Recapping the 2009 UN Climate Change Summit

Open Society Fellow Mark Hertsgaard and Nancy Youman, deputy director of Open Society U.S. Programs, recently returned from the climate change summit held in Copenhagen in December. At a recent discussion, they shared their eyewitness observations of the summit and assessed the real-world implications of its failure to establish ambitious goals for reducing carbon emissions.

Hertsgaard and Youman described the high-stakes test of wills between China and the Obama administration that played out at Copenhagen—with profound consequences for the planet—as well as how environmental groups are already preparing themselves for the next round of confrontations and how activists and philanthropies should respond to post-summit realities.

Listen above.