The intense and momentous negotiations to find a workable successor to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change which have just ended in Copenhagen were never going to be easy. Ultimately, it was politics and economics - not the science of climate change, nor indeed the potentially catastrophic consequences of ignoring it by not reaching a deal - that dominated these negotiations.
Poor, developing countries, which would be hardest hit by global warming, wanted richer, developed countries to reduce their carbon emissions under a binding agreement. But richer countries which signed the Kyoto Protocol were refusing to do so unless both the United States - which had not signed Kyoto - and developing countries, notably China and India - on which Kyoto had made no demands - agreed to give something in return.
A strategic compromise had to be found which would commit richer countries to cut their carbon emissions, as well as paying poorer, developing countries to act to reduce their own emissions and to adapt to climate change.
President Obama, burdened by the toxic legacy inherited from President Bush, had to undertake one of the most daunting missions of his first year in office. Although personally committed to do something about global warming, he had to resist committing America to emissions targets that would prove impossible to enforce at home. To this end, his pledge to cut US emissions by 17 per cent relative to 2005 levels, even though this was far less ambitious than EU targets, was a realistic recognition that if he were unable to turn his undertakings into law in a recalcitrant Congress they were worth nothing. He improved this weak offer by making a substantial financial commitment to a global climate protection fund.
Have world leaders clinched a deal, or is this in reality a fudged agreement with little of substance in it?
There are three key criteria for measuring success. First, a deal had to be reached paving the way for a legally binding treaty to limit the rise in global temperature to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2020. Secondly, in order to achieve this, there had to be a transparent and "verifiable" commitment to reduce annual carbon emissions significantly by 2020.
A legally binding agreement has not been reached, though it is hoped that this political "accord" will lead to a binding treaty in 2010.
More importantly, the undertaking to slash emissions has not been achieved and it is quite possible that loopholes in the targets will lead to global temperatures rising above two degrees, to three degrees.
Thirdly, rich nations had to commit themselves to long-term funding for poorer nations. On this score the commitment to an annual climate fund of $100 billion by 2020 seems more secure, though the mechanics of payment have still to be settled.
Measured against these criteria, the deal in Copenhagen is a fudge which falls short of the minimum targets set by the UN's scientific body. The gap between politics and the unarguable evidence of the science of climate change has proved too big to bridge. Political expediency has won.
For Malta, a most vulnerable island-State, the outcome is not encouraging. Any global warming of two degrees - or, now, possibly three degrees - is bound to have serious repercussions on our water provision, weather and quality and way of life.