President Barak Obama has to deal with a political culture where a global deal on carbon emissions is something to fear, not pursue. This time at Copenhagen, he will be required to offer his regrets that, despite the hopes he stirred round the world a year ago, he will not be able to pull out his pen and, at a stroke, sign the deal that saves the planet. Obama is not saviour of the world, he is still a US president and represents the multiple, complex and contradictory interests of the country he now leads.

America did not become a different country by electing Mr Obama. It is still the nation that is at the heart of the climate problem - having contributed an estimated 30 per cent of all the CO2 already in the earth's atmosphere - and therefore of any viable solution. So why is America, which has per capita GHG emissions close to 18 times more than an average Indian, refusing to comply despite having a President who has pledged to change the way the US does business? The quick answer: it just has too many big lobbies that are willing to spend over $300 million a year to ensure that the status quo remains. This includes the coal lobby that has a say in 22 of the 50 states, the oil lobby that George Bush was close to, apart from the automobile and highway lobbies. So even if Obama has pledged to cut GHG emissions by 17 per cent by 2020,he will face great difficulty having it ratified in the Senate.

The US' main argument is that Kyoto Protocol doesn't bring into its ambit two of the world's largest emitters of GHGS - China and India. China is an anomaly as it has now overtaken the US as the largest emitter of GHGS, and given its frenetic economic growth, is first moving out of the developing country orbit.

US cannot tolerate the growth of China in the name of climate change negotiations. The US recalcitrance has spread like a virus to Europe which has also toned down the massive pledges that they had originally made because Europe did not want to lose its competitive edge to its rich rival, the US, by introducing cuts that are certain to result in an increase in the cost of production. Perhaps the single largest blow to climate change negotiations was the economic meltdown and the ongoing recession. Job security has become the number one priority.

With developed nations trying to bring down the unemployment rates, there is no way they were willing to make the big changes in lifestyle or the restructuring of the economy that climate change measures demanded. So in last two years, rich nations have all conspired to stall and defeat the Kyoto Protocol. They engage in political arm-twisting to maintain their capitalist aspiration. They have apprehension that Kyoto Protocol may slowly replace capitalism in favour of socialism.

Forming an umbrella group of rich nations, Australia being the highest per capita emitter of GHGS, had for years refused to join the Kyoto Protocol. Before Copenhagen, Australia had floated a proposal that tried to blur the distinction between developed countries and developing ones when it came to talking on commitments. The Kyoto Protocol recognised that the industrialised countries had historical responsibilities to take on, for having pumped tonnes of GHGS into the atmosphere in the past two centuries. These countries, therefore, not only had to cut their emissions but also pay to help developing countries take on mitigation and adaptation measures.

Meanwhile, developed countries made an effort to break the unity of the G - 77 by offering finance to the more needy ones like Maldives. To stall China and India, who had gained the largest amount from projects under the Clean Development Mechanism, they also said that offsets would now be more for the preservation of forests.  Having failed to brow-bat developing countries into softening their stand, developed countries are now pushing for a proposal that would see a political agreement emerging from Copenhagen. Termed 'Pledge and Review ‘, it is already being viewed by the G - 77 and China as a new ploy to destroy some of the key provisions in the Kyoto Protocol and lay the template for an all new agreement.

If there is failure in Copenhagen to bring about a reasonable agreement, leaders have to face the wrath of people from across the world, especially industrialised countries which are now regarded as the Enemies of the Earth with their selfish and myopic stance. 2012 may be on us sooner than we think.