any differently had a volunteer Palauan family locked themselves in a transparent box in the middle of the conference hall, set to gradually fill with water and drown them unless they released themselves upon hearing that the 350ppm agreement demanded by their delegation has been signed...) Indeed, even the White House admitted before the talks that: "An empty deal would be worse than no deal at all" Yet we ended up with what the Financial Times described as "the emptiest deal one could imagine, short of a fist fight". (The greatest success of the talks? A bit of childish humour adorning the back of lying climate change denier Christopher Monckton ) Still, by the time of our post-Copenhagen 'debrief' Ed Miliband appeared to have decided (or been told) to put a positive spin on the outcome. Despite looking as depressed as anyone in the room, he described the Accord as a "critical first step", and proceeded to argue that expectations of Copenhagen had simply been too high. Yet of course those lofty expectations were based squarely on the science , which remains stubbornly unchanged by the recent political manoeuvrings. I suppose Ed is virtually obliged to appear positive about the political process, because that is what he has invested his life in, and what he is giving all his efforts to. And when that many world leaders gather it is inevitable that the outcome will be spun as some kind of at least partial success. But Ed's comments in an