The deal reached at the UN summit in Montreal has brought us one, important step closer to preventing dangerous climate change, writes Simon Retallack. Following two weeks of negotiations and a marathon final all-night session, the conference president, Canadian environment minister Stéphane Dion, looked relieved and delighted as he brought down his gavel and punched the air with both hands just as dawn began breaking on Saturday.
The agreement had come close to collapsing twice. The Americans threatened to walk out on the penultimate day of the talks – gambling on their ability to entice other countries away from the table too. The bet failed. The Bush administration remained isolated and was given a roasting in the US media. An about-turn was made.
The extraordinary antics of the Russians and the Saudis brought about the other moment of high drama. On the final night, the Russian delegate, a classic Soviet-era negotiator with close-cropped hair, pink skin and big glasses, decided he wanted to remind the world that Russia was important too by bringing the talks to a standstill for several hours on procedural grounds.
When a compromise was proposed, the Saudis, past masters at obstructing these talks, instantly objected. Catastrophe was averted when Moscow woke up and issued instructions to agree a face-saving formula.
You could hear the collective sigh of relief when the deal was announced. Margaret Becket, the UK environment secretary, said she was "thrilled", adding "we got everything that we came here to get".
The agreement means that a second phase of the Kyoto protocol will now be negotiated so that industrialised countries will have a new set of binding targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions when the first phase of Kyoto ends in 2012.
That is a critically important decision. It sends an important signal to business that carbon constraints are here to stay and makes new investment in low carbon technologies more likely. That, together with the decision in Montreal to adopt a series of rules to implement the Kyoto protocol, including a system of penalties to ensure compliance, means that far from being dead, as sceptics proclaimed barely a year ago, the Kyoto approach is thriving.
The Montreal summit also agreed the start of a two-year dialogue on long-term action to address climate change involving all the world's countries, including the US. This process is heavily circumscribed as a result of US pressure, and involves simply "an exchange of views, information and ideas" that will be "non-binding" and will "not lead to new commitments".
Although it is weak, it serves a useful purpose by giving countries such as Japan (which would have found it hard to move forward otherwise) a fig leaf to take home showing that the US and major developing countries are willing to talk.
In Montreal, global cooperation on climate change has been given a new lease of life. Industrialised countries agreed they needed to go further to address climate change, while developing countries accepted the need to discuss what they can now do.
It was no mean feat for the world to come together without being blocked by the US and its very small band of oil-rich allies. Given the dire lack of movement on future action barely a year ago, this represents an important shift. But it is only a beginning.
This new spirit of cooperation needs to be sustained. The hard bit starts now, as industrialised countries begin negotiating actual commitments to reduce their emissions further and developing countries are challenged to agree what action they will be prepared to take (through the scheduled review of the climate treaties next year).
As this process unfolds, it is essential that countries are guided by a sense of what it will take to avoid dangerous climate change.
My organisation's research suggests a global cut in CO2 emissions of 60% will be needed by 2050 to prevent the dire climatic impacts that could occur if global average temperature rises by more than 2°C above the pre-industrial level.
To be effective, it is also essential that a system is developed that allows countries to act on a fair basis, reflecting differences in population and prosperity, and that far more resources are provided for vulnerable countries to adapt to inevitable climatic impacts.
Meanwhile, whatever happens next on the global stage, countries must deliver on the commitments they have already promised to meet at home.
In the UK, the government needs to announce a serious package of measures in the new year to meet the UK's 2010 target to reduce CO2 emissions by 20% (we're currently way off course).
In the US, the momentum needs to be built in Congress and the states in favour of a binding cap on US emissions (that would provide the US a way back in to the next global climate agreement when President Bush leaves office).
Of course, you and I need to do our bit too, by taking action to reduce our own emissions and electing politicians that will get the job done. Then, what emerges from the process the world launched in the small hours of a cold weekend in December in Montreal will stand a real chance of making a difference.
Simon Retallack is senior research fellow on climate change policy at the Institute for Public Policy Research, Britain's largest think tank. Read his blog posts from last week.
