Obama announces "meaningful and unprecedented" deal at Copenhagen

President Barack Obama announced a non-binding agreement on climate change today at Copenhagen, Denmark.

Despite the lack of a legally-binding deal, Obama said the nations had put together a plan to set carbon emission goals. The agreement was unique in that unlike the Kyoto Treaty, the Copenhagen agreement includes the United States, China and India -- the first two nations are the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters.

The failure to negotiate a treaty is not entirely the fault of the United States, nor can the U.S. inability to come up with legislation be fairly placed on Obama's shoulders. The Senate said it was simply too busy with the healthcare reform debate to handle climate change right now. However, if it takes another year until the next meeting in Mexico City, one really cannot complain. An extra year will not make that much difference, but it is crucial that they do achieve a binding treaty without delaying too much.

Obama acknowledged that such a breakthrough was not going to be easy, but he said there was no other option.

Somewhat ironically, the president had to leave the climate change early due to a bad climate situation on the U.S. East Coast where a big winter storm is brewing.