That human activity is contributing to global climate change is no longer a debatable issue – no more so than the theory of gravity. Scientific evidence has shown that many air particles emitted by tailpipes, smokestacks, and farms have trapped more of the sun’s heat, upsetting a delicate balance – even fractions of a degree rise in temperatures can create profound differences in water levels near populated coasts. Since the earliest scientific findings to this day the nations of the world have met to coordinate ways to offset or minimize these changes.

On this day, December 18, in 2009, delegates to the United Nations met in Copenhagen for their annual convention on implementing the terms of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty.

As is usually the case in complex negotiations among countries with many competing interests, the outcome of the treaty was non binding, not set in law, and still opposed to by many of the representative countries. Among the biggest problem is one that has plagued negotiations from the start: the division between the developed nations (Russia, U.S., Europe), who have, at a considerable expense, greatly cut down on their emissions, and the developing ones (China and India, most notably), who feel that matching the developed nations’ moves would slow down the growing economy. In essence, China and India’s contention is that Europe and the U.S have had their turn with dependance of cheap fossil fuels; now it is their turn.