Fresh off a weekend of hope and a worldwide showing of climate change energy for the 350.org cause, the UN has come out with a statement about the coming Copenhagen summit- wait for it!...

“U.N. lowers expectations for Copenhagen climate deal” reads the Reuters headline.

Um, wait, not what we were all going for. I was part of a 350.org action and reveled at an afterparty with half a dozen others who were fighting for the cause. We felt like we had made a contribution, like we were part of a worldwide call that made headlines, had a simple message, and were confident that we would be heard. And perhaps we were. But the UN is lowering expectations for the very summit all of those actions were meant to energize the world’s politicians for…

Instead of the legally binding agreement the UN and 350.org have both been hoping for from the COP15 summit, UN officials say that the most that can be expected is a “nonbinding political declaration.”

UN climate adviser Janos Pasztor said that Ban was planning for post-Copenhagen talks, and that while Ban believes we must, “continue to aim for an ambitious politically binding agreement in Copenhagen that would chart the way for future post-Copenhagen negotiations that lead to a legally binding global agreement," the organization hosting the summit no longer believes its original objective will be reached.

"Climate change is not going to be resolved in Copenhagen in the next few weeks. We always knew that. It's a long-term problem that will be with us for many years, if not decades, to come. So Copenhagen has to be a milestone," said Pasztor, sounding to me like he was half-heartedly trying to put a fuzzy spin on a thorny failure.

So what does a political declaration actually mean? Not much. It would be everyone agreeing that we need to do something substantive about climate change… in the future. Um, yeah. We know that.
Pasztor talked about the recent survey that found waning U.S. belief that climate change is a dire problem. And of course, the U.S. Congress is still months away from considering climate change legislation. So our greatest fears on that front have come to pass: the U.S. has not passed legislation, the Copenhagen summit will not produce a meaningful agreement, and after all this attention-raising, folks in this country still don’t think that there is a big problem. So, we’ll just wait until next year to even talk about climate change. We’ll get to it though, and we’ll treat it with the respect it deserves, right?!?

I’m a little upset. Our Congress just spent months debating whether or not to introduce a public healthcare option that people can actually afford and decided to ignore the world’s call for substantive climate change action. How deflating.

It’s a disappointing time to be an American. Where are the priorities? We moved in a matter of weeks, days even, on the 9/11 and financial emergencies, but neither national health or environmental health can be dealt with over the course of a few months. Come on, folks.