Copenhagen: U.N. Sponsored a Sad Waste of Energy, Passion, and Money

President Barack Obama has declared that the outcome of the recent United Nations climate confab in Copenhagen -- a/k/a the 15th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change -- was "unprecedented" and "meaningful." I was in Copenhagen, and I can assure you that the results were mundane and insignificant, quite contrary to the president's spin.

For two years, this conference was considered the deadline for a legally binding, multilateral climate change mitigation treaty, but the agreement reached in Copenhagen was nonbinding, and was further watered down by the international community's decision to merely "take note" of its existence, rather than adopt it.

Indeed, this is what happens at every single one of these glamorous climate ceremonies. Celebrities strut (for example, the Backstreet Boys lent their inconsiderable fame to the cause), Al Gore alarms (warned Gore, "We have only seven years"), and negotiators, after much haggling, agree to meet again.

In fact, these jet-setting climate diplomats are no closer to an agreement than they were at the first Conference of the Parties, back in 1995 in Berlin. Moreover, history suggests that they will never achieve a diplomatic breakthrough.

According to the International Energy Agency, curing the climate of its supposed ills would cost $45 trillion, and there is simply no precedent for international burden-sharing of this magnitude, short of war.

As an event planner, the U.N. proved itself to be wholly incompetent. It gave out 45,000 invitations to the climate conference, but the Bella Center -- the cavernous convention space that hosted COP-15 -- can accommodate only 15,000.

Incredibly, the U.N. failed to foresee the ensuing disaster, so 30,000 came to Copenhagen just so they could wait outside in the freezing cold. Imagine all that carbon that was needlessly spewed in the course of their travel to and from Copenhagen! It was all for nothing, because the U.N. can't count.

Remember, the American taxpayer is on the hook for almost 20 percent of this idiocy.

Thankfully, I arrived in Copenhagen early, which afforded me almost uninhibited access to the Bella Center during the time I was there.

Inside, it was a zoo. Thousands of U.N.-credentialed "observers" (I was one) milled about, trying to make sense of it all. They were young, mostly employed by the nonprofit sector in developed countries, and they earnestly believed that something needs to be done about global warming.

I was impressed by their passion, if not by their alarmism. I'm no scientist, but I can read a thermometer, and global temperatures haven't increased since 1998, despite steady increases in global greenhouse gas emissions.

A decade ago, the "scientific consensus" was that temperatures increase in lockstep with increases in emissions. Well, that didn't occur. The only thing that heated up was the doomsday rhetoric.

The young idealists inside the Bella Center have swallowed this alarmist rhetoric hook, line, and sinker, which is a shame.

During my time in Copenhagen, I couldn't help but think: What if these people cared this much about problems that are hurting human beings right now? Like homelessness? Or mental illness? Or breast cancer?

For a decade, temperatures on Earth have remained the same, but human beings still suffer much the same as they always have.

But that's an aside.

Deep in the recesses of the Bella Center, diplomatic negotiations proceeded apace. U.N.-sponsored climate confabs long have been forums for kleptocrats from poor countries to browbeat rich countries for aid, but the pandering got out of hand in Copenhagen. The big theme was "climate reparations," the unseemly insinuation being that emissions are morally equivalent to slavery.

Incredibly, the U.S. seemed warm to the idea. The highlight of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech to the conference was a promise to work together with other developed countries to deliver $100 billion a year in climate aid by 2020.

In light of our federal government's profligate spending, Clinton's promise could lead to a delightful scenario whereby America borrows money from China in order to fatten the pockets of corrupt regimes in the developing world. What a deal!

As I waited for my plane to leave Copenhagen, I was struck by the airport's vast, upscale shopping mall. Hermes, Ralph Lauren, Dior -- all the luxury brands were there. This monument to megaconsumption of the sort that supposedly hurts the environment co-existed uneasily with the advertisements along the wall for "Hopenhagen," the temporary title the city adopted during COP-15.

The irony of this juxtaposition was no doubt lost on the green glitterati. After all, gas-guzzling limousines were imported into Denmark from neighboring countries in order to accommodate all the big-wigs. Planetary saviors deserve nothing less.

William Yeatman is an energy policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He was born and raised in Richmond and is a St. Christopher's graduate. Contact him at .