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TWO simultaneous car bombs at security buildings rocked Damascus on the morning of Friday December 23rd. Residents and diplomats said the explosions, which were followed by gunfire, in Kafer Souseh, a wealthy area of the capital, reverberated across the city. At least 44 people died and scores more were injured, according to Syrian officials who said that the majority were civilians. State television and SANA, the Syrian news agency, showed graphic footage of burned-out cars and rescuers carting off bodies. For now, that is all that is known.

Since protests began against the government of Bashar Assad nine months ago, Syrian officials have portrayed their opponents—who have mostly been peaceful protesters though some, mainly army defectors, have now taken up arms—as terrorists and extremists.

For this reason, opposition groups blame the regime for the explosions. The Syrian Revolution General Commission denounced the bombings as "a familiar pathetic move from the Syrian government to plant fear and terror in the hearts of civilians". They suspect the government of trying to convince observers from the Arab League, who arrived the day before to assess the situation in Syria, that terrorists are behind the unrest.

State media was unusually quick to cover the bombings, saying they bore the "blueprints of al-Qaeda". By contrast, an attack on a security building in Harasta in November received no coverage. The league delegation was quickly ushered to the scene of the attacks, which were described as part of an Israeli-American plot. "We said it from the beginning, this is terrorism," Faisal Mikdad, the deputy foreign minister, told reporters. "They are killing the army and civilians."

Armed opponents, most of whom are part of the Free Syrian Army, the main opposition group, have claimed two attacks in the capital in recent months. But equipped with little more than guns and rocket-propelled grenades, such coordinated attacks are beyond them. Government forces have enough control over the country and its borders to make an attack by foreigners—such as al-Qaeda—unlikely. Bombings and extremists have been rare in the authoritarian country: the last regular bombings occurred in the 1980s when Bashar's father Hafez grappled with an Islamist uprising. Since then the regime has worked hard to quash any signs of religious fundamentalism.

The arrival of the Arab League delegation in Damascus on Thursday to oversee an end to the violence came at the end of one of the bloodiest weeks since the start of the uprising and after weeks of delaying tactics by Mr Assad. One hundred and seventy people, including army defectors, were killed in violence in the Jabal Zawiya area close to the Turkish border in the north-west, according to opposition groups. Dozens of Syrian military personnel were also killed.

Before Friday's bombings, dissidents had already claimed the government would seek to put on a show for the Arab League. The opposition has criticised the appointment as head of the mission of Mohammed Ahmed al-Dabi, a Sudanese general who was in charge in Darfur during a period during which war crimes are alleged to have taken place.

The attacks may not have any impact on the view of the Arab League, which has long been suspicious of the Syrian regime's claims that the country is grappling with terrorists and frustrated by Mr Assad's reluctance to sign any kind of deal. But the bombs may further rally the president's supporters to his side. While opponents denounced the authorities' responsibility for the bombs, the government's supporters pointed to them as further evidence of a conspiracy against their country.

OUR correspondents discuss the international events set to hit the headlines in 2012

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NINE months into Syria's uprising and the peaceful protests against the regime of Bashar Assad are now accompanied by a growing insurgency. On Thursday, activists say that 27 loyalists were killed in clashes with army defectors in the southern Hauran region. A day earlier eight soldiers were killed after defectors ambushed an military convoy close to Hama. As defections from the army continue, clashes with loyalist troops are becoming more frequent. 

The two sides are far from equal. "We are talking guns and misfired RPGs against tanks," says one opposition member in Damascus. Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has called once more for Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court. The daily death toll has risen again to 30-40 a day. The UN says over 5,000 people have been killed since March, at least 300 of them children. Thousands have been imprisoned and tortured. In November the UN reported that some of those detained by the regime had been raped. Ms Pillay says crimes against humanity have been committed. The number of regime supporters killed is rising too.

The city of Homs remains the main flashpoint, though violence is worsening around Deraa, the north-western province of Idlib and Damascus too. The perseverence of the Homsis has encouraged protesters around the country. The area around the city has become a magnet for defectors. 

