Speaking of the UNFCCC, the newswire stories are rather somber on the whole thing:

Tense final stretch for UN climate talks after tumultuous first week

U.N. climate talks head into a tense final week Monday after the diplomatic effort to reduce global warming gases was hit by a series of setbacks, including Japan’s decision to ditch its voluntary emissions target.

[…]

Instead, Australia’s conservative government fulfilled a campaign promise and introduced a bill to scrap the country’s carbon tax, while Japan drastically scaled back its emissions target.

The moves drew criticism from developing countries who say the world’s rich countries have a historical responsibility for climate change and should take the lead in fighting it.

“We need to be very concerned with individual actions of developed countries that are backtracking (on) their commitments,” said Brazilian negotiator Jose Marcondes de Carvalho.

Most Australian economists agree that the country cannot achieve its voluntary target of reducing emissions by 5 percent by 2020 without industry paying a price on carbon.

Japan said its initial target of reducing emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels was unrealistic. Following the 2011 accident at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant, Japan shut all its nuclear plants for safety checks and had to shift back to power coming from coal, oil and gas, all of which are heavy on CO2 emissions. Japan’s new target represents a 3 percent increase over 1990 emissions.

Brazil, too, delivered bad news at the talks when it reported that annual destruction of its Amazon rainforest jumped by 28 percent after four straight years of declines.

[…]

One reason why I am a “doomer” on AGW has very much to do with that last paragraph. As populations continue to grow the remaining large forests will be cleared out, at least in part. There may be noble efforts to preserve them, and maybe Brazil will be able to even protect several millions of acres of the Amazon, but much more will be mowed down, not only in Brazil but in the surrounding countries. There has been a concerted world-wide effort to stop deforestation and while there has been some progress it is more or less just a slowing of the destruction.

Our global set of national bodies politic just can’t operate on a scale to change the economic system that depends upon extraction of resources long secure.