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While the U.S. focuses on the unfolding scandal involving Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the latest twists and turns in the financial crisis (The "Insane Revelation of the Week" going to the $50 billion Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Bernie Madoff that somehow the SEC missed. Whoops.), the world continues to address the climate change issue with this year's Climate Change Conference, just concluded in Poznan, Poland.

Not surprisingly, the Bush administration has continued its refusal to engage with the world community on any mandatory caps on carbon. It is almost a literal example of Nero fiddling while Rome burns (though not sure that Bush can manage a fiddle all that well). And the U.S. is not the only country that is acting as a barrier to real progress being made on the issue.

The good news is that the world community knows that the incoming Obama administration wants to lead and engage.

Our friends at NRDC were there. Jake Schmidt, the International Climate Change director for the group, posted what I thought was a great summary on their excellent Switchboard Blog site of what came out of the conference and how the issue can be expected to move forward in 2009. Check it out.