In Homs itself, residents have reported a spate of tit-for-tat kidnappings between neighbourhoods. Some taxi drivers—many of whom have long stopped driving on the streets—have been seized and killed. Exactly why is unclear. "It is not about religion or sect. It is only seen that way as the majority of the shabiha and security forces are Alawite, so often the violence divides along these lines," says one young man, referring to a group of plain-clothed thugs backed by the regime. He, like a growing number of his friends, has joined the army defectors, using light weapons to attack security checkpoints and the shabiha. Others accuse the opposition of wishful thinking, saying that sectarianism is on the rise. 

Either way, says Radwan Ziadeh, a US-based human-rights activist and a member of the Syrian National Council, the main opposition body, this poses dangers as the conflict continues. "There are big concerns now and over transitional justice after all the gross crimes that have been committed," he says.

Meanwhile, the regime is determined to keep up the pretence of stability. In a flourish of sham democracy, local elections were held on Monday December 12th (Syrian polls are infrequent and usually rigged). In many areas no-one voted. In Deir Ezzor, a tribal city in the east, activists filmed a spoof video of people voting for Mr Assad to go; the ballot papers read "leave!"

But for all the regime's bluster, the facade of normality is becoming harder to sustain. Sanctions are hurting. In Damascus government employees are not being paid, according to some. Most Syrians now assume Mr Assad will go. The question is when and how. All expect more violence first. In Homs people are braced for another military incursion after opposition activists reported tanks amassing around the city.

For now, protesters are seeking peaceful ways to keep the uprising going. Civil disobedience is on the rise. A general strike on Monday during the local elections saw shops shut in hotspots though most of central Damascus and Aleppo did not take part.

Update: On Monday the Syrian regime signed an Arab League initiative to allow Arab observers into the country. Meanwhile, the Syrian National Council (SNC), the main opposition group, finished a meeting in Tunisia. Though the SNC is gaining ground, Syrians are growing more critical of the group for seeking international recognition and help at the expense of pursuing legitimacy at home.

The league agreement is unlikely to put an end to the violence. Syrian activists say that nearly 200 people have died in the past two days. The 22-member body imposed sanctions on Syria after its initial refusal to sign the deal. The regime appears to have agreed to it only after the league said it would go to the UN Security Council.

ARAB leaders meet to discuss Syria, France braces for a credit rating downgrade, airlines await a decision on carbon emissions and American politicians race to prevent a budgetary squeeze

THANK you for all your entries in our latest caption competition. We asked you to provide a pithy caption for a photo accompanying an article in our Asia section. It shows a nobleman entering the Delhi Durbar of 1911, at which the newly crowned King George V of Britain announced that India's capital would be moved from Calcutta to Delhi. Though the centenary of the event was marked this week, the residents of Delhi were not in the mood to celebrate an old colonial decision—even if it was a good one. Our favourite entries included:

dtmurphy: "Traffic has since worsened"
Homo_Economicus: "Send in the crowns"
inflationist: "When the sun never set"
Siddharth Jain: "Capital gain"
Dilawar: "There goes the neighbourhood"
sambo86: "This looks like a good spot"
Ennoble: "A crowning moment"
MrSampson: "Gawking at the Gaikawar"

This week the winning caption was "A moving ceremony" which was suggested by reader Dilawar, who also came up with several other good ideas. The caption appears in the paper tomorrow. We offer our congratulations to the winners and our thanks to everyone who took part.

NOBODY thought Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP) was in good health. But the surprise resignation earlier today of its young general secretary, Christian Lindner (pictured), shows that it is in even worse shape than many realised. That is bad news for Angela Merkel’s coalition government, in which the FDP is a junior partner, and perhaps even for the euro. How bad may become clearer in a few days.

Why Mr Lindner quit after just two years as the FDP's number-two official is uncertain. The trigger may have been criticism of his handling of a referendum among the party’s 65,000 members on whether to endorse the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a permanent fund for supporting the euro that is supposed to begin operating next year.

This innocent-sounding exercise in inner-party democracy, an initiative by an anti-bailout member of the Bundestag, could rattle, perhaps even topple, the coalition. The FDP leaders, Mr Lindner among them, pushed for a “yes” vote.

The results of the ESM vote will be revealed this Friday. But whatever the outcome it is already apparent that it has gone badly. On Saturday, three days before voting closed, the FDP’s chairman (and German vice-chancellor), Philipp Rösler, said that the attempt to torpedo the ESM would fail. Participation, he predicted, would fall short of the one-third mark needed to make the referendum binding (although MPs will remain free to vote according to their consciences).

