At a time when scientists have been bringing us grim new climatic tidings almost every day, the news that the world's leaders have agreed to sit down to talk about the dangers that our planet faces is encouraging, to say the least.
It has been bad enough to learn, as we have over the past few weeks, that the Gulf Stream is threatened; that the Greenland icecap is melting faster than predicted; that the last decade was the warmest for the last millennium; and that the world's oceans are warming at dangerous rates.
If we had then been told that politicians could not even be bothered to debate these reports, we would have been sent a message of a deeply demoralizing nature.
That scenario has now been avoided, and we can now reasonably expect politicians to begin to hammer out some kind of deal to save the world. As Friends of the Earth pointed out on Saturday: "Montreal has sent a clear signal that the future lies in cleaner and more sustainable technologies, and [that] is good news for people everywhere."
Of particular note is the agreement of India and China, the world's two new industrial superpowers, to play an active part in future negotiations. These two countries, which are now ranked as developing nations, are exempt from the Kyoto climate agreement, even though they are pumping out massive amounts of carbon dioxide from new power plants.
In acknowledging this fact, India and China have sent a signal to the rest of the world that they understand that climate change is their problem as much as it is the West's.
But most encouraging of all -- paradoxically -- is the stance of the US. Admittedly, the Bush administration continues to show climatic intransigence of breathtaking cynicism. However, it is also clear that many Americans have privately become deeply worried about global warming, as well they might.
As a result, northeastern states have announced that they are about to launch their own carbon-trading system and several dozen leading US companies, including General Electric, have begun to cut emissions from their plants. Such actions give us great hope that the US will soon see sense.
That is unlikely to happen for several years, of course, and it remains to be seen whether the world can wait that long. As Alan Thorpe, head of Britain's Natural Environment Research Council, has made clear: "What the world needs badly are talks about taking urgent action. So far, all we have had are talks about having more talks. If we keep that up, things are going to get pretty desperate around the world fairly soon."
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