The United Nations climate change summit wrapped up this weekend in Doha with no new commitments from the United States to reduce carbon emissions or provide aid to countries suffering the worst impacts of climate change. The final deal saw the extension of binding emissions cuts under the Kyoto Protocol for a second commitment period, but only a fraction of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are covered. Several countries, including Japan and Canada, have opted out of the protocol, which the United States never ratified. Critics said the deal reached by nearly 200 countries was far too weak to avoid the deadly impacts of catastrophic climate change. Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists criticized the summit’s outcome during a news conference.

Alden Meyer: “There were some winners here. The coal industry won here, the oil industry won here, the fossil fuel industry won here. You saw on display the power of these industries and their short-term profit motivation to dominate the governments of the world. This wasn’t an environmental or a science-driven discussion; this was a trade fair. This was a, who’s going to share the spoils of the world as we drill in the Arctic and produce tar sands in Canada and mine coal in Indonesia for China. This is not the future we need to leave to our children.”