Non-participation is an “active, tactical decision”, chimed in Mr Lindner. Most liberals thought that this triumphalism showed Putin-like contempt for democratic processes. Much of the blame for the poor turnout fell on Mr Lindner.

Even if participation is below the one-third threshold, a vote against the ESM would look to many like a rejection by the FDP rank-and-file of the government’s strategy for rescuing the euro. Faced with such a muddy result, Dr Rösler would probably try to declare victory and soldier on in government. But even if he succeeds, his credibility as the head of a captious party is likely to crumble.

A binding decision against the ESM, on the other hand, could well break up the coalition. That in turn could lead to new elections, which would be disastrous for the unpopular FDP, or conceivably to a short-lived "grand coalition" between Mrs Merkel’s party, the Christian Democratic Union, and the opposition Social Democrats.

Mr Lindner’s resignation is the latest episode in a leadership crisis that started almost the moment the FDP took office in October 2009. Guido Westerwelle, who led it to its best-ever result in the 2009 federal election, alienated voters with strident demands for tax cuts and a populist attack on welfare. He was replaced in April by Dr Rösler (but remains foreign minister).

Dr Rösler and Mr Lindner were supposed to bring youth and fresh ideas. Core supporters, the party hoped, would give it a second chance; others might give it a second look.

But the duo have been unable to turn things around. The FDP is still being evicted from legislatures in regional elections (most recently from Berlin’s). In opinion polls, it is below the 5% threshold needed to re-enter the Bundestag.

If Mr Lindner is at fault, the gentle Dr Rösler (“Bambi” to mockers) can hardly be less so. He, too, may go, if not on Friday then perhaps after Schleswig-Holstein’s election in May, if the FDP fails to clear the state’s 5% hurdle. It is hard, too, to see how Mr Westerwelle can stay in his job if the party is to start anew.

Simply reshuffling titles cannot cure a party with the FDP’s multiple ailments. But what can? Nothing in the coalition’s plans is likely to rally FDP voters by the next federal election, due in September 2013. The idea of leaving the coalition over the euro (under new leaders) has superficial appeal. But such a break with the party’s pro-European traditions would look unconvincing to voters. New elections could mean near-extinction.

The FDP is dangerously close to multiple systems failure. Mrs Merkel may find herself governing with a political corpse.

FIRST came unsigned leaflets claiming that the candidate for the Egyptian Bloc, a secularist group, was a communist atheist. Then pamphlets accusing him of being a capitalist crony of the disgraced former regime appeared. Other rumours swirled around the parliamentary district in rural Upper Egypt where he was standing. Some said the Egyptian Bloc was backed by Freemasons and Jews. Others fingered the Coptic Church. On the morning of the vote, pick-up trucks mounted with megaphones fanned out to deliver a coup de grace. Congratulations to the Egyptian Bloc, they blared. Its candidate has been appointed a cabinet minister in Cairo and has withdrawn from the race.

Politics is a rough game everywhere. As it happens the Egyptian Bloc won that seat anyway. But one might have expected a gentler touch from the Islamist parties contesting Egypt's first free parliamentary elections in decades, which enter the second of three regional rounds of voting this week. The Islamists claim the high moral ground, saying they want a return to the principles and values of the pure faith. Yet Egypt's two main Islamist political forces, the Muslim Brotherhood and the puritan Salafists, which together look set to capture as many as two thirds of parliamentary seats, are playing electoral hardball not only against their secular opponents, but against each other too.

Workers for the Salafists' main political vehicle, the Nour Party, accuse the Brotherhood of a range of infringements, from defacing posters to illegally soliciting votes inside polling stations. During run-offs, they say, the Muslim Brothers bought the support of candidates who were eliminated in the first round, asking for their supporters' votes in exchange for "compensating" them for the cost of their failed campaigns.

The Brothers, who have longer political experience and are closer to Egypt's moderate mainstream, say the Salafists are guilty of even worse. Sermons in Salafist-controlled mosques have commanded the faithful to vote for Nour candidates or face the fires of hell. The Salafist party's posters have displayed pictures of popular television preachers, proclaiming their endorsement despite denials from the preachers themselves. In one particularly hard-fought race the Salafists, stealing a page from the Brothers' book, mounted an election-day campaign claiming falsely that their Brotherhood rival had died.

