‘We cannot again allow negotiations on real points of substance to be hijacked in this way,’ wrote Ed Miliband, then Britain’s Energy and Climate Secretary, in the aftermath of UN climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009. The conference had ended not only with a weak climate deal, but also the widespread impression that China, the world’s biggest CO2 emitter by volume, had been at fault.
‘We did not get an agreement on 50-per-cent reductions in global emissions by 2050, or on 80-per-cent reductions by developed countries,’ Miliband added. ‘Both were vetoed by China, despite the support of a coalition of developed and the vast majority of developing countries.’
