Historic tensions threaten deal that could still prove better than expected

There is a well-established convention in cricket, the sport that gives us more metaphors for life than any other, whereby on the last day the captains can agree that a result is not going to be achieved and the game can end several hours early.

The players are invariably happy with this arrangement as it allows them to settle for the scores and bowling figures they already have rather than risk spoiling them with a few bad overs or soft dismissals.

I'm starting to kind of wish that the leaders in Copenhagen could similarly shake hands, agree that they don't want to risk losing the fundamental commitments and agreements they already have, and, just as in cricket, head for the bar to bond over a post-match beer.

The very real risk that the talks could collapse over procedural issues when there is genuine agreement on many matters of substance is, as British energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband observed last night, as much farce as tragedy.

Much of the news from Copenhagen in recent days and hours has been unremittingly negative, but underneath all the rows and deadlocks there has been a kind of progress, which if written down would provide you with the framework of a pretty impressive deal. Not good enough to save the climate on its own, admittedly, but good enough to kick start billions of dollars of low-carbon investment.

If you actually tot up what has either been agreed or is close to being agreed, there is now so much on the table that those countries that are talking about walking away on matters of principle need to think very carefully about what they stand to lose.

The $10bn a year fast-track fund looks pretty much set, while US support this morning for the $100bn a year from 2020 proposals could prove sufficient to resolve the deadlock over funding, assuming of course that China makes concessions of greenhouse gas reporting transparency.

An agreement on forestry is also almost in the bag, while negotiations on reforms to the Clean Development Mechanism, while delicate, could yet deliver a result. An agreement on these two areas alone would be hugely significant regardless of what else happens.

And then there are the emissions targets. Let's be in no doubt that they are not good enough, but as Lord Stern observed recently, the offers currently on the table would get us much closer to where we need to be than many people think. It would be a political failure of historic proportions if these targets from both rich and poor nations alike are not nailed down. More than anything else, these commitments will provide the race to develop a low-carbon economy with the starting pistol it has been waiting for.

So what is the problem? Why when so many of the fundamentals are either agreed or grudgingly accepted? The issue is that if the collapse of the talks would represent an historic failure, then it is history that is pushing them to the brink.

Looking at the various interviews offered by Western ministers in recent days, they appear to be confused as to why the poorer nations will not accept a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol which promises a better and more ambitious agreement in place of the deeply flawed and failing framework that we have now.

The simple answer is that the poorer nations do not trust a word they say. The elephant in the room for these negotiations (indeed any international negotiations) is centuries of colonial and post-colonial tension. The developing economies have been burnt so many times over so many issues that when industrialised countries say they want to replace the existing binding deal with a political deal that will become binding at some point in the future, the fire bells go off.

Add in the perceived imperial arrogance implicit in emission reduction targets from industrialised nations in general, and the US in particular, that are a long, long way short of what is required to save poorer countries from disaster, and you can see why they are so angry. Moreover, there is only one avenue for this anger. They will not be able to control the substance of the talks when the powerful nations start trying to hammer out a deal that they will have no choice but to accept, but they can make the procedural issues a matter of principle.

The row between China and the US over the "transparency" of China's emissions reduction plans is a perfect case in point. The US wants China to effectively submit to international inspections to check that it is delivering the cuts in carbon intensity it promises, which appears fair enough. But from a Chinese perspective this sounds like the US accusing them of lying about their emission commitments; accusing them of lying when the US itself is offering the least ambitious emissions target of all rich countries. How would the US like it if we said we would not sign up unless it submits to international inspections of its coal plants and solar farms, the Chinese ask.

If only they could just shake hands and cement the genuinely impressive commitments that have already been agreed, rather than risk losing everything in pursuit of the impossibility of a perfect deal. Then we could get back to the really important issues of whether England can beat South Africa in the First Test.