Let us unearth that conference, however, because it could help us to understand the outcome of the mega-conference that took place in Copenhagen last month with the no-less-pompous objective of stopping the warming of our planet.

Lima '75: Those were the good old days of "Third Worldism." The developing countries, spurred by the demonstration of force by oil exporting countries during the oil shock of 1973, called for the institution of a "new international economic order" (NIEO), aimed at securing a better place for these countries in the world economy. Once the call was made, international organizations started aligning their work programs toward that grandiose objective.

It should be recalled that in those days the dominant view in the corridors of international organizations favored strong state intervention in economic affairs. The prevailing view had its dissidents: Bela Balassa, an economist at the World Bank, as well as Little, Scitovsky and Scott, authors of a report commissioned by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), to mention a few. These economists argued that developing countries would do better to place their hopes in the interplay of market forces rather than in state interventionism and, accordingly, should adopt policies aimed at encouraging foreign investment and improving the international competitiveness of their goods.

The governments of many developing countries that adhered to the dominant view arrived at Lima with the firm intention of obtaining the international community's endorsement of a "plan of action," stipulating that 25% of the world's industrial production should be generated in the Third World by the year 2000.

Lima led to nothing significant. The plan of action adopted there turned out to be a vague compromise text with a strong whiff of state interventionism (as was customarily the case of international declarations at that time). It requested the "redeployment" to the Third World of some of the industries established in developed countries. There was nothing coercive in the text, as a number of industrialized nations refused to accept any binding clause. The plan also instituted a bureaucratic mechanism of "consultations," with a view to pursuing the conference's goals.

Did the industrial reorganization of the world take place? Yes. Today, the developing countries are not far from accounting for a quarter of the world's industrial production. The industrial "redeployment," too, has been taking place in the form of the so-called hollowing out of developed-country economies.

But all this profound transformation has had nothing to do with the plan adopted at Lima—which in fact did not have any meaningful follow-up. Rather, it was accomplished after developing countries decided to adhere (one after the other) to the recommendations of the dissidents of third-worldism, namely to play the card of market forces and become internationally competitive.

A new international economic order has thus seen the light of day, not thanks to a decision taken in an international conference, at Lima or elsewhere, but by the fierce competition of developing countries in world markets. This new order has a name: "globalization."

Third-worldism has become obsolete. But in its place, environmentalism is the new politically correct pet view in international organizations. Thus, rather than referring to an NIEO, it is fashionable nowadays to talk about "saving the planet" by reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 50% by 2050 at the latest. Ergo, Copenhagen.

Like third-worldism in the 1970s, today's environmentalism has its dissidents. There are many. They do not deny the existence of global warming, but question the role of human activity in this phenomenon. In addition, they tend to advocate technological innovation, rather than restrictions on the emissions of carbon dioxide, to deal with the impacts.

Like Lima, the conference in Copenhagen did not go beyond the declaration of intentions. Agreement was not reached on concrete measures to drastically reducing carbon emissions. And just as Lima relegated the hardest discussions to a series of consultations, so Copenhagen sent negotiations to another conference next year—without explaining why agreement would be easier in 2010, the year of mid-term elections in the United States, which will make the American Congress even more reluctant to alienate voters by approving costly measures to deal with global warming.

Beyond their differences, Lima and Copenhagen suffer from a common handicap: Both conferences were a failed attempt, at the expense of taxpayers around the world, to institute global economic governance by imposing quantifiable targets on the 192 member nations.

The "Lima Plan of Action" marked the culmination of Third Worldist multilateral diplomacy. Since then, developing countries, in their struggle for economic modernization, do not expect much from big international conferences. In the same fashion, there is a strong likelihood that the so-called "Copenhagen Accord" will in turn represent the high point of environmentalist multilateral diplomacy. Henceforth, means other than big intergovernmental forums will be explored to deal with global warming.

Taking the analogy between the two conferences a step further, it is possible to conclude with a note of optimism. In the same manner that developing countries succeeded in increasing their share in world industrial output through international competition, irrespective of the Lima planning, so one can expect that the issue of global warming will be dealt with, not through the Copenhagen Accord, but by technological innovations, notably those falling within the category of geoengineering. These techniques aim at capturing carbon emissions or, more directly, at cooling the climate.

So we may yet see major shifts in the way man deals with climate—but don't expect them to come about through sprawling international get-togethers. Like the Lima conference, Copenhagen will, in a few years, most likely end up in the dustbins of oblivion.

Mr. Fiallo is a former international civil servant. His latest publication: "Ternes Eclats" ("Dimmed Lights"), L'Harmattan, Paris, presents a critique of international organizations.