World Leaders Downgrade Copenhagen to Dress Rehearsal

As hope faded that the U.S. Senate will have even a solid framework for a climate bill before negotiations are scheduled to start on the next international climate treaty in Copenhagen in three weeks, President Obama and other world leaders huddled in Singapore over the weekend to try and salvage the importance of the summit. According to this Politico article, the Danish Prime Minister flew out to Singapore to join President Obama and other world leaders in a last-minute breakfast huddle about the upcoming climate talks over the weekend. There, they decided to come up with a "one agreement, two steps" framework (obviously influenced in spirit by the sort of numerical nomenclature used in Chinese policy discussions) in which Copenhagen will, in essence, be just the first act of climate negotiations that will reconvene a year from now, as well.

Update: Politico also reports that Senator Reid was meeting with various committee chairmen to figure out how to push things along, here.

The New York Times is also reporting on the development, explaining that "this weekend in Singapore, Mr. Obama was forced to acknowledge that a comprehensive climate deal was beyond reach this year. Instead, he and other world leaders agreed that they would work toward a more modest interim agreement with a promise to renew work toward a binding treaty next year."

Tick tock, Senators, tick tock.