I don’t think we can accurately judge the outcomes of the meeting today. While Copenhagen has been extremely disappointing, to write it off completely would be premature.

For example, the Copenhagen Accord that was agreed to by leaders gives a deadline for developed and developing countries to come forward with international commitments by February next year. Will this political agreement hold? Will Australia, the EU, the USA and Japan come forward with their most ambitious targets to build confidence and pressure others to do the same?

Also, there are billions of dollars on the table for adaptation and reducing emissions by protecting forests in developing countries. It is uncertain if and how this money will begin flowing to developing countries without a legal agreement. This may provide an incentive for some developing countries to drive forward towards a treaty at the next meeting in Mexico.

Looking back on the meeting, a few initial overriding thoughts came to mind.

Firstly, the outcome of the meeting, to an extent, had little to do with the politics of climate change. What was witnessed was influenced by larger agendas, particularly the geopolitical arm wrestle between the USA and the emerging economies of China, India, Brazil and South Africa. In the final hours, President Obama joined a meeting with the leaders of these countries to finalise the Copenhagen Accords. This took some of the other traditional power players - including Europe and Japan - out of the game.

Despite the best efforts of countries like Australia, the UK and the small island states to increase ambition, the deal made between President Obama and the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa ultimately left the rest of the world in a ‘take or leave it” situation. Their choice was to accept this deal or risk the whole meeting collapsing.

Secondly, the shape of global politics on climate change has now fundamentally changed. In Bali the lead negotiator from Papua New Guinea famously railed against the USA telling them to “lead or get out of the way”. Yesterday morning his wrath was directed at the “big emitters” in the developing countries bloc called “G77 and China” who – according to him – removed the ambitious targets from the accord.

This was followed by a coalition of the small island developing states including Tuvalu, Granada and Barbados joined by USA, Japan, the EU and Russia in a last minute move for the conference agree to finalize a legally binding treaty next year.

This was blocked by China, India and Saudi Arabia.

What we saw was a momentary collapse of the monolith which is normally the unified block of the G77 and China. An alliance between the industrialized world and the most vulnerable countries emerged and whether this continues or not will have a major influence of the talks over coming years.

Finally, despite what happened at the meeting itself the process and public attention on climate change leading up to it saw a major acceleration of domestic action to reduce emissions. As a friend from South Africa said to me, “We are going to need to put a significant price on carbon if we are going to achieve what we promised here.”

At the meeting, the US, China and many other nations have emphatically reinforced they would be continuing to drive such investments and dramatically improve the carbon productivity of their economies regardless of the outcomes of this meeting.

The accelerating moves by developed and developing countries, including Australia’s main trading partners, should put to rest any notion that Australia should delay efforts to reduce emissions. The stumbles in Copenhagen provide no excuse for inaction.

So what of Australia’s role in Copenhagen?

They are not angels and deserve criticism for some of the positions put forward. It can also be argued that failure of developed countries to come forward early with financing and to quickly shut down concerns about the future of the Kyoto Protocol were strategic mistakes. This allowed countries like Saudi Arabia and other oil producing states to play on the lack of trust between countries, sow dissent and delay critical processes.

However, overall and to be fair, Australia played an important and constructive role at the meeting. Prime Minister Rudd, Minister Wong and tireless officials were in the thick of negotiations before and at the Conference. For example, Minister Wong took on the unenviable and politically charged task attempting to facilitate discussion on how to verify developing country emission reductions.

Before the meeting we looked at what the Government had put forward, and if it was all agreed we would have seen an outcome that on our criteria would have received three out of five stars. Looking at this again and updating it based on the same criteria I would give them three and a half out of five as they improved their position on the review of commitments and on supporting innovative mechanisms on climate finance.

So as my mind turns to the journey home and I sign off from Copenhagen I am not without hope. The year ahead towards Mexico will be a long one, but then again, who ever said saving the planet would be easy.