Copenhagen climate summit: Nations fiddle while business learns

The eyes of the world are turned to Copenhagen and the pivotal environmental summit taking place in that quaint, lovely Scandinavian city. The task faced there by the leaders of the world is simple to articulate: Save the planet from the carbon menace and all the ills associated with the curse of greenhouse gasses.

Rising temperatures, rising sea levels, melting ice, stormy weather, drought and famine -- the potential side effects of a Mother Earth enshrouded by mankind's effluvia are dire, numerous and rapidly approaching. Yet before the summit even began, the heads of the planet's most powerful nations, including China, the U.S., Russia and Brazil, made it clear that this summit to save the world would do no such thing, and that no formal agreement on discrete carbon emission reduction targets would emerge from the ballyhooed gathering.