Canada: The climate change summit has outlined a clear agenda for international action, writes Frank McDonald.
UN climate change summits just wouldn't feel right without at least one delegation raising last-minute objections, sparking all-night talks to resolve the issue before bleary-eyed delegates finally struck a deal.
In Montreal, it was the Russians who proved the most cantankerous in the end.
Though the Americans had sheepishly signed up to a compromise resolution, the Russians objected to a crucial draft advancing Article 3.9 of the Kyoto Protocol - the one that calls on developed countries to start negotiations on making deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions at least seven years before it runs out in 2012.
The five-point text had taken two weeks to finalise, with Conor Ó Raghallaigh, a young assistant principal officer at the Department of the Environment, leading for the European Union. He had become such an expert on the issues involved that British environment secretary and EU president Margaret Beckett deferred to him.
What the Russians objected to was that China was not being required to commit to making cuts in its prodigious emissions which, at 14 per cent of the global total, are second only to those of the US. And with its economy growing at such a staggering rate, the probability is that China will be the world's number one polluter by 2020.
The Russian delegation eventually accepted that Article 3.9 was very specific to the developed countries (including Ireland) listed in Annex 1 of the Kyoto Protocol, and that the only legal route to draw China into the process would be via a review of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is due to start next year.
Then, as Canadian environment minister Stéphane Dion was about to bring down the gavel, the Saudis - not for the first time at these summits - raised an objection; they have a lot to lose if the rest of the world tempers its addiction to oil and will be seeking compensation to help them "adapt" to the reduced revenues.
Bill Clinton offered a partial solution in his stirring speech at a side-event in Montreal on the last day of the summit - start diversifying into alternatives such as solar energy. That's what some of the more progressive oil companies are already doing; BP's latest logo is a sunflower and its slogan "Beyond Petroleum".
It's only a matter of time before the US government cops on. In Montreal, the Americans found themselves more isolated than ever because of the head-in-the-sand stance they adopted. But nearly everyone at the summit was convinced that this is bound to change, if not under Bush then under whoever succeeds him.
One of the most crucial decisions taken by the parties to the Kyoto Protocol was that the next round of negotiations on making deeper cuts in emissions would be concluded in time to ensure that there is no gap between the first "commitment period" (2008-12) and the one which will follow. In other words, there should be no let-up.
That is an important signal to the carbon trading market, which is growing faster than anyone expected - despite continuing US opposition to mandatory targets for reducing emissions.
But the tide is turning; last June, the US Senate voted by 54 to 43 in favour of a national programme to cap carbon dioxide emissions.
As Bill Clinton noted more than once in his speech, 192 US mayors have signed up to cut emissions of gases harming the atmosphere and some of the largest US corporations - such as General Electric, DuPont and Alcoa - have endorsed the environmental agenda, mainly because energy efficiency is good for profits.
A special report on the "Race against Climate Change" in the current issue of Business Week, quotes James E Rogers, chief executive of US power company Cinergy: "If we stonewall this thing to five years out, all of a sudden the cost to us and ultimately to our consumers can be gigantic."
Clinton drove home the same message in Montreal. His grandstanding speech and rapturous reception upstaged and even rattled the US delegation.
As he glad-handed delegates, Clinton told Minister for the Environment Dick Roche that the climate change talks were "just like the Northern Ireland peace process - you don't listen to 'no', just keep moving on, keep the process going".
That is precisely what happened here. Not only did Stéphane Dion not take "no" for an answer from Canada's big neighbour to the south, but Britain as EU president and the G-77 group of 130-plus developing countries, notably Brazil and South Africa, showed "clear resolve" in advancing the agenda, as Friends of the Earth acknowledged.
Even though the Montreal Action Plan, as it is being called, amounts to little more than a commitment to further rounds of talks on global warming - some with a timetable, others more open-ended - the agenda is clear: to secure concerted international action to deal with the most serious environmental threat facing the planet.