“When all the world is mad,” the great G. H. Hardy once opined, “a mathematician may find in mathematics an incomparable anodyne.” If he’s right – and he usually was – now is probably one of those rare moments when you should envy the college mathematicians.

The latest round of climate talks has collapsed into what can only be described as paroxysms of indecision, a messy, convulsive end to a Kafkaesque farce of lacklustre delegates and bizarre intergovernmental pranks. Cabals issuing cynical fake documents, intimate ministerial “huddles to save the world”, and high-profile threats to walk out left the conference in Durban looking more like a hideous soap-opera than a measured, progressive discussion. As one impassioned commentator chillingly remarked, “it’s a disastrous, profoundly distressing outcome” . Citizens of Earth, tremble in your socks.

In a strange way, the one constructive element of Durban 2011 is also its most appalling. Oddly, we do now have a commitment to forge a new legally-binding treaty – but it won’t be hammered out until 2015, and (even assuming it survives the slings and arrows of outrageous diplomats) won’t make it into policy until 2020. That means mitigation efforts have now stalled for nearly a decade, and, disturbingly, we don’t know the form the 2020 measures will take.

Conference Fever

As anticipated, Durban 2011 stalked the familiar fault-line between a coyly ambitious EU and a guarded developing world. Demanding a desperate resolution that might salvage the aspirations expressed at Kyoto, Europe, allied with the inspiring Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), pushed for a new legally-binding agreement, much to Indian chagrin. “Am I,” India’s delegate asked, incredulously, “to write a blank cheque and sign away the livelihoods and sustainability of 1.2 billion Indians, without even knowing what the EU roadmap contains?” A shrewd Brazilian intervention later soothed some diplomatic wrath, but it’s rather hard not to feel that the eventual outcome, such as it was, has rendered the world supine in the face of an ever-increasing carbon burden.

The Kyoto Protocol, then, the marginal triumph for climate change mitigation secured in 1997, was loosely resuscitated and then deflated following Canada's opt-out, but the world now enters a troublingly ambiguous limbo period. Karl Hood, the eloquent spokesperson for Aosis, captured the mood: “If there is no legal instrument by which we can make countries responsible for their actions, then we are relegating countries to the fancies of beautiful words.”

In need of inflation

Don’t mistake the occasional sounds of post-conference contentment issuing from negotiators – including Britain’s Chris Huhne – for victory sirens. It may indeed be the best achievable result given the available system; but, in that case, the available system is simply frail and toothless. This isn’t the end, and existential teeth-gnashing is unwarranted: the so-called “Durban Platform” does leave open a narrow window of opportunity for action. But it’s playing fast-and-loose with time.

In the tumultuous week that saw Britain drift away from Europe, it’s not Brussels but Durban that will ultimately come to define the moment: grotesquely emblematic of irresolution and parochial self-absorption, Durban’s legions of negotiators seem to have fiddled while the planet burns.

So, here’s hoping Hardy was wrong: otherwise, it’s a grim choice between maths and a mad world, and I know which one I’ll be choosing.