ABSTRACT
The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 taught many lessons to the participating stakeholders. The European Union learned that a choir of European leaders could not sing convincingly even with a single voice. These lessons are still being processed in many national capitals and in Brussels, especially in the context of the new legal framework provided for by the Treaty of Lisbon, which entered into force on 1 December 2009. It is important to recognize, however, that the new rules came into effect only after nine long years of negotiations, and their application is being tested in a wholly different international environment than prevailed in the early 2000s.
