Convention sets the ball rolling on greenhouse gases

The new framework Convention on Climate Change, completed in draft at a meeting in New York early in May, has had an unjustifiably bad press. Its failure to impose absolutely binding obligations on developed countries to stabilise their greenhouse gas emissions is no catastrophe. And the mechanisms it has created for the review of national emission abatement programmes and the transfer of finance to developing nations are major strides towards effective and equitable control of greenhouse gases.