Making a point, or making a difference? For thirty years, the UN Conference of the Parties (better known as COP) has arranged annual meetings to discuss climate change issues, agree on programs and targets to address them, developed protocols to formalize agreements on steps to reduce greenhouse emissions, and tracked progress towards agreed programs to address climate change.  By now it should be painfully clear that the emphasis has been on awareness-raising and persuasion, while  outcomes of the ensuing programs have fallen systematically short of the agreed goals. What we may now need is to shift such approach by focusing squarely on outcomes, the policies needed to meet them, and do so in an effective manner.