Is the Copenhagen conference going to be a success?

Success is only if all the countries can come to a true agreement about bringing actual change and ratify it within their own states. Success can be rated on two levels. Positive mitigation and policy outcomes coupled with empowerment and positive re-inforcement. Copenhagen it is hoped will allow all world leaders to take positive steps towards climate action, not merely discussing it and walking away without any actual binding agreements. The world has had enough of climate talks. It's time for action as opposed to passive discussions that continue to go around in circles. If this does not happen now, I cannot see a time when the world will gather on this issue again any time soon.  
 
Success can also be measured by the positive empowerment that the world can walk away with. Individual states can take action, it is hoped on their own terms as well as committing to international agreements. 
 
If success means stopping global warming then a binding commitment for emissions reductions through large investments in renewable energy, appropriate policy to turn deforestation into reforestation and assistance from the developed countries to the rest of the world. A realistic chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change would require that rich, high emissions-per-capita countries like Australia and the U.S. become zero emissions economies by 2020.[[http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/dsd_aofw_cc/cc_briefing1109.shtml]]

The Copenhagen does not have a clear definition of success so how can success be measured at the end of the conference. Hence there should be no threshold for success. This conference may be just another open ended political tool that fails to produce real outcomes and merely expresses to the world that they too, are in agreement that climate change is happening.

The Copenhagen conference may also turn out to have the wrong idea of what success would be due to the idea that the debate has been closed and that Global Warming is happening. If this turns out not to be the case and the need for continued debate and scrutiny of the science is ignored then the conference may simply create expensive problems. There is a realistic chance that there will not be anything even close to catastrophic climate change even if we did nothing. "The Arctic ice caps are not melting. NASA had to admit on 6th April 2009, that the Arctic ice cap refroze at near record rates, while comparisons between 1997 and 2008 show a much bigger ice cap last year."[[http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0904/S00375.htm]] This is not the only information that is being released which points to the very reasonable possibility that what we have been told over the past several years may not be correct. Therefore while there needs to be action on the environment it should not all be focused on CO2 emissions as they are at the Copenhagen conference. We need to stop deforistation, we need cleaner air and water, all of this should be part of the conference anyway if it is to reduce CO2 emissions but it cannot focus exclusively on one thing that may not turn out to be the problem, or the worst problem.