When a conference gets billed as the last chance the human race has to save the planet, even the most cynical of hacks is apt to jump on a plane and see if the reality lives up to the hype. But when you add 120 world leaders and their courtiers, tens of thousands of NGOs and the usual cast of characters that have made United Nations conferences on the environment something of a traveling circus, the lure becomes irresistible.

So it was I found myself in Copenhagen in December for the United Nations Framework for the Convention on Climate Change/Conference of the Parties meeting number 15. Or, to keep it simple, COP15. Two weeks, 45,000 registered participants, including 3,500 journalists, at least another 200,000 who showed up to party in Copenhagen and another estimated 20 million people around the world who were with us in spirit on Dec. 13, dubbed “Climate Awareness Day.’’

Expectations for the conference were extremely high. Ideally, the 190-plus nations represented would forge a new deal on curbing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide – a deal that would lay the foundations for the period 2012-2020, after the first period of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol expired. Two years in the planning, Copenhagen, the world hoped, would see agreement by developed nations to reduce emissions between 25 and 40 percent, based on 1990 levels, by 2020. This is what the world’s top scientists said was the best way to prevent the Earth’s average temperature worldwide from rising about 2 degrees (Celsius) by the end of this century, a level beyond which irreversible global warming would occur.

The road to Copenhagen began with a 2007 report by the United Nations advisory group Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned it was critical that worldwide emissions peak by 2015 and then decline afterward. Thus the importance of a conference that was supposed to conclude an agreement for 2012-2020. In addition to specific targets for developed countries, developing countries – especially China and India – were supposed to come to Copenhagen with plans to reduce their emissions by amounts that deviated from business as usual, in the words of a 2007 agreement signed by all nations in Bali that became the roadmap for the Copenhagen conference.

Finally, it was expected that Copenhagen would agree to new money from developed countries to mitigate the effects of climate change in developing countries in the short term, and help them adapt to inevitable climate change over the longer term. How much money was needed? The United Nations wanted $30 billion as a starter fund for the next few years, but the real controversy would be over how much more money would be needed by mid-century.

But by December 2009, disagreements among developed countries and between the United States and China – which account for somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of all global emissions – over who should commit to what had all but killed the optimism of the previous two years that Copenhagen would produce a legally binding agreement. The best that could be hoped for, U.N. officials admitted last autumn, was a gentlemen’s agreement laying the foundation for a full treaty in 2010.

The lowered expectations intensified rather than dampened the determination of those who went, especially in the NGO community. After the Danes convinced 120 world leaders to show up at the end to seal the deal – even though it wasn’t legally binding – it was understood by all that whatever happened in Copenhagen would have vast political consequences for individual nations, for the United Nations and for the planet itself.

From the start of the conference, though, two things were clear. First, there was not enough time to do anything other than conclude a vague deal. Second, U.N. officials had to deal with the scandal over leaked e-mails from scientists at a British university just days before the conference began – e-mails that journalists and politicians with two-digit IQs or who were paid whores for the oil and gas lobbies insisted were proof that global warming was bogus.

By the third day of the conference, the e-mail scandal was fading and it appeared things might proceed smoothly when The Guardian set the cat amongst the pigeons with a major scoop. A draft of a proposed agreement was leaked and immediately attacked by developing nations as an effort to coerce them into signing an agreement favoring developed nations. And the tiny nation of Tuvalu stopped the proceedings, demanding the conference adopt an agreement to limit the earth’s average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees, above which Tuvalu would simply drown under rising sea levels. Protestors chanted “1.5 to Stay Alive!” Suddenly, there was chaos in the hall, with the African nations accusing the Danes of “dictatorial’’ leadership, and with industrialized economies like China and India – officially developing nations – being accused by poorer, smaller nations in Africa and the Pacific Island states of willing to sell out the climate, and their future, to developed countries.

