This week's vital talks on world climate change in Bali are on track to define a constructive road map for a plan to succeed the one agreed in the Kyoto Protocol 10 years ago. Some 190 states are participating, along with thousands of other representatives, in this mammoth meeting.
The aim is to set up a framework of negotiations to be completed by the end of 2009. That will commit all concerned to specific reduced global carbon emissions by 2020. The scientists insist that any more than a two degree centigrade increase in average world temperatures by then, compared to pre-industrial times, will trigger irreversible climatic change. Nearly all of those in Bali now agree with them.
Their challenge is to find a workable balance between those states currently responsible for most of the emissions, rapidly industrialising ones whose emissions are growing fast and poorer states whose populations will suffer most from global warming. It is essential that this be a universal agreement if the compliance mechanisms being discussed are to work effectively. Foremost among them is the plan to cap national carbon emission levels compared to 1990 and to create a world market in carbon trading, facilitating that achievement. Huge technology transfer schemes are another central feature, enabling less developed states avoid the environmental traps others have encountered. Plans to prevent deforestation in the Amazon, Congo, New Guinea and Borneo, responsible for some 20 per cent of carbon emissions, also loom large and will require sizeable compensation funds.
Securing universal involvement must overcome the enduring opposition of the United States, by far the greatest emitter of carbon, to any cap and trade scheme. But a new president will re-examine its policy in 2009. US policy-makers have started to make significant moves on power plants, transport and manufacturing which can get those emissions down, echoing equally committed moves at state and city levels there. After many years of denial the scientific message is at last getting a proper hearing in the US.
The same applies elsewhere in the world. Bali participants are pleased and surprised by China's new readiness to accept its ecological responsibilities, having regard to the pollution it has already experienced and the energy security it must have in the future. Latest figures show Mexico, India and Brazil are performing much better than expected. Australia, Canada and Japan have yet to demonstrate a real willingness to match policy commitments with action. The same applies to Ireland's policies over the next four years.
The Bali meeting and the subsequent process culminating in Copenhagen in 2009 are a mammoth undertaking, a veritable exercise in global governance. The stakes could hardly be higher for the world and its peoples. Suddenly the danger of runaway environmental change have struck home with political leaders - just in time for them to take action against it if the will is there.