Never let it be said that climate-change negotiators lack a sense of the absurd. Thousands of politicians, tree-huggers and journalists descended on Doha this week, adding their mite of hot air to the country that already has the world's highest level of carbon emissions per head. The feeling of unreality is apt. The meeting comes amid gathering gloom about both the speed of climate change and the chances of implementing policies to keep the rise in global temperatures below 2℃. The jamboree in Doha is the 18th un climate-change summit, but the third since a landmark one at Copenhagen in 2009. That year, instead of negotiating a big new treaty to go beyond the timid Kyoto accords, America, plus China and other big emerging markets, announced a deal outside the UN framework, promising to cut emissions but leaving the talks in disarray.
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