Saving the World, Plan B

The Kyoto protocol is dying a death of a thousand cuts. Last week, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, the US, reiterated that it wants nothing to do with the only international agreement designed to save the world from runaway global warming. The European Union, Kyoto’s main promoter, revealed that most of its members will miss their emissions targets. And Russia once again seemed to be on the point of wrecking the protocol completely. But there is a plan B, called contraction and convergence, which has been gaining ever more influential converts