a disaster — China turned down one reasonable idea after another, unwilling to constrain its ability to burn coal in any meaningful way (and not needing to, since power, especially in any non-military negotiation, has swung definitively in its direction).

…

James Hansen, the great climate scientist who started the global warming era with his 1988 testimony before the U.S. Congress, and whose team provided the crucial 350 number that now defines the planet’s habitability, refused to come to Copenhagen, predicting it would be a charade. He was correct. On Sunday he predicted a greater than 50 percent chance that 2010 would be the warmest year ever recorded. If you want to bet against him, you can. If you want to argue that this non-agreement will help Obama get something through Congress, it’s possible you’re right. If you want to despair, that’s certainly a plausible option.

I’d like to go home and sleep for a while. The new world order is going to take a little while to figure out.

As with Pearce’s commentary, I recommend you go read it all.