Climate change deal

Well, as predicted with perfect accuracy here on Thursday, the climate change conference has not proved to be a success.

For the most part it appears that China played a very tough game with the US and led the poorer world astray. Now we have a 'starting position' for the next talks. All very predictable so far.

The idea of the bigger countries doing a deal though is a sound one. The idea that everyone has to buy in is madness.

Why try and get mad Hugo Chavez on board? There is nothing Venezuela can really add and as Chavez takes them back to the stone age their small emissions will fall anyway. On a different level it is the same with Saudi Arabia, they are not going to agree so let's not bother.

In fact, when they next gather in Mexico the thing to do is just invite the really polluters of the world plus some of the countries who may become so; realpolitik will deliver a solution that left-wing attempts at global consensus never will.

Copenhagen a failure of negotation strategy

Looking on from afar I am not at all shocked at what looks like a failed meeting taking place in Copenhagen.

This was always going to be one of the most complex negotiations ever undertaken. Yet the whole two week debate did not even start with a real draft on the table. Instead everything appears to have been done from scratch.

Anytime you enter into a negotiation all sides have to know what is on the table. The rules have to be set out before the start. It is negotiation 101.

But none of that has happened in Copenhagen, it seems most countries are happy to make radical cuts in CO2 emissions; but there is so little agreement on how to do this and how to get the rich to pay the poor compensation.

A sad aspect appears to me that a marxist doctrine consumes the developing world, arguing that rich capitalists give them money in return for not developing. Rich countries have other ways of ensuring poor countries don't develop - just don't give them anything. Outside the conference anti-capitalists argue for an agreement that pushes humanity back to the stone age - unsurprisingly no one wants to agree to that either.

Perhaps most worrying appears to be China's game-playing. Leading the poor nations when it is no such thing, blocking progress on technical issues. China plays a hard game, no doubt hoping for 10 more years of sclerosis so it can modernise itself unhindered by ecological considerations.

On a positive, the outline drawn up by this meeting will be a good start for the next one which may only be a few months away.