2009 had started so promisingly. Barack Obama’s inauguration as the 44th US president was seen as the start of a new era in which America would at last play a leading role in combating climate change. Following the failure of the COP15 climate change negotiations at Copenhagen to agree clear targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that initial optimism has now given way to pessimism, with political leaders blaming one another for the impasse. So 2009 wasn’t the sea change in climate policy many had hoped would materialise. But that’s not to say 2009 was a complete failure. The Copenhagen Accord at least recognises the need to keep global temperature rise below 2°C and promises developing countries access to finance to adapt to, and help mitigate, climate change. The $30 billion on offer between now and 2012 and the annual $100 billion from 2020 might fall short of what is needed, or what developing nations wanted, but it’s a start. The accord also requires signatories to put some emissions reduction figures on the table by the end of this month. Significantly, the accord retains the main Kyoto principle, that the industrialised world bears the legal responsibility for global warming. As we look back to Copenhagen it’s worth recalling that the Kyoto Protocol wasn’t entirely finalised in 1997 (COP3) in the Japanese city, but in 2001 (COP7) at Marrakech. So, 2009 was the year we nearly had a new legally binding international agreement. Let’s hope our political leaders go one step further in 2010.