Perhaps such tactics should be expected. Egyptian politicians of all stripes cut their teeth during six decades of veiled dictatorship. Back then, the ever-ruling party of government stuffed ballot boxes, sent thugs to beat up opponents, or simply locked the polling stations and sent everyone home.  Long repressed, Egypt's Islamists understandably see the elections as a unique chance to assert their dominance. Their secular opponents are inexperienced, weak and divided. The government bodies meant to oversee elections seem more keen on getting the job done than doing it properly.

IN THE early hours of December 11th, after three days and nights of exhausting, often ill-tempered, final negotiations, the UN’s two-week-long climate-change summit ended in Durban with an agreement.

Its terms—assuming they are acted upon—are unlikely to be sufficient to prevent a global temperature rise of more than 2°C. They might easily allow a 4°C rise. Yet with many governments distracted by pressing economic worries, the deal was as much as could have been expected from Durban; perhaps a little more.

The core of it is, in effect, a quid-pro-quo arrangement between the European Union and big developing-country polluters, including China and India. For its part, the EU will undertake a second round of emissions abatement under the Kyoto protocol, after its main provisions expire at the end of 2012. That will prolong the shelf-life of a treaty that imposes no emissions-cutting burden on any developing country.

In return, all countries have agreed to negotiate a new mitigation regime by 2015 and make it operational by 2020. Crucially, this new regime will see the burden of emission-cutting shared among all countries, even if rich ones will still be expected to do much more than poorer countries.

This commitment, which was reached despite last-ditch resistance from China and India, and despite little enthusiasm for it from America, looks like the Durban summit’s biggest achievement. It promises to break a divisive and anachronistic distinction between developed and developing countries, which has thoroughly poisoned the waters of the UN process. It has also rendered it ineffective, given that the so-called developing countries given a free pass under Kyoto, including South Korea and Saudi Arabia as well as China and India, are now responsible for 58% of global emissions.

That is why the biggest developing-country polluters, chiefly China and India, were so reluctant to relinquish their freedom to pollute. With most other elements of a deal in place, almost 36 hours after the climate summit was due to have ended, the Indians were the last major obstacle to it. Their particular objection was to the insistence of the EU and its allies that the successor to Kyoto must be legally binding on all countries. “Am I to write a blank cheque and sign away the livelihoods and sustainability of 1.2 billion Indians, without even knowing what [the new agreement] contains?” asked the Indian environment minister, Jayanti Natarajan. “I wonder if this is an agenda to shift the blame on to countries who are not responsible [for climate change].”

With the prospect of no deal looming, the Europeans and Indian delegations were urged to go “into a huddle” in the middle of the conference hall and work out a compromise. They did so and, as per a Brazilian suggestion, agreed that the putative new deal would be “a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force.” 

What that may mean is anyone’s guess. It was sufficient for the EU, whose belief in legally enforceable international agreements is shared by the Brazilians, to claim success. Yet it is also unclear how important this distinction really is. The Kyoto protocol is legally binding, but contains no provisions to enforce penalties against those who fail in their mitigation endeavours. This has allowed Canada to overshoot its target, massively, with impunity. Unless penalties for failure are inserted into the successor protocol, or instrument, or outcome—which China and India would almost certainly not allow—it is hard to imagine how it would have greater force.

A more important issue will be the scale of the future regime’s ambition to curb global warming, as reflected in the mitigation targets countries assume under it. The Durban agreement includes an acknowledgement that there is a widening gap between the mitigation efforts currently promised and those required to keep warming within the broadly recognised 2°C safety limit. It remains to be seen whether this will spur countries to take the costly actions that closing this gap would require. The inadequacy of action on climate change hitherto suggests it may not.

Agreement was also reached in Durban on a package of other climate-friendly additional measures. Perhaps most notably, they included agreement on the broad design of a global Green Climate Fund, which will funnel some of the $100 billion that rich countries have promised to make available to poor ones by 2020, to help them cut emissions and adapt to climate change. Again, there was no agreement—and little discussion—on the important question of where the money will be found.

Business leaders, among whom such things matter, appeared unimpressed by these omissions. “The agreement reached was more of a victory for the UN process, than for the global climate, or in creating a new business imperative,” said Jonathan Grant, head of sustainability and climate change at PwC. “Business will shrug its shoulders over Durban and wait for direction from national capitals.”

