I’m seeing some headlines that are perhaps trying to put the virtual nothingburger that was the latest iteration of the United Nation’s annual two-week climate-change conference into a more fortuitous light, focusing on the accomplishment of “first steps” toward that ever-mythical Global Climate Treaty and “compromise breaking the deadlock” that dominated the meeting during its closing week. The biggest, most grandiose point of this international exercise in top-down bureaucracy was indeed to help lay some groundwork for the big treaty that the world’s globalist progressives are desperately hoping they can piece together and all cooperatively sign in Paris come 2015, but I think Reuters, if incidentally, most aptly captures the spirit of how the get-together finally broke up: “UN talks limp toward global 2015 climate deal.” Yep, that sounds about right.

Almost 200 countries on Saturday kept alive hopes for a global deal in 2015 to fight climate change after overcoming disputes on greenhouse gas emissions cuts and aid for poor nations at a meeting widely criticised as lacking urgency.

Governments agreed that a new deal in 2015 would consist of a patchwork of national offers to curb emissions, and would blur a 20-year-old distinction between the obligations of rich and poor nations. …

Still, many said Warsaw had fallen short of what was needed. …

“The actions that have been agreed are simply inadequate when compared with the scale and urgency of the risks that the world faces from rising levels of greenhouse gases, said Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics. …

“In the old system you had this firewall between commitments and actions, now there is one word for all,” European Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said. “There are many ways to Paris that would be more beautiful and faster.”

I.e., the stalemate that resulted from the less developed countries demanding that more prosperous assume much greater legal and financial responsibility in helping them build green energy infrastructures and cope with natural disasters was kinda’-sorta’ broken when the countries finally agreed to make “contributions” that will grant everyone much more leeway in what they choose to offer and add up to a patchwork of various national emissions-curbing efforts:

That kind of brinksmanship is typical of the so far unsuccessful diplomatic effort to reduce the heat-trapping carbon emissions that scientists say are warming the planet.

In Warsaw, negotiators were supposed to lay the foundation for a 2015 climate deal in Paris that countries have agreed should apply to them all. But negotiators struggled to agree on texts on emissions targets and climate aid for developing countries as talks continued past their scheduled end Friday. …

“There is absolutely nothing to write home about at the moment,” Fiji delegate Sai Navoti said, speaking on behalf of developing countries.

Wait… yet another much-vaunted United Nations climate conference turned out to be a practically irrelevant dud? How very odd.