Mark also has a piece on the Guardian website to this effect. In that piece he says:

"The US had ... put serious cuts on the table for the first time (17% below 2005 levels by 2020), and was obviously prepared to up its offer."

And that's how you know this account is not reliable. Cuts are measured by everyone else on 1990 levels, not 2005 levels. The science tells us we need a minimum 40% cut on 1990 levels at least to give us a fighting chance of limiting warming to 2 degrees.

Know how the US offer of 17% on 2005 levels translates to 1990 levels? Is it 40%? Is it even 17%? Is it f*ck. Its four. Four per cent. Consider that in light of the US's historic responsibility for climate change. This Mark calls serious (while lecturing "leftists" about their starry eyed view of developing countries).

The US offered an emissions cut of 4% on 1990 levels when well over 40% was needed to reach the 2 degree target. Mark says it is "obvious" that offer would be upped. What? By a factor of 10? In fact, Obama stated flat out in his Copenhagen speech that the US position was was non-negotiable. Blaming China for scuppering a "deal" with a 2 degree target when we know full well that the deal would have been worthless given the pathetic cuts offered by Washington is not exactly giving the whole story is it?

Wittingly or not, Mark is relaying Western spin. The US and the UK have been desperate to blame China ever since Copenhagen. Obama was blaming China from the minute he arrived there, so the spin was in full flow even before the talks were done. And this after 2 weeks of the US working hard to ditch Kyoto and the fundamental principle it enshrined that those who did the polluting historically were those with the prime responsibility for dealing with it. Oh yeah, Mark didn't mention that either did he? Because that did more than anything to poison the atmosphere and stiffen the resolve of the G-77 not to be shafted - again - by the West.

Now by all means blame China for what its responsible for. I'm under no illusions about them, or India and its uniquely vile political class. There's plenty of blame to go around. But the idea that the nasty Chinese spoilt the brave idealistic Westerners' great humanitarian bid to deal seriously with climate change is demonstrable nonsense. What's more, it is very much in line with the propaganda campaign now underway from Western governments to avoid taking responsiblity for their own role in imposing a death sentence on millions in the developing world and consigning future generations to catastrophe. A progressive magazine like the NS should have no part of that whatsoever.

that's right, monkey...spin the western line

At worst, China turned a terrible deal into no deal at all. If it had gone along with the offer on the table from the US that Lynas calls serious then we wouldn't be debating why Copenhagen failed, we'd be debating what to do now that a terrible deal is locked in until 2020. Lynas has been on the way out since he said equity was the problem and we should limit immigration, but this article does provide a lesson in how climate desperation can take you down a political cul-de-sac: if you focus exclusively on cutting carbon emissions, then developing countries developing their way out of poverty quickly becomes a bad thing. Even if you adopt Lynas's racist colonial mindset, you're never going to get developing countries to agree not to develop as quickly as possible. So the only credible position is to demand that rich countries come up with serious offers to show the way. The fact that Lynas feels free to publicly blame China while advising the Government of the Maldives shows who's still got the real power and influence. This is the nail in Lynas's coffin as a credible commentator.

I'm utterly disappointed at New Statesman re-posting this piece of garbage.

Who the eff is he, by the way?

Go over to the Chinese website, there are tons of views to the contrary. They must be true too?

COP15 was a disaster, both for science, and international peace. The CRU releases exposed either fraud, or false science. It will take a decade to sort out. Few objective educated people now accept that man made emissions are an immediate serious threat to global survival; the projections are based on fudged inaccurate work.

It is dangerous to assembly national leaders, many of whom are mass murderers, to cajole them into agreements which lessen their power. Wars start this way.

We need no 42,000 person conferences again.

So the Chinese put a stop to Milliband and Browns's ecomentalist fantasies, gosh what a shame.

God bless those godless commies for stopping this alarmist nonsense in its tracks.

China has leaders who reject the fabricated AGW claptrap and look out for the interests of their country.

If only a few other governments would do the same instead of flogging their constituents for their own personal aggrandisement.

Could it be because China's leaders are typically engineers, with an acquaintance with science, unlike the serried ranks of lawyers, economists, and arts grads
that grace western governments and who know nothing of science and little of anything else except how to line their own pockets at the expense of everyone else.

Haven't seen a political assassination for a long time.

"I left with a sense of deep foreboding and near despair." Talk about melodramatic! Do I expect tsunami in 20 minutes?

Freelancer writer? More like "contractor", aka mercenary.

China was right to block this deal, and the world should be grateful. Anything that slows the escape from poverty--the REAL, PRESENT global crisis--be opposed. And anybody who has lived in China would know that it is an insult for countries where families commonly run three cars to demand that people living on two dollars a day 'share the burden'. Most westerners have no idea just how energy-efficient Chinese already are in their everyday lives, out of sheer necessity. High temp. cooking saves time and hence fuel; public spaces are semi-lit and semi-heated in winter; everybody packs into trains and buses travel, not private cars .. it goes on and on. It is just outrageous to demand further privations when most people in the west do absolute xxxx all individually to reduce their environmental impact. As for Chinese industry, which is indeed energy-wasteful, transfer the tech to them, free, if you really care. This burden belongs on western shoulders.

So we have China to thank for the failure of these talks?

Thank you, China!

What do you call people who won't accept the FACTS? And the FACTS are these: Your little 'Church' in East Anglica is a SHAM. Your Religion of 'CLIMATOLOGY' has been exposed. Done in by THEIR OWN WORDS. Nobody destroys their PROOF. 50 Years of data, DESTROYED, because "there was no room at their new diggs". In other words, it was their LIFES' WORK, or the ping pong table. At least the ping pong table is REAL.
You people need to go out and get a job. And GROW UP.

Thank goodness for everyone seeing through this article for the partisan rubbish and selective 'truths' it is. I am disturbed by those who insist on all this Climate-Change denial. If you are disengaged and feel too apathetic to do anything about it, then admit it. Heck most of us in the West are guilty of that. However to simply deny environmental crisis is at best in bad taste and at worst callous and grossly insensitive to those in the developing nations who are front-row eye witnesses to it. Just because we've had snow recently doesn't mean things aren't going up the creek elsewhere. Oh, the arrogance of parochialism!

Shalom x

This Article is just terrible. It is a particularly vile example of scapegoating and furthermore demonstrates the naivety of a journalist filled with "optimism." Who ever thought world leaders were going to get together in copenhagen to frolic with the trees, was and still is a fool.

Completely rubbish and racist article.

Did I read it right-Millipeed and Brun emerged with CREDIT!!!!

why is the new statesman attracting so many angry conspiracy trolls?

my government is being run by a group of insane morons who will use any excuse to moralistically intervene with our right to consume whatever we like and who have made a pact with the completely misguided broad scientific community to come up with a plan hatched up by [X]-enemies to destroy our economy and turn us into slaves.

i for one am totally outraged!

roar

Thank you China!

Heaven forbid it would be Israel selling arms in Dafur and keeping Mugabe's regime affloat, you'd be accusing it of genocide before the week was out.

For the love of god mark (just stop)