Among the main players in Durban, the Europeans emerged with most credit. Even as EU leaders were attempting to negotiate the survival of their currency, in Brussels on December 9th, their negotiators were most prominent in Durban and surprisingly forthright. A cynic might reflect that this signalled how toothless the UN process has become. Yet the Europeans’ efforts were appreciated by many developing countries, including poor African and small island ones most threatened by global warming. Their strong support for the EU’s proposals made it much harder for the Indians and Chinese to decry them as a developed-world plot against the poor and helpless.

Among the big developing countries, India may feel most aggrieved. Not unreasonably, it fears that any mitigation action will impose costs on it that it can ill afford to pay, in particular by constraining its ability to grow its economy and thereby withdraw millions from poverty. China, the world’s biggest polluter, whose average emissions per head are already bigger than some European countries, will worry less. It has long seemed resigned to having to undertake more stringent emissions-cutting, indeed its recent heavy investments in renewable energy and energy-efficiency schemes suggest it foresees profits in this.

America has reason to be glad of the outcome. It has long bewailed the asymmetry of the Kyoto protocol—this was the ostensible reason why it failed to ratify it. Yet it was apparent in Durban that the American negotiators, envoys of a put-upon Democratic president, showed little enthusiasm for almost any part of the international process.

Their objections to some elements of the final deal were, though roundly denounced, in fact perfectly reasonable. They worried, for example, that the global Fund would be too tightly bound to the wider—slow-moving and largely ineffective—UN process. It is a shame they could not get their way in keeping it more separate.
And yet, that the world’s most powerful country—whose scientists have made a vast contribution to climate science—was reduced to playing a bit-part in negotiations over the future of the world’s climate was more than unimpressive. It was demeaning. And next time America demands that China, India or Brazil take bold steps for the global good, on trade or security, it will no doubt be remembered.

(Photo credit: AFP)

“I’M SORRY,” said the UN bureaucrat, a flush of emotion flickering across his perspiring face. “I’m sorry, but this is something that bothers me a lot.” He paused to compose himself.

The problem was the Saudi Arabians, who the previous night had threatened to block the passage of a parcel of agreements at the ongoing UN climate change summit in Durban. They were demanding an addition to it—a commitment to look into ways to compensate oil producers for the losses they would suffer if the world stopped burning fossil fuels. If this did not happen, the oil sheikhs would withhold their support from the entire package, of finance, forestry, technology and other climate-friendly measures.

Most of the scores of diplomats present were appalled. Not least those from small island nations, like Kiribati and Tuvalu, which are likely to disappear beneath the rising seas long before the Saudis have drained their last well. But it mattered naught. Agreements can only be reached at the UN climate summit—properly known as the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (or COP 17)—through a consensus of the 200-odd countries represented at it. After a fraught few hours of bickering, the Saudis got their wretched commitment.

“It’s no coincidence that countries like that have the best-paid, most highly-skilled and biggest teams of negotiators,” said the UN man glumly. “So when everyone else is falling over with exhaustion, they can introduce fresh people and hammer away until they get what they want.”

He suspected worse to come. Next year’s summit, COP 18, will be held in Qatar. This, he feared, would be a fine setting for oil producers, led by the Saudis, to cause further disruption to the UN process, or perhaps attempt a heist on the climate-related aid it has arranged for the world’s poorest countries. Did he think the Saudis might be buying up national votes in support of their demand, as Japan does for its whalers and all countries do for their Olympic bids? The UN man couldn’t rule it out.

UN climate summits, as this small drama might suggest, are not merely about cooling the planet. If they were, they would probably have had more success. Since the UN’s framework convention was agreed in 1992 the world’s emissions have soared. In fact the UN process might be better characterised, as per the Saudis’ obstructive example, as the sum of many countries’ efforts not to cool the planet. This is because cutting greenhouse-gas emissions is liable to be expensive, and no country is keen to pay the cost. Making matters worse, as is all too evident in Durban, the biggest polluters, America, China and India, are especially unwilling.

It is easy to be dismayed by this. Rarely, or never, has such an epic problem as global warming been so dismally handled. And as the two-week summit has dragged on, in a walled city of conference centres, temporary offices and jerry-rigged parking lots in the centre of Durban, your correspondent has started to feel almost as gloomy as the man from the UN. Yet this does not seem to be the average response to the summit.

