Mal Fletcher comments

In Britain, we know a lot about spin. The Chilcot inquiry is already revealing the depth of doubt felt at the highest levels of government about the legitimacy of an Iraq war prior to the conflict.

This is why, when the so-called 'climate-gate', leaked emails story broke, many people were unsurprised. People suspect that, if media spin can be so effectively used to manipulate public perception in sending a nation to war, it may well be in use on other big political issues, such as climate change.

In the UK, there has been very little true debate in the media about the reality of global warming, or its human causes, or its likely outcomes.

Even science itself has become infected with the spin disease, with advocates on both sides of the climate debate becoming more and more adept at generating soundbites and suggesting headlines. This has cost science some of its lustre and moral authority - right when we need science the most.

In an age of heavy political spin, the average media consumer has become wary of any overly one-sided point of view which is repeated ad infinitum in news reports.

This is perhaps the big lessons to come out of the Copenhagen summit: if you clothe a big issue in spin, the world will eventually come to see that the king has no clothes. It's appropriate that such a lesson should be learned in the home of Hans Christian Anderson.

If we're to find the truth amidst climate claim and counter-claim, if we're to arrive at a workable solution, we have work to do on the human element in the debate.

Science will need less arrogance, politics less spin, media more objectivity and public debate more balance.