Yet Cancun doesn’t have to finish up before we can start looking at where we go next. Nor are huge international summits the only way forward. For Europe, if the road to a global deal is blocked, there are other routes to take. The EU can make progress on climate change without the entire world’s simultaneous agreement, and should not stay purely on the multilateral track that is leading to the same dead end as the WTO-negotiations on the Doha-round. This is where the EU, which is in itself the world’s biggest multilateral adventure, has to demonstrate ingenuity and innovation. Bilateral agreements with nation states outside Europe and cooperation with non-state actors are two ways forward.

In the absence of a worldwide deal, the EU should pursue climate change agreements with countries like China, India and Brazil that can be initiated bilaterally and then feed into the global system. These should be based on joint reduction-settings, and include EU soft loans for buying energy efficiency and renewables. A similar approach is already working in the arena of free trade; having recognised that global free trade talks were stalled, the EU has bilateral trade agreements in the pipeline with several Asian countries. These might prove to be the stepping stone for returning to a global agreement. Likewise, bilateral climate change deals could be the building blocks that later allow the EU to return to the multilateral table, bolstered by new partners who support a global deal.

Let us examine the potential for greater EU engagement with China on climate change. This is not to point an environmental finger at Beijing. The US is a much larger per capita emitter than China, but is gridlocked internally and with the likes of Sarah Palin talking about a climate change ‘hoax,’ any deal with Washington seems unlikely in the near future. Meanwhile, China is the world’s largest emitter, albeit with lower per capita levels, and climate change is already a major priority in EU’s relations with China.

We shouldn’t underestimate the EU’s influence. Copenhagen is perceived as a disaster for the EU yet many concrete Chinese projects like carbon-free cities are developing because of the EU not the US. The EU should enhance that and develop a concrete partnership with China based on the latter’s own ambitions relating to energy efficiency. The next key phase is the current elaboration of the new Five Year plan in March 2011. China wants to achieve sustainable growth. The EU should be plugged even further into this. In this area, existing networks with internal Chinese actors will also an asset, and there are huge economic possibilities for the EU. As a study by the HSBC bank concludes, the low carbon energy market in the European Union and China already makes up half the global market; this proportion is projected to grow further by 2020. The EU should, however, remember to push for reciprocity. For example, Europe could seek to include in any energy efficiency deal measures that would gradually see China’s national aims become binding targets for a multilateral solution. The EU would only bring its valuable technologies to the table if China also was willing to gradually re-commit to higher multilateral targets.

The EU must also expand its policy options by examining the potential of bottom-up approaches and cooperation with non-state actors. Just as the EU itself is a multi-layered civilian power, with interplay between nation-states, civil society groups and citizens, the new world order is not only about power shifts to the emerging BRIC powers. It is also about the development of a flat, inter-wired world with non-state actors influencing global governance. It is these transnational networks of business, industry and citizens that EU should cooperate with in curbing climate change. It is business that will produce the new innovative solutions to climate change – not the dictates of government. It is citizens and groups that demand that their pension funds orient their investments in a climate friendly direction. And finally it is individual decisions that make people change lifestyle and reduce their carbon footprints. Look at the newspaper ads leading up to Cancun in the UK by a group of companies lobbying for stricter corporate reporting on carbon emissions! If such initiatives spread to Chinese and American companies, that would influence their government and could strengthen the push for climate change far more than international pressure at global summits.

The EU should not give up on global multilateralism — its own raison d’etre. While pursuing bilateral deals, there is also room for joining forces with other states and regional groupings. For example, although the EU acting alone has had little success in its attempts to pressure China into greater commitment to the multilateral track, the solution could be for Europe to cooperate with others in influencing Beijing through Climate Change agreements. Likewise, the bottom-up approach to multilateralism that engages business and civil society has the potential to succeed where efforts to persuade governments have failed. While it waits for the world to inch towards a global deal, the EU can take positive strides in other directions using the best of its own peculiar form of transnational network and civilian engagement.

Jonas Parello-Plesner is a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He has worked as senior advisor with the Danish government on Asian affairs. He is on the board of editors of the Danish magazine Raeson.