In the weeks since the disappointing outcome at Copenhagen (see our blog), much of the focus has been on the blame game, with commentators blaming China, the US and Denmark among others. As the UN climate chief Yvo de Boer has pointed out, this exercise is pointless and will certainly not help to improve the prospects for agreeing a global and legally binding deal on climate change.

There will be a COP16 in Mexico at the end of the year and Mexican presidency has a mandate to undertake consultations. However, there is still very little detail on how this COP16 will be prepared (beyond a mooted meeting of the UNFCCC in Bonn at the beginning of June) and, indeed, what it will hope to achieve.

EU environment ministers are meeting this weekend in Spain and climate change will be high on the agenda. The new Spanish presidency of the EU has already prepared a draft 'roadmap' to this end and the European Commission is also expected to outline a strategy this week.

Key to this will be rebuilding the trust of the developing countries and the emerging economies, by moving first under Kyoto Protocol track if necessary. A real show of leadership, which was lamentably lacking in Copenhagen, will be crucial for this.

For the EU, the elephant in the room remains its failure to improve on its unambitious, two year-old emissions pledge (a 20% reduction by 2020 from 1990 levels). Some EU member states are already pushing for the EU to step up to a 30% reduction pledge (notably the UK), with an eye on the deadline of 31 January for industrialised countries to officially submit their emissions pledges for inclusion in an annex to the Copenhagen Accord. Clearly, the status of this vague and contentious accord remains unclear.

Restoring the EU's credibility in global climate policy will also be a key task for the new EU climate commissioner.

The Greens were sceptical about the logic of creating a post of climate commissioner and separating the competence of climate change from that of the European Commission environment directorate. Now that the post has been created, the new commissioner's primary task will be to restore coherence of internal policies and international leadership to EU climate policy. The post cannot simply be a public relations exercise.

The designated candidate Connie Hedegaard, the former Danish climate minister, is clearly no stranger to the issues. While she was forced to resign from her role as chair of the climate summit in Copenhagen, under pressure from her prime minister, she certainly invested a lot of time and energy in trying to make the COP15 a success over the preceding 18 months. The subsequent cack-handed handling of the summit by the Danish prime minister should not detract from this.

At her hearing in the European Parliament this week, it is crucial that she outline a clear vision for how to move forward under the UN aegis from the current deadlock in international climate politics. She will also need to be explicit in how to restore the relevance and ambition of the EU. Her performance with the portfolio will be the test case for whether the decision of creating a separate Commissioner was a move to benefit climate or just further split the portfolio.

In addition to increasing its unambitious emissions pledge, clearly the EU must be much more proactive in its engagement with China. The myopic focus of European climate diplomacy on the US (motivated by the desire to create a transatlantic carbon market) rendered the EU an irrelevant actor at Copenhagen.

Its better late than never for the EU to try and regain some relevance in international climate policy.