This time last year, the media was awash with coverage about the potential of the Copenhagen negotiations to transform the debate on climate change. I was one of the 50,000 people preparing to take part in The Wave demonstration which successfully brought together campaigning and civic groups as diverse as the Cooperative and Scouts to highlight public support for the ambitious stance being taken by our then government. The UK delegation, led by energy secretary Ed Miliband, took to Copenhagen a progressive demand for a comprehensive international deal underpinned by both a positive domestic record – encapsulated by the climate change act – and a willingness to fund a much-needed transition elsewhere in the world.

Since then, international negotiations on climate change have stalled. Progressive parties that supported – or tried to pursue climate policies – have faltered or been defeated in the UK, Australia and elsewhere. Difficulties for social democratic and centre left parties in the face of the global downturn have coincided with the lack of progress on international climate policy. The recent triumph by the Republicans in the US mid-terms starkly illustrates the difficulties faced by progressive politicians. Following the Republican gains in the election, Karl Rove declared that ‘climate is gone’ as a political issue. In many ways, it is hard to disagree.

These set-backs have not been limited to the international stage; comparing the approach of Labour ministers in the run-up to Copenhagen to the stance taken by the coalition in recent months reveals a huge difference. As energy secretary, Ed Miliband inherited a target to reduce carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 which he increased to 80 per cent. The government worked with campaigning groups to help build a national campaign in run up to the negotiations. The Ed’s Pledge website became a forum for thousands of activists – alongside other progressive groups such as 38 Degrees – to encourage local activity in support of ambitious ends.

Despite some warm rhetoric, you could be forgiven for thinking that the new government has forgotten that Cancun is happening. In recent days, David Cameron has placed a few chosen words in the liberal press but that hardly justifies a national effort. Whilst promising to be the ‘greenest ever’ government, Cameron did not mention climate change once in his conference speech this year. The new energy secretary has already admitted that his hopes for Cancun are modest at best.

The missing element from the government’s approach is aspiration. The difficulty for the coalition is that, whatever the good intentions of some ministers, its entire policy approach is defined by spending cuts and its response to the recession. The driving force behind the government is an overt attempt to shrink the role of the state. In the face of that analysis it is hard to develop an understanding of the importance of government in bringing about positive environmental change and the transition to a low carbon economy; something that the ‘big society’ or individual policy initiatives aimed at consumers alone cannot overcome.

Climate change is the greatest market failure that society has witnessed. It requires an ambitious international agenda matched by inspired action at a national and community level. As Ed Miliband rightly stated at the National Policy Forum last weekend: ‘It’s got to be about a serious engagement about how our policy agenda needs to change and how climate change needs to be at the core of it.’

But there are reasons to be cheerful. Alongside the official conference proceedings in Cancun thousands of campaigners, trade unionists and community groups are also gathering to help ensure grassroots pressure on delegations. Speaking to UNISON Deputy Secretary Keith Sonnet before he left for Cancun as part of the TUC delegation, he commented:

‘We are clearly in a very different place to where we were in 2009. There was, looking back, genuine hope that we were on the brink of a real breakthrough in the talks. Everyone agrees that such an agreement is beyond expectations this year but that important incremental advances can be made, not least on the importance of social protection in relation to adaptation, the role of unions and workers rights in REDD, and on the establishment and operation of climate finance fund to ensure climate justice.’

The next few weeks are an opportunity for the new government to prove its critics wrong on climate change. Ministers have the chance to continue the good work started by Labour to help promote a new climate framework and ensure a fair and just transition by economies in the developed world. Not least, they need to protect the $100 billion climate fund announced at Copenhagen to assist with adaptation and prevent deforestation, an initiative championed by Gordon Brown. The early signs are not hopeful.

But the real lesson from 2010 is one of failure either to create the international conditions for a successful outcome in Cancun or to create a body of opinion strong enough to ensure that our own government acts. In the face of the recession, climate change has become subsumed by other more pressing needs as students face extraordinary fee increases and public services creak under the pressure of the speed of cuts. We need a renewed movement for change that can focus attention on the link between the short-term folly of the coalition’s approach and the long term challenges facing the UK and global economy on issues such as climate change. We must use the year ahead to listen and work with new allies (and some old) and – as the newly announced policy review suggests – set out a positive Labour alternative that harnesses the energy of a new generation of campaigners to effect change.

Photo: Jesus Martinez

Andrew Pakes is co-chair of SERA, the Labour Environment Campaign