The more then 100 world leaders attending the two-week summit that started in Copenhagen on Monday actually have a chance to see create progress in the battle against climate change.
There will be infinite amounts of planet-saving language, with a myriad of photographs of politicians palm pressing and calling for an agreement to cut emissions to forestall a dangerous rise in temperature.
The temperature might or might not have turned out to be self-correcting. The uncertainty surrounding the consequences of climate change makes it hard to convince people to spend money to combat it.
If we were sure that the temperature would rise by a few degrees Fahrenheit, then we could decide whether or not to live with that. But we do not know how high the trend might go.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body set up by the United Nations to establish a scientific consensus on the subject, puts the range of possible increases by the end of this century at 33.98ºF to 43.52ºF. At the bottom end of the range, the difference would be hardly noticed. At the other end of the spectrum, a guess about what the world would look like is left to the imagination.
Agreeing that the problem is worth tackling is the first step on the way to finding solutions. Since the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed in 1992, global carbon dioxide emissions have risen by a third.
The problem is not a lack of low-carbon technologies. Electricity can be generated by nuclear fission, water, wind, and solar energy. Four wheeled vehicles can be run on electricity or renewable biofuels.
It is not an economic problem either. Committing a single percentage point of global economic output is worth doing on something that benefits everyone. Saving the banks this past year has cost around 5 percent of global output.
So the problem can be solved both more simply and cheaply than most people realize. But the globe needs to agree on how to bear the costs, both between and within countries. It becomes a two-prong challenge.
The first problem to tackle is getting an international accord, which is what world leaders are trying to do in Copenhagen. The second is implementing that deal at a national level, with better policies than those currently in place, including a price on carbon emissions. Otherwise, this is pointless and the cost will be a lot more than 1 percent.
The opinion of many at Copenhagen will be on two main issues: emission cuts and money. Developed countries are required to produce targets for cutting their emissions by 2020. Based on the IPCC's data, countries like the United States and United Kingdom need their emissions to drop by 25 to 40 percent by 2020 if the world is to limit the rise in temperature. The offers currently total around 15 percent by 2020.
The United States, the main straggler, is offering cuts at 4 percent.
