Wikileaks and Climate change

The Wikileaks story, rather than Cancun, dominated the American press last week. Now stories are emerging from the leaked cables that show some of the behind-the-scenes manipulation of last year's Copenhagen meetings.

The Guardian has several stories on this:

• Tactics pursued by the State Department and CIA to pressure COP 15 negotiators, including paying small island nations like the Maldives in exchange for their support of the Copenhagen Accord
• Efforts to determine who was seated on the IPCC
• The US approach to dealing with Brazil, South Africa, India & China (Basics)

This stuff is probably not surprising, but certainly undermines any pretenses about the U.S. government's seriousness about addressing climate change.

For my money, an even more disheartening view on the US politics of global warming is this past October's story in the New Yorker: As the World Burns. It paints a dismal portrait of the slimy deal-making that drives Washington's handling of this problem