I was, of course, completely right - PRC accused of wrecking Copenhagen

The Independent has reported on how the PRC deliberately set out to wreck the Copenhagen cliamte summit, to protect its 'right' to pollute its way to developed status, and simultaneously duck having t commit to the same future requirements placed on developed nations:

... the key element of the agreement, a timetable for making its commitments legally binding by this time next year, was taken out at the last minute at the insistence of the Chinese, who otherwise would have refused to agree to the deal.

Also removed, at Chinese insistence, was a statement of a global goal to cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2050, and for the developed world to cut its emissions by 80 per cent by the same date. The latter is regarded as essential if the world is to stay below the danger threshold of a two-degree Centigrade temperature rise.

The "50-50" and "50-80" goals have already been accepted by the G20 group of nations and world leaders who were negotiating the agreement, including Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel of Germany, Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Kevin Rudd of Australia. They were said to be amazed at the Chinese demands, especially over the developed nations' goal. The European official said: "China thinks that by 2050 it will be a developed country and they do not want to constrain their growth."

China, with its rapidly expanding economy, has now overtaken the US as the world's biggest CO2 emitter, and although at the meeting it agreed for first time to a target to constrain its emissions growth in an international instrument, it is desperate not to have that made legally binding, the official said. He added: "This conference has been systematically wrecked by the Chinese government, which has adopted tactics that were inexplicable at first as we had been led to believe they wanted an agreement." (1)

The motivation here being short term fear of social collapse if they don't keep growing their economy fast enough to maintain their legitimacy in the eyes of their population. And, because the west is dependent on the PRC's neo-slave labour to maintain its standard of living (also totally unsustainable, of course) our leaders caved in.

1 - "China stands accused or wrecking global deal," by Michael McCarthy, Rebecca Buchan and Claire Cooper, published in The Independent, 20th of December, 2009.(http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/china-stands-accused-of-wrecking-global-deal-1845911.html)