What we think

There is a natural flow to international summits. First there is hope, then there is disappointment, then there is compromise. And, in the end, it all comes down to negotiations over a few words by dedicated diplomats who have been deprived of sleep for days.

So it was in Bali, Indonesia, yesterday, as the world's latest and most crucial attempt to agree how to combat climate change drew to a close. As always, the outcome was simultaneously hailed as historic and derided as pathetic. So, what comfort can we actually draw from what was agreed?

The US, which was playing a wrecking game through most of the conference, was forced to back down at the 11th hour. That means it will be part of the negotiations over the next two years to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, designed to cut the pollution that is disrupting the climate.

That is surely better than leaving the US, the world's largest polluter, outside the process. And there is always the hope, often voiced in Bali, that the next US president, whoever he or she may be, will be more sympathetic to the need for action to reduce global warming.

Increasingly, powerful developing nations, such as China and India, have also been drawn into the talks. There are signs they are beginning to recognise that they, too, will have to find a means of progress that doesn't wreck the climate. That has to be a step forward.

But these gains are frustratingly small when compared to the daunting scale of the problem. Serious scientists now believe we only have a few years to act before the climatic changes triggered by rising temperatures become irreversible and dangerous.

The Bali agreement contains vague statements about "deep cuts in global emissions", but it fails to make any specific promises about targets and timescales. A demand by the European Union to include the need to cut pollution by 25%-40% below 1990 levels by 2020 was omitted at the insistence of the US.

Such decisions have been left for the next round of talks, leading up to another climate summit in Copenhagen at the end of 2009. The trouble is that, when the going gets tough, the tough too often procrastinate.

Scotland's new leaders have fine ambitions to cut climate pollution, but they, too, have delayed some difficult decisions. Governments here, in London and around the world still harbour policies - on roads, aviation and the economy - that will worsen the world's plight. That has to change.