That Was A Long Week.

For the past six days delegates have been meeting in Tainjin, China for the final preparatory session for the 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) Summit to tackle Global Warming and Climate Change. Put simply the purpose of the meeting was to get all parties to agree on what they're going to argue about at the COP16 Summit. If you remember how the COP15 Summit ended you will understand that this was a very tense meeting with the two World superpowers, USA and China squaring up to each other on a range of issues that have absolutely nothing to do with the environment or Climate Change. The situation was made even more tense by the fact that the Chinese held a home advantage.

As you can probably tell from the tide of toxic red sludge that is currently engulfing parts of Europe the early indications are that the American delegation took an almighty kicking at the hands of the Chinese delegation.

There are a variety of reasons why the Chinese were able to outmanoeuvre the Americans including the fact that the Americans have allowed themselves to become overstretched by these counterproductive Middle East peace talks. However the main reason the Chinese were able to take advantage is the difference in the two nations approach to Climate Change. The Chinese took a long hard look at the problem and concluded that based on the available scientific facts that it is more likely then not that human activity is causing Global Warming and that warming is causing Climate Change. As a result the Chinese have dedicated a lot of time and money to improve their understanding of climate science and technological solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the effects of Climate Change. In contrast the Americans have approached the issue with the attitude that America's economic and geo-political strategy means that Climate Change quite simply cannot be true regardless of what the science says. As a result the Americans have concentrated their efforts on politically discrediting climate science and using global talks such as these as a way to further their geo-political agenda rather find possible solutions to Climate Change.

This shortfall in knowledge has placed America at a massive disadvantage to China in the COP process and left them in the untenable diplomatic position of trying to insist that China allows American scientists access to verify Chinese emissions cuts while refusing to make any cuts of its own. This does not bode well for the COP16 Summit which is a real shame because it is being held during a very exciting time in climate science which could see the Global Warming debate settled once and for all.