Nature abhors a vacuum, so does politics. What happens when their is a leadership vacuum caused by the USA failing to take charge on climate issues? China steps in to take over.

China is willing to make its voluntary carbon emissions target part of a binding UN resolution, a concession which may pressure developed countries to extend the Kyoto Protocol, a senior negotiator said.

…

China’s compromise would depend on the United States agreeing to binding emissions cuts and an extension of Kyoto, which binds the emissions of nearly 40 developed countries, not including the United States which didn’t ratify it.

Developing nations want to continue the protocol while industrialized backers including Japan, Russia and Canada want a separate agreement regulating all nations.

China has previously rejected making its domestic emissions goals binding, as they are now for industrialized nations.

“We can create a resolution and that resolution can be binding on China,” said Huang Huikang, the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s envoy for climate change talks.

(via)

We Americans should get used to this. Either China or the EU, or someone else is going to continue to eat our lunch until we untangle our broken political system.

I am actually pretty stoked that someone is doing something to shake things up at Cancun, I was just sort of hoping it was going to be the USA. Think how sad that is. America, the city on the hill, is unable to get its act together and do something about climate change. So China, communist dictatorship, is going to. In the long run it will be better for humanity if the problem of climate change is solved, but I have a feeling it would be even more beneficial for humanity if America stood up and took leadership on this issue. Only time will tell.