Central to moving the world forward along a unified climate action path is a successor to the Kyoto Protocol that expires in December 2012. Yet for all the support from developing nations and the EU for an extension of Kyoto beyond 2012, albeit with modifications, the discussion on extending Kyoto will now be put off until South Africa. Failure on this next year would likely be the end of the UN process, yet even an agreement on an extension may come too late to prevent a gap between Kyoto versions one and two with just twelve months to implement a new commitment period.

There was never any expectation that a global deal would be achieved in Cancun, yet even the areas of climate progress agreed need to be placed in context. The key element of the Cancun Agreements is that developing country actions to reduce emissions are officially recognized under the multilateral process. Yet this action is unfortunately diluted by there being no targets to measure progress against with progress reports only published every two years. Given the parlous state of global emissions an annual reporting process would be more effective.

Also, although there was an agreement to cap emissions growth in developing economies no date for the cap has been set. The UK has called for emissions growth to be capped from 2020, and until a date is set there will be little prospect of agreeing Kyoto 2.

Set against these concerns there are two strong positives to come out of Cancun – the strengthening of the Clean Development Mechanism to drive sustainable emission reduction projects in the developing world, and the establishment of a Green Climate Fund.

After the failure of Copenhagen any progress at Cancun was always going to be hailed as a success. Yet the only real success to emerge is, as UNFCCC executive secretary Christiana Figueres noted, “that nations have shown they work together under a common roof, to reach consensus on a common cause.” They now have to work together for the next twelve months and beyond.

Based on the 2007 Bali Action Plan the world is now two years behind schedule on a new global agreement with no certainty such an agreement will materialize next December. And in this respect the media coverage is correct, Cancun has not saved the climate, but it has saved the face of the UNFCCC.

This sentiment is endorsed by a new survey published by ratings group Standard & Poor’s and carbon analysis and advisory firm RepuTex, which finds that nine out of 10 respondents were concerned about the impact of physical climate change on their industry. But the survey also found that most survey respondents do not have a good understanding of climate risks and how to manage them, which tempers this positive endorsement of the need for climate action.

The key risks faced by climate change can be grouped into three categories – physical, financial and regulatory. Yet while over half the survey respondents viewed these risks as serious only a minority could demonstrate a good understanding of them with the survey finding general poor awareness of carbon pricing, expected climate regulation and the associated financial risks.

Current business sentiment to climate change in the Asia-Pacific region mirrors that in the European market five years ago, yet the key difference between the two regions is that climate legislation was already in place in Europe. So while European businesses were largely reactive to climate legislation their Asia-Pacific counterparts want to pre-empt legislation to gain an early competitive advantage. This is welcome news.

The problems with a top-down approach to climate action are painfully transparent; the US has struggled with its comprehensive climate legislation and has now been forced to address a phased approach, while the Australian government continues to project policy uncertainty. Even the EU has had problems in agreeing emission reduction targets.

Although climate legislation is necessary it is not a pre-requisite for climate action. Asia-Pacific businesses should not wait for legislation before taking action and those that take early action will likely be rewarded, with investors increasingly analysing corporate carbon performance and investing accordingly. As such, businesses taking early action will likely be rewarded with strong competitive advantages.

But to achieve any competitive advantage businesses need to fully understand the risk-reward scenarios presented by climate change. This will require investment in climate expertise, either in-house or outsourcing, although the costs involved will be dwarfed by the potential competitive advantages accrued.

Tomorrow’s Asia-Pacific business leaders will be those that take early action to address climate change and become more socially responsible. There are no excuses for delaying action; indeed the risks of delaying action are greater than taking action now.

Optimists are talking of progress toward a $100bn annual fund transfer from rich to poor countries to assist with climate change adaptation, although not unsurprisingly the recipients claim the sum is inadequate. And even if the fund is rubber-stamped at next month’s Cancun summit it can hardy be cited as major progress, particularly given the poor track record of climate funding by the ‘rich’ developed economies that suggests any new climate funding commitment may not be fully met.

What characterised Tianjin was the renewed bickering between the US and Chinese delegations; China blamed the US for failing to meet its responsibilities to cut emissions and for trying to overturn UN principles, while the US accused China of refusing to have its voluntary energy savings verified internationally. Neither is likely to give any ground on these views at Cancun.

Only an eternal optimist could claim there are any legs left in the UN process. In the ten month’s since the failure of the UN’s Copenhagen summit there has been no progress toward healing divisions between rich and poor countries, with the renewed warring between the US and China showing that the world’s two major economies and emitters have little respect for the other’s position. If there is no agreement between the US and China then there can be no global agreement.

Unfortunately Cancun does not offer any hope, just more frustration.

If the world remains sincere in its belief that a global agreement is necessary to mitigate and adapt to climate change then it should look to the system and processes currently being used, as it clearly is no longer working efficiently and effectively. The US clearly does not have full confidence in the UN process and, if they were honest, many other nations would probably express similar reservations.

Just as with climate science, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change undergoing a review this year, the UN should voluntarily submit its climate system and processes for independent review and accept any recommendations made. It may be that the UN remains the best option for steering the world toward climate action consensus, but any process can only work if it has the full confidence of all participants and currently the UN does not appear to have this support.

“Greenwash” responded the leaderless Labour opposition, with shadow energy and climate secretary, and now Labour leader, Ed Milliband using a Guardian column as an early postmortem on the government’s claims, dismissing their claims of climate action and putting forward his own action points. And now he is Labour leader the environmental lobby is already eulogizing about him being the greenest political leader ever. Not so much ‘red Ed’ (due to his strong union backing) but ‘green Ed’. How colourful. How pointless.

Ever since Tony Blair elevated climate change to the top of the economic agenda at the 2005 Gleneagles G20 summit climate change has seemingly become a political legacy building exercise. Blair has since exited domestic politics and associated himself with (among other ‘worthwhile’ causes) climate change, taking every opportunity to warn of climate Armageddon if climate mitigation action is delayed. His successor, Gordon Brown, then put himself forward as a climate savior during his brief tenure at 10 Downing Street, but for all his blusterous preaching still no progress was made.

Seemingly blinkered by the perceived political values of espousing green credentials the coalition government is keen to ‘out-green’ the opposition. Labour rubbishes the government’s green credentials and the government responds by rubbishing the previous government’s record. In a Chatham House speech last week energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne said of climate action under the last government: “In the UK, we did not follow through on our political leadership. There were warm words and evangelism, but not enough spelling out of the hard-headed consequences if we do not act.”

Enough of this puerile green political point scoring; actions speak loader than green rhetoric and the simple truth is that policy actions to date have not delivered the necessary confidence that global warming can be mitigated.

According to Friends of the Earth, “Ed Miliband genuinely understands that tackling global warming is essential,” citing him being a “key figure in the development and passing of the UK’s ground-breaking Climate Change Act.” Yet it was the opposition Conservatives that published the first “draft” Climate Change Act. And to imply, as the FoE does, that the current government does not “genuinely understand” the importance of tackling global warming is disingenuous.

Addressing the climate challenge, Huhne says the UK “must lead by example.”  A good example would be to engage in constructive political debate. Climate change is not the preserve of the political left or right, neither is it a legacy tool. May’s general election was not decided on environmental policies and nor will the next election in 2015.

Both the government and opposition have to cease their incessant green evangelism. Neither is greener than the other.