As I sit here waiting for my connecting flight home, I am reminiscing about Copenhagen. We did not get anything close to what we wanted, a fair, ambitious and binding deal. No deal and we'll have to wait at least a year till Mexico City for anything concrete to come out.

The biggest question in my mind about the COP15 is whether the UN conference was really about controlling and adapting for climate change? I have the following reasons why it is not.

1. The conference is completely focussed on anthropogenic CO2 (leaving out naturally released CO2 from thawing of permafrost, etc) which is only one of the GHGs, which are only one of the culprits of climate change

2. Most parties seemed to expect this conference as the one panacea to all their problems related to climate change.

3. Issues of adaptation and mitigation in developing countries occupy a major portion of the debate which are a part of complex developmental issues unsolved till date.

4. If we just wanted to 'reverse climate change' we would consider solutions like geo-engineering which can temporarily cool the earth and buy us more time for long term sustainable solutions

My point is did we try achieving too much? Climate change affects every sphere of our civilization, from the economy to vulnerability of the poor. From my limited understanding of the UNFCCC, I find it very inadequate to address all these critical issues fairly.

While I strongly believe we need to progress towards reaching equity among all citizens of the world, the COP seemed to be a means to achieving it right away. Trying to set the inequities of the past hundred years right in two weeks is not possible.

There is absolutely no precedent in mankind's history of a massive collaborative effort by billions of people around the world to tackle a real threat to civilization. We need to figure out a way by which only a few people can solve the problems instead of expecting everybody to act together.

PS: In addition majority of the civil society action is focussed on demanding solutions instead of proposing them. I was personally disappointed by the ignorance of a lot of activists in Copenhagen. Most of them are still harping tunes to prove climate change (that debate has no place in Copenhagen, everybody accepts that) with little or no awareness of the solutions needed to tackle them. Just saying 'Shut down coal plants' doesn't convince anybody.