Here, you can forget the so-called special relationship between Britain and America: the two disagree fundamentally on how to tackle global warming.

Britain has been at the forefront of climate change negotiations held under the auspices of the UN, while the United States, the world's biggest producer of greenhouse gases, has refused to implement the reductions required by the Kyoto protocol.

As if to underline the point, Britain's place at the climate change negotiations has been filled not by its Foreign Office team, but by its environment ministers. At one memorable meeting in November 2000, a last minute deal hammered out by the environment secretary and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott fell apart - he said, because the French environment minister was too tired to sign.

In Kyoto, December 1997 the UN brokered the world's first treaty to tackle global warming. Signatories pledged to cut their greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade by just over five per cent from 1990 levels.

But the USA has dragged its feet on implementing the Kyoto protocol and in March 2001, the new president, George W Bush abandoned the Kyoto treaty altogether, saying it is against his country's economic interests.