This week all air routes will be leading to Copenhagen. World leaders  (including John Key) will be heading there to the biggest environmental summit since that held at Rio De Janeiro in 1992.

I have been doubtful until now that anything would be achieved there. Until a few weeks ago, diplomats and environmental activists alike were concerned that there would be no outcome. That was until US President Barack Obama decided to show up and that could be the game changer.

After all, the US was the chief climate change sceptic during the George W. Bush years. All attempts to get the US to ratify the Kyoto Treaty were to no avail. Bush, with both him and his family having been heavily involved in the oil business, was easy prey for the big energy lobby. This lobby, consisting of the coal, gas and oil industries didn't want to see their right to pollute stripped away. Therefore, in the White House they had a very good and reliable friend.

Now things have changed with the advent of the Obama Administration. The new president and his team have outlined the need for the US to reduce carbon emissions by up to 17 percent by 2020. While this target is admittedly a paltry one, it is still a good first step from one of the world's leading carbon emitters. With the US now preparing to play ball, more world leaders have sat up and taken notice. Hence, the anticipated great stampede of over 90 of them to Copenhagen within the next fortnight.

While I have increasing concerns about Obama's direction, particularly with respect to Afghanistan and Guantanamo, this turnaround in official American policy on climate change, at least, is to be welcomed. Even though the Obama Administration still plans to set up a similar emissions trading regime (known in the US as cap and trade) to that used in New Zealand, any acceptance by one of the world's greatest polluters that it has to be seen to take the moral and political lead on climate change has to be good. 

But it must be pointed out that other nations have edged ahead of the US (and others) in addressing climate change. The Scandanavian nations of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland have begun developing new green industries. They have also adopted tough environmental standards that apply to almost every facet of economic activity from energy production to public transport.

However, few nations have followed the Scandanavian's lead. With the US being the world's dominant superpower and economy, the rest of the global community appears to live in fear of upsetting them. After all, remember how the Americans treat countries that don't toe their political line? Recent history is littered with numerous examples from Cuba to Chile to Panama to Pakistan. Only the Scandanavian states who have, by and large (apart from Norway) exhibited a strong sense of independence in terms of their foreign policies, have felt emboldened enough to strike out in the way they have done on environmental policy.

So, with Barack Obama planning to make a dash on Air Force One to Copenhagen, other leaders have let their guard down and have agreed to go too. The thinking goes that if the US President feels it's important to show up at the biggest environmental policy talk fest in a decade, then a deal could be done. What sort of deal it will be remains to be seen. If the US has it hands all over it, there will be the interests of American domestic capital to satisfy. The big energy lobby will be in the background ready to deploy its troops should Obama come home with a deal to try and scuttle it in Congress. Obama, already facing a corporate backlash over health care reform, will not want this. That's why Obama and his negotiating team will be behind a deal that will see carbon emissions cut by only 20-25 percent whereas scientific consensus holds that a 40 percent cut is warranted by 2050.

Already those corporate forces are at work. This week, the conservative American news network Fox News has been gleefully making hay out of revelations that British researchers may have exaggerated climate change predictions. These revelations, contained in leaked emails, have seen the political right and their corporate allies use them in an attempt to discredit the environmental movement just before Copenhagen. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have pledged to investigate these allegations but my hope is that the anti-environmentalist crowd will not have much to sing about when it's completed.

This will likely be the case as evidence of human induced climate change is all around us. Just in the last week, evidence of continued Antarctic ice sheet melt, in the form of icebergs, have continued to drift towards New Zealand. Summer bush fires continue to rage in outback Australia while the residents of Moscow 'bask' in winter temperatures of plus 10 degrees celsius.  If this isn't evidence of climate change, then what is?

That's why the air routes to Copenhagen will become clogged up during the next few weeks. We can only hope that Barack Obama, John Key, Kevin Rudd, Nicholas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, Hu Jintao, Manmohan Singh and the umpteen other leaders all going there will plant some trees on their return to make up for the carbon expelled from the aircraft carrying them there.

Above all, a real climate change deal is what is needed from Copenhagen and one that pledges a dramatic cut in emissions by 2050.

That is the least we should ask for.