Does failure in Barcelona augur poorly for Copenhagen?
THERE is an odd crowd on my late-afternoon flight from London to Barcelona. Peeking at the reading material of my seatmates, I notice that most of us seem to be heading for the UN climate-change talks in Barcelona—the last before a larger gathering in Copenhagen this December. For the last two years, most of the world’s nations have been negotiating a deal that is supposed to reduce carbon emissions and tackle climate change. It is somewhat ironic that the negotiation has involved so much airline travel by so many people. The gentleman next to me, while checking out women on his mobile, is definitely shuffling UN paperwork. Thousands are expected at what has been breathlessly called “humanity’s most important meeting”. Earlier in the week the London Times splashed a headline quoting Nick Stern, a scientist, urging people to “Give up meat to save the planet”. The truth, the scientist admitted in the text of the article, is more banal: raising livestock produces greenhouse gases; and a v