Among the multitude of academics, journalists, entrepreneurs and environmental activists drawn to the summit to give scientific lectures, hawk technologies or paint themselves green and jump up and down, spirits appear to be high. Many even look distinctly happy to be here, among so many old friends and allies, spending the days at green lectures and protests, and the nights in a whirl of green-themed parties. If nothing else, climate summits like this one have become a really tremendous green scene.

The hub of the Durban summit is a large warehouse next to the main conference centre, where scores of NGOs have set up stalls to advertise themselves. Their representatives, many wearing “I love KP” t-shirts, to signal their support for the Kyoto protocol, a failed UN agreement to cut emissions, also host small lectures and panel discussions in its corridors. Many of these draw no audience at all. Undaunted, the greens video and post them on their websites.

At the warehouse entrance is a sort of speakers' corner, set aside for small protests by beaded Amazonians, street artists and the like. Some are harder to understand than others. Holding a large replica cheque, three Chinese greens stood chanting in such heavily accented English that it was impossible to make out what they were shouting; it was something like “Sign here Lee Kwan Yew.” The NGO videographers film and post these protests too.

A more predictable protest takes place inside the warehouse, a daily “Fossil of the Day” awards ceremony, conducted by a bunch of German greens. (America, Canada, Japan, Russia, China and New Zealand have all won prizes—America winning a special Fossil of the 21st Century award after its head negotiator described the effort to limit warming to two degrees as a mere aspiration.)

This green action has a lot going for it. Over the past decade or so, environmentalism has come in from the margins. Even among the NGOs, there are many more suits than sandals and feathers on display at the COP. And the average greens, if this congregation is any guide, are serious advocates of their cause, articulate and well-informed.

But it is also hard to know who is being persuaded by their arguments: I’d wager that almost everyone browsing the NGO stalls and protests already has been persuaded. This makes the green scene both unworldly and perhaps faintly annoying, even if it is still heroic.. Durban is not, I suspect, merely a forum for new ideas, though there are certainly some good ones around. It is also a way for put-upon greens to harden their convictions, among their own kind, before heading back out to that unfriendly and ungreen world outside.

Women and work
Should more be done to increase women’s participation in the workforce? Expert guests convene at our online debating site to discuss the motion “This house believes that a woman’s place is at work”. The floor is open for your comments, and the result depends upon your votes

Festival voices
Geoffrey Hill, considered one of the best poets writing in English, is appearing at The Economist’s inaugural Books of the Year festival along with Simon Sebag Montefiore, Janine de Giovanni and others. He spoke to us about politics, art and the impact of religion on his work

Baroque ain’t everything
Who would swap Vienna for boring Geneva or grey Prague? Alas, companies locating a regional headquarters for central and eastern Europe are putting good communications, infrastructure and an internationally minded labour force ahead of grand opera and Sachertorte

Europe: This time it’s serious
Our correspondent reports from the latest euro summit, as Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy present their plan to fellow leaders

United States: A month of surprises
A videographic breaking down the November data on America’s presidential election

United States: Jon Huntsman comes to town
A photographic look at a Republican candidate’s tour of New Hampshire

Africa: Until death do us part
A bill criminalising same-sex marriage in Nigeria could hinder the efforts of groups helping those most at risk of AIDS

Middle East: Portraits of a revolution
A German-British artist has been painting Syrians during the uprising

Asia: Bombay naval-gazing
A Sunday afternoon spent by the Gateway of India, watching the gunboats, camera-phones and flying colours go by

Business education: No research required
Should it matter to students whether a business school has a strong research base? Our diarist thinks not

Culture: Loony tunes
Companies sometimes choose rather odd music to accompany their adverts

Business: Talking with Richard Branson
Doing good does not have to hurt the bottom line, say the authors of a new book about corporate philanthropy

Technology: RegulationVille
South Koreans are among the world’s biggest consumers of smartphone apps, but mobile games have not really taken off—until now

Europe: The busy Balkans
The centre-left wins elections in Slovenia and Croatia; Macedonia wins an international-court ruling; and Serbia anxiously awaits a verdict on its EU bid

ARE the men who run China brilliant strategists or accident-prone apparatchiks, who can appear strikingly naïve about the wider world? For proponents of the second of these popular caricatures, China’s behaviour thus far at the UN’s climate change summit in Durban might look like evidence.

