The Democratic leadership in the US Senate has suspended efforts to pass a climate change bill. It abandoned not only its planned comprehensive cap-and-trade measure, similar to one already passed by the House of Representatives, but also a more modest bill aimed at electric utilities. The Senate will most likely pass an energy bill of some sort, but this will barely even pretend to make progress on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

This surrender concludes a story that began with the Kyoto protocol in 1997 and reached its climax last December at the Copenhagen climate change conference. At that long-anticipated gathering, the world's governments expected to replace the Kyoto system, which had made no perceptible dent in the problem, with a new and more effective regime. They left with nothing.

No matter, smiled Barack Obama and other leaders through clenched teeth: this would not stop the US and its partners moving forward with plans of their own. Oh, really? The whole enterprise, from top to bottom, has now collapsed. Some will celebrate – they think climate change was a scam to begin with – but that is a far bigger mistake. The cap-and-trade approach, especially as shaped by Congress, left a lot to be desired, but a strong scientific consensus points to the need for speedy action.