Treehumper

As hundreds of heads of state descended on Copenhagen on Thursday and Friday for the home stretch of the COP15 climate summit, the world’s insistence on terrible, terrible puns based on the city’s name inflamed tempers and killed any chance of a climate pact.

“Okay, ‘Hopenhagen’ was cute, I suppose,” said China’s chief negotiator Yu Qingtai during the immediate aftermath of a press conference. “But ‘Copenhaven?’ What the fuck does that even mean?”

Hillary Rodham Clinton, after expressing admiration for his command of idiomatic English, said that he and other country’s represenatives “need to stop Copenhatin’.” It was at that point that the first punches were thrown, and the top negotiator from Australia was quickly arrested. Al Gore rushed to the podium and shouted “Everyone just SmokeAnEigthAn’ chill!” It appeared to work, but mostly because no one except the representatives from the Netherlands and Jamaica knew what he was talking about.

As negotiators from more than 50 countries issued angry statements and left the summit prematurely, the top trending topic on Twitter was “CopenFailin.” Soon after another 35 countries had departed the conveniently four-syllabled city. A release from the German delegation read “We’re CopenSailin’ outta here. Bangladesh can figure shit out on their own.”

The Bangladeshi representatives took offense at the suggestion, but didn’t appear to understand the general wordplay theme. “Well, that’s it,” said delegate Sabir Hassan Chowdhary. “We’re CopenFucked.”