The climate-change figures have been put on the table. Leaders of the Group of Eight industrialised nations, at their summit in Italy this month, recognised that it is dangerous to let average temperatures rise more than 2 degrees Celsius. With their counterparts from the five largest developing countries, they backed a global target to cut emissions of harmful pollutants by 50 per cent by 2050. They supported a goal of at least 80 per cent for developed states.
Rich countries promised to help their poorer cousins with the technology to meet targets. Leaders are now selling to their citizens what they have signed up to. Some of us are sleeping easier. At last, there seems to be agreement to smooth over rifts that have been threatening to derail negotiations on a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol, scheduled to be sealed in Copenhagen in December.
Don't count me among those getting a good night's rest. Fine words have been said and ambitious figures tossed around by important people. But strip away the rhetoric and what is left is room for argument. The base year for calculating emission reductions was left vague; as the declaration stated, they should be 'compared to 1990 or more recent years'.
That would seem troubling, given the increase in climate-changing emissions since the 1990 base set by the Kyoto pact. Even more bothersome, though, is that 2050 - a full two generations away - was decided upon to meet goals. Major medical breakthroughs aside, those responsible will be long dead and gone, and unable to be pilloried for their inept decision-making. A target of 2020 would have shown sincerity.
But these matters pale into insignificance next to the big drawback in all the bargain-making. That is, not a word has been said on how targets are to be met. The alternative 'clean' energy sources to greenhouse-gas-causing fossil fuels - solar, wind and biofuels chief among them - simply cannot at present even come close to meeting global needs as they stand.
This could change over time, of course. Governments and companies are pouring billions of dollars into research and development. Carbon capture and storage may yet be viable; efficient and compact batteries to store energy for when the sun is not shining or wind blowing could well be on the market soon; ways may be found to harness thermal power from sources other than volcanoes and hot springs. The world could wake up tomorrow to the harsh reality of its situation and change its wasteful ways.