The 20th Conference of Parties: Lima.

Yesterday the 20th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP20) opened in Lima, Peru. I was going to mark this by posting a picture of all the coffee I'd stockpiled in preparation along with a cheeky caption. However I decided that my time would probably be better spent reading up on what is going on.

Obviously I want to be fully up to speed before I start commenting in detail. However I think it's obvious that there is a dark cloud over proceedings in the form the recent US mid-term elections which handed control of Congress to the Republican Party. US President Barack Obama doesn't appear to have realised that this has happened so seems intent on wasting what remains of his political capital on race-baiting and a stupid argument over executive action on immigration. This seems to make it less likely that the US will be able to ratify legislation allowing it to sign up to a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol at the COP21 at the end of 2015.

This agreement is supposed to be a global agreement meaning that if the world's largest economy and largest GreenHouse Gas (GHG) emitter fails to sign up as it did with the Kyoto Protocol it will be of limited value. In fact other nations - led by Australia (the largest per capita emitter of GHG's) - have already made it clear that they won't be signing up if the US doesn't sign up. Therefore there seems to be a distinct possibility that Australia will use the mid-term results to widen the gaps in order to sink the agreement. The conflict over the Annex I/Annex II binary approach which elements of the African group still supports looks likely to be a key battle ground although it's clear that Australia is really looking for any excuse at this point.

This situation is likely to be compounded by the fact that the US has brought our old friend Rihanna back into play. The popstar who controls the weather is currently in my home city of London, UK where she attended a fashion awards ceremony yesterday. On December 11th - the penultimate day of COP20 - Rihanna will host a charity ball to raise money for a cancer hospital in her native Barbados. Although this seems likely to fall far short of the expected standard I suppose it could promote discussion about climate finance to the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) grouping.

It is also widely and strongly rumoured that Rihanna will use this so-called "Diamond Ball" to launch her new single which along with a new album will go straight on sale the following day. This of course will create a frenzy of interest around Rihanna in which we are expected to debate whether she has done enough to get her career back on track. After all hijacking a charity event to launch an album does seem a bit tacky.

I'm not sure what exactly the US is hoping to achieve through all this but it seems likely to succeed in reminding everyone that the US can behave like massive d*cks reducing the amount of trust they receive and helping Australia to increase divisions.

The UK of course is still trying to find out where it stands in this and all other forms of international relations. So tomorrow they will be unleashing their autumn budget statement. This is likely to focus heavily on large scale infrastructure spending and flood defence schemes. These are obviously both big issues within COP20 covering both mitigation and adaptation efforts. As this will be the last such statement before the UK's General Election in May 2015 it is also likely to spark off a flurry of party politics.

(Originally Posted) 12:45 on 2/12/14 (UK date).