Item: Speaking at the United Nations on September 23, President Barack Obama boasted of what his new administration had done already:

Item: “The United Nations is planning a form of diplomatic shock therapy for world leaders this week in the hope of injecting badly needed urgency into negotiations for a climate change treaty that, it is now widely acknowledged, are dangerously adrift,” reported London’s Observer for September 20. “By the end of the day,” the British paper continued, “the rationale goes, the leaders will be imbued with a new sense of purpose. Leaders of rich countries will have been galvanised to take on the big emissions cuts — 25-40% over the next decade, 80% by 2050 — needed to keep temperatures from rising more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels.”