On December 6th Xie Zhenhua, the head of the Chinese delegation, told journalists that China was willing to be part of a new, legally binding global agreement to mitigate greenhouse-gas emissions, which could come into force by 2020. This sounded like an unexpected breakthrough in the talks.

China, the world’s biggest polluter, had previously been reluctant to discuss any replacement of the existing agreement, the Kyoto protocol, which only binds developed countries to cut their emissions. The treaty, the main provisions of which expire at the end of next year, has therefore failed to curb global emissions. Since it was negotiated, in 1997, emissions have risen by over a quarter, mainly in developing countries, which are now responsible for 58% of the total.

To address this, the European Union is trying to replace Kyoto with another agreement, soon after 2015. This would bind rich countries to more stringent emissions cuts and developing ones to slow the growth in their emissions. In return for all countries accepting such an arrangement, the Europeans are willing to honour developing countries’ main demand in Durban, by agreeing to a second round of emissions-cutting commitment under Kyoto. And Mr Xie, it seemed, was giving China’s blessing to the main tenets of this plan.

His words therefore sent a shiver of excitement through the sprawling compendium of conferences centres, hotels and revamped car parks where the UN summit is taking place. They also put the wind up America, the second biggest polluter, and India, the third biggest, though for different reasons.

America, whose annual emissions per head are 19.3 tonnes, more than those of almost any other country, is also not bound by Kyoto, having failed to ratify it. It nonetheless claims to be willing to enter into an alternative emissions-cutting agreement, such as the one outlined by the Europeans, so long as it is equally binding on all countries. In practice, however, many suspect this is a smokescreen: that, given what political poison climate change is in America, its negotiators may be unable to commit to participating in any new regime that the US Congress would have to ratify.

India, whose annual emissions per citizen are a mere 1.2 tonnes, has a more righteous concern. With still 400m Indians mired in poverty, and liable to suffer the effects of climate change grievously, India’s need for economic growth is even more pressing than China’s. And, not unreasonably, India fears that even modest mitigation measures, such as those the Europeans envisage for it, would constrain its ability to grow. To resist western pressure, India along with China, Brazil and South Africa have formed a negotiating block whose single main demand is for the Kyoto protocol to be extended. Yet Mr Xie’s words suggested China was about to break rank. That would probably leave India and America as the two main barriers to the Europeans’ proposal.

But it now seems more likely that Mr Xie didn’t quite mean what he said. In subsequent negotiations he refused to confirm that China would, as he had suggested, accept a binding international obligation to slow the growth in its emissions. He suggested that though China would be part of a new agreement, only rich countries would actually be bound by it.

China’s allies in Durban appear to be as perplexed as anyone by this. European and American negotiators were more damning. Many dismissed Mr Xie’s initial comments as a rather lame attempt to avoid a repeat of the opprobrium heaped on China after a previous failed rendition of the UN summit, in Copenhagen two years ago. “Minister Xie spoke warmly about the need for a legally binding deal. Does that then mean that China will also be legally bound?” asked Connie Hedegaard, the EU’s climate commissioner, on Twitter. “Sometimes messages are more progressive at public press conferences than in negotiation rooms.”

China may yet play the constructive role Mr Xie had seemed to promise. If previous versions of the climate summit are any guide, most countries will resist showing their hand until an arduous final negotiating session. There are also more modest signs that China is taking the UN process—or at least its reputation in it—more seriously than it has before. It has, for the first time, pitched an official China pavilion in the grounds of the main conference centre; there are also many representatives of China’s fast-growing renewable energy firms patrolling its corridors. 

But for now it looks likelier that Mr Xie misspoke and the summit will drift towards the underwhelming conclusion that many had predicted for it. That might well involve an agreement of some sort. A popular possibility might be, on one hand, a half-hearted statement of openness towards future negotiations from the developing countries; and on the other a blurry or partial extension of the Kyoto protocol by the Europeans.

There is also likely to be modest progress on a clutch of lesser issues, including the launch of a Green Climate Fund, to help poor countries cope with global warming. Such inching progress would almost certainly be enough to ensure the UN process continues. It would of course be very much less than the urgent action required.