Things never got back on track. On Dec. 13, a few days before the world leaders arrived to (they hoped) seal the deal, massive demonstrations were held in Copenhagen and around the world. Some 200,000 people marched from central Copenhagen to the conference center, demanding “climate justice.” A melee ensued outside the conference hall and over 200 protestors were arrested. TV cameras inside the center showed most of the protesters submitting to peaceful arrest, but cell phone videos of violent clashes between demonstrators and police flooded the Internet.

The following day, Monday, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people showed up to collect their badges only to find the lines to the entrance were as frozen as the weather. My colleague, who had arrived from Tokyo a couple days previously, found herself standing in line a mere 5 meters from the entrance but unable to get in and collect her badge. For nine and a half hours, she stood there before I finally told her to forget it and go back to the hotel. Fortunately, she managed to get in the following morning.

As it turned out, she was one of the lucky ones. Nervous over the Sunday protests and facing a security nightmare with 120 world leaders coming in later that week, U.N. officials suddenly announced that having a badge no longer guaranteed you’d get inside. A second badge for NGOs was now being issued, and only a few of those were available. Within a day, the NGO area was a virtual ghost town. The media center, relatively loose and informal the week before, became tense. Press briefings were no longer punctuated with humorous banter. In the main plenary sessions, delegates were still fighting amongst themselves and posturing, making bombastic speeches and statements but not reaching any agreements.

Throughout the conference, the Japanese delegation was noticeable by its absence. The U.S., the EU, China, India, Brazil, Russia, Bangladesh and the Group of 77 nations, mostly from Africa, spent the first week and a half courting the international media. NGOs from around the world also gave virtually round-the-clock briefings, and there was no question from the international press they would not try to answer.

And then there was Japan. While the Chinese government had an open area where everyone could come and ask questions, the Japanese government locked itself in an office behind two windowless doors that, ironically, promoted the “Welcome to Japan’’ campaign. While the Chinese government gave international media briefings almost every day, the Japanese delegation gave kisha-club only briefings behind closed doors until the Environment Minister arrived just a couple days before the end of the conference, and, to be fair, only after the Japanese media criticized the closed nature of the Japanese delegation.

Worse than the government were the Japanese NGOs. Climate Action Japan (Kiko Net) operated like the government, telling reporters their press briefings were by invitation only. That meant only Japanese members of the press clubs received invitations. Yet every day on the TV monitors throughout the hall, reporters could see the English language announcements for Kiko Net’s briefing: “Climate Action Japan Press Briefing – Closed.’’ All other announcements for all other NGO press briefings read “Press Only.’’

Kiko Net was neither embarrassed nor apologetic for its exclusivity, all but admitting they didn’t want to deal with foreign reporters. Oh, they were happy to let other non-Japanese NGOs they worked with behind the scenes publicly criticize their government and deal with the international media. But in their own briefings to the Japanese media, they usually repeated only what other international NGOs had already told the foreign media about the conference. I’m sure the fact that two Kiko Net members were sitting in with the Japanese delegation as observers had nothing to do with their reluctance to criticize their government on the international stage.

In the end, as the world knows, the Copenhagen summit was, in the words of the Swedish prime minister, a disaster. When the end came, exhaustion and indifference had set in among all participants, and only a handful of hacks were in the press room at about 6 a.m., after an all-night session, when the delegates merely agreed to “take note’’ of the legally non-binding talks that ended in a vaguely worded Copenhagen Accord. What had begun in hope and anticipation ended in spectacular failure, and history is likely to judge the conference harshly.

Copenhagen could never save the world, of course. But it will be interesting to see, over the coming months, if the massive letdown everyone who was there felt is shaken off in anticipation of the next conference, which takes place in Mexico City this December. Perhaps the sun, the margaritas and the mariachi bands will create the right climate for a successful climate change conference. But even if they don’t, perhaps I can convince my editors that our readers really do need to understand how global warming is affecting the warm beaches of Acapulco. Especially in December. ❶