A full two months have now passed since the world’s leaders snuck out the back door of Denmark, tails between their legs, with nothing more than the much-maligned “Copenhagen Accord” to show for their efforts.

Despite the Hopenhagen hype, enormous rallies around the world demanding a legally binding treaty, the participation of over 100 world leaders and two weeks spent in an over-crowded conference centre with almost no sleep or edible food, the talks produced nothing more than a flimsy political agreement.

According to analysis by Climate Interactive Researchers, if fully implemented, the pledges contained in the Copenhagen Accord would see a 3.9 degree rise in global temperature — not the desired two degrees.

So is it any wonder Yvo de Boer, the glum faced executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), today announced his plans to retire and head to the world of accounting instead?

As Crikey’s correspondent at the talks, I saw de Boer in action and think it would be unduly harsh to attribute too much blame for Copenhagen’s failure to his leadership skills.

The conference did descend into logistical chaos, with so many onlookers granted accreditation that the queue to enter the conference almost stretched into Sweden by the final days.

However de Boer’s flaws pale into insignificance compared to the US Senate’s refusal to pass Obama’s cap and trade bill, blocking tactics by China and India, a naïve push by the European Union and Japan to kill the Kyoto Treaty and grandstanding by African nations. Horses, water etc etc.

De Boer worked around the clock during Copenhagen, not only trying to bang world leaders’ heads together but also to explain the extraordinarily complex negotiations to the world’s media. In the blizzard of white noise produced at the talks – with “overthrow capitalism now!” greenies vying for media attention with Monkton and his merry band of sceptics – de Boer often stood out as a beacon of common sense.

A tough task awaits his successor, with the next major international climate summit down to take place in November in Cancun, Mexico. (Yes, that is the Cancun of Spring Break fame, the city that attracts some 20,000 US college students each year for wet T-shirt competitions, random hook ups and sunbaking):

cancun

Choosing a famous party town as the place to negotiate the successor to the Kyoto Protocol may seem a recipe for disaster — who knows how many superficially-dour climate change negotiators have a karaoke star in them waiting to emerge? — but Cancun does have some things going for it.

So many visitors flooded into Copenhagen that many delegates and journalists – this humble journalist included – had to book into hotel rooms in Sweden. Unlike the Danish capital, Cancun is used to coping with a huge influx of visitors and boasts ample hotels to accommodate visiting delegates, environmentalists and journalists.

And while sceptically-inclined commentators made hay with the fact it was snowing in Scandinavia in winter (!), Cancun is a tropical paradise all year round.

The Obama Administration’s failure to get his “cap and trade” legislation passed before Copenhagen was a key sticking point at the talks. Chances of the bill being passed before Cancun — or, indeed, ever — are looking decidedly shaky after the Democrats lost their filibuster-proof Senate majority following their recent Massachusetts loss.

Obama has instead turned to increased investment in nuclear energy as a way to bring carbon emissions down.

Erwin Jackson, of the independent Climate Institute, told Crikey that getting the job done in Cancun will be tough – but not impossible.

“Copenhagen has created a false perception that global action on climate change has stopped,” Jackson said. “China is on track to beat the targets it has announced. South Korea will introduce an emissions trading scheme this year, although it has no international obligations to do so. Last year global investment in renewable energy outstripped investment in fossil fuels for the first time.”

For Cancun to succeed where Copenhagen failed, the UNFCCC will first need to advertise for a new executive secretary: applicants lacking masochistic tendencies need not apply.