There is talk this afternoon that the developed and the developing countries, a gathering of some 17 nations, will agree on some sort of cap of a two-degree rise in global temperatures but it won’t be a binding commitment.
I think it will be an aspiration.
Both sides, the developed and the developing world are arguing over the details.
It seems China and India will not agree to a 50 per cent cut in their emissions by 2050.
They want the Americans to set interim targets for America and the other developed countries and they want the Americans to agree to a target for what they are going to do by 2020 for example, which we still don’t have.
And they also want the developed world to pay for the reductions in emissions for the developing world.
They want a fund of possibly billions of dollars so they can spend money on green technology.
And as long as this dance between east and west continues it’s very hard to see how progress is going to be made for the really important climate change summit which is supposed to agree a global framework for cutting emissions and that is in Copenhagen under United Nations auspices in December.