As I write this, I’m sitting in a conference hall on the outskirts of Barcelona. The AWG-LCA plenary meeting is being wrapped up on the other side of a particleboard divider 35 feet away. The halls are filled with NGO observers and diplomats. And after five long and somewhat confounding days, all I can tell you is that there seems to remain considerable distance to a legally binding international climate accord.

I joined Ken Markowitz this week in Barcelona, at the final major climate conference before the Copenhagen meeting this December—the meeting at which the international community is supposed to replace the Kyoto Protocol. We came here, along with one of our partners, the International Network of Environmental Compliance and Enforcement, to promote compliance and enforcement efforts in support of the carbon market, an effort which included a—if I may say so—lively side event this morning over the role of compliance, and the potential for fraud, in the international carbon markets.

The major story coming out of Barcelona will be the likely failure of the world to meet the Copenhagen deadline. While some might dispute it, the general consensus in the halls of the Barcelona Fira Grand Via has been that no legally binding treaty will be developed in December. The best we can hope for, many people indicated, seems to be a political agreement, with a legally binding treaty being hashed out in 2010.

It has been simultaneously an inspiring and depressing week.

In a week where the most dramatic moment—a walk out by the Africa Group—came on Monday afternoon, it often seemed as though we were always discussing the same topics each day. Issues like the distance between developing and developed countries on emissions reduction commitments (which prompted the Monday boycott), the intransigence of specific Parties (particularly the United States and Canada, who were named “fossils of the day” by the Climate Action Network every day this week), the fundamental disagreements some Parties have over the mere existence of certain key provisions of an agreement—such as offsets or market-based mechanisms—remained at the forefront, without much resolution. “Don’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good,” declared the U.S. at the closing plenary; perhaps as an admonishment to those holding the developed world to higher standards.

At the same time, significant progress was made by a number of groups—on nationally appropriate actions by developing countries, on forest carbon issues, technology transfer and international transport emissions. Certain concepts that were only theories a short time ago are almost certain to be realized; for example, a REDD+ mechanism to finance the protection of forests from logging and degradation.

At the closing plenary, negotiators were urged to “take the brackets off our future,” referring to bracketed—and therefore undecided-upon—text in the negotiating texts being developed here. One’s opinion of the conference could be shaped by whether they look at the successes in that effort—or at the failures.