There are plenty of reasons to be disappointed with the Copenhagen climate talks that start today: the meeting will not result in a binding agreement, the timeframe for such an agreement is potentially years away, and of course, neither the US nor China has committed to binding reductions. While all this is certainly disappointing, the problem with the talks is actually much more serious. Even if the meeting did result in aggressive, binding reduction targets, achieving those reductions won’t reduce atmospheric CO2 enough to prevent catastrophic climate change.