The deal that emerged in Copenhagen allows Obama to claim that he got China to meet America's demand that it provide accountability of its actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The issue had been one of the biggest sticking points in negotiations, and getting some elements of a compromise from China was crucial to Obama's efforts to get the legislation through the Senate...  Africa - The talks saw Africa assert itself on the world stage. The poorest and climatically most vulnerable continent has the most to lose from temperature increases and formed its own negotiating group for the first time. 

But the continent also threw up one of the most interesting new figures on the world stage. Lumumba Di-aping, the Sudanese ambassador to New York, is a McKinsey and Oxford-trained radical economist who not only matched the media spin of western countries, but was partly behind George Soros's plan to use hundreds of billions of dollars of IMF special drawing rights to fund the financial deal.

In the end, the west exerted its traditional influence in Africa. President Meles was courted strongly by presidents Sarkozy, Brown and Obama in the days before the world leaders met, to try to bring Africa aboard the west's deal.

Meles proposed that developing countries accept $100bn a year – a remarkably similar sum to what the west had suggested. The accusations soon flew that Ethiopia had been bought and Meles was immediately slapped down by his peers.

Africa ended the talks divided, but knowing that it now plays a far more important role in the new politics of climate change.

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