As the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change gets underway in New Delhi today, the delegates' minds may well be not so much on arriving at new processes, as on consolidating what has already been worked out.
The whole process of managing climate change cannot move ahead without the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. It is not that the Protocol is beyond being challenged. Environmentalists have argued that it does not go far enough.
They believe it underestimates the extent of climate change and its adverse impact. There can also be some debate over whether it does enough on the principle that the polluter must pay. While it does recognise that the developed world has led the attack on the environment through its development strategy, the amount the Kyoto Protocol requires the rich to pay may well be inadequate.
But the Kyoto Protocol represents a step forward no matter how small it may be. And getting the developed world, particularly the US, to ratify even this limited protocol is proving to be difficult. For the Kyoto Protocol to come into force it has to be ratified by 55 countries including those that account for 55% of the total emissions of the developed world in 1990.
While the number of countries ratifying the protocol has easily crossed the required minimum, the developed countries among them account for less than 38% of the total emission.
Taking the climate change process further clearly requires greater commitment from the developed world. And the moral argument that they must pay for the mess they created may not be enough.
While the argument itself cannot be faulted, there are limits to the effectiveness of moral pressure in influencing cynical governments. The US in particular may require more direct convincing on the political stage. A significant section of the American people would need to be convinced that the dangers of climate change are real and these dangers don't stop at national boundaries. And this conviction would need to be converted into effective political pressure.
The impact of the Conference of Parties in New Delhi may well be determined not so much by what happens in the discussion forums, as by what impact these discussions have on public opinion in the developed world.