EU AND US FALLING OUT OVER COP 15 SAYS GUARDIAN

The UK's Guardian newspaper reports exclusively that the EU and US are currently in disagreement over the shape of a new climate agreement (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/15/europe-us-copenhagen)

The report quotes senior EU and US negotiating sources and in many ways is unsurprising. The EU is committed to the Kyoto architecture and yet Kyoto is damaged goods in the US. It seems to me that while awkward, this conundrum is hardly insurmountable.

The more intractable issue is that of the politics in the US and elsewhere. The Guardian's report quotes Farhana Yamin, an environmental lawyer with the Institute of Development Studies in the UK, saying: "It seems a bit backwards. The danger is that the domestic tail starts to wag the international dog."

To my mind, this view seems back-to-front. Domestic politics are always the main constraint on international cooperation and it is at this level where we need the sharpest focus.