Just before COP15 in 2009, Greenpeace declared that any deal struck in Copenhagen should be “nothing short of a plan to save the planet.” But the chief achievement of the negotiations then was merely the “recognition” that global temperatures should not surpass 2C above pre-industrial levels—a huge disappointment to climate advocates.
“We couldn’t get an agreement,” says David King, the UK’s former lead negotiator and chief scientific adviser. “The reason was that the United States Congress had never voted for action on climate change. President Obama could not accept an agreement, set by an international body and binding on the United States, without approval from Congress.”