Indeed, there is growing consensus among them that the Earth is heating up at a faster rate than was hitherto thought, and that the underlying cause was a rapid increase in carbon-dioxide emissions, which is a direct result of profligate human activity. Unless the trend is immediately reversed, all sorts of dire consequences lie ahead for our planet and its inhabitants.

Worse, these consequences are expected to manifest themselves not in an indefinite future but within the next few decades. The worst-case scenario envisages a large-scale annihilation of life forms by the end of the century. If the self-destructive species known as Homo sapiens survives, its manner of existence will bear no resemblance to the way it lives today.

Even the relatively less drastic predictions involve a rise in the sea level that will swallow up thousand of islands and a large swathe of coastal areas, and rearrange the coastal contours of all continents.

It will bring in its wake-increased floods, droughts, and other forms of extreme climatic events, involving repercussions such as crop failure and consequent mass migration. Even a fraction of these grim forecasts would entail urgent action on a global scale. Yet, ten years after the Kyoto protocol, the extremely modest targets it set for the control of emissions remain unmet.

The world's single largest polluter, the United States, which opted out of the protocol, has only lately been suggesting that it wishes to be a part only of post-Kyoto arrangements. In all likelihood, such an arrangement might not be in place until 2012, when the Kyoto protocol expires.

During the past year, however, there has been considerable movement towards accepting the basic premise of climate change. Many a sceptic now sees a light of realisation at the end of the tunnel. This purportedly includes even George Bush, a persistent naysayer on climate issue. It's a significant departure from a situation that existed until earlier this year.

Till then, the US officials were being accused of intimidating and censuring climate scientists in government agencies. The American Enterprise, a conservative think-tank funded by Exxon Mobil, reportedly offered $10,000 for each article that was critical of the crucial report by the United Nation's Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Also, George Bush has floated the baloon of climate change negotiation -- a parallel to the UN process. Luckily, several governments as well as environmental groups rejected the Bush initiative and termed it as a delaying tactic. Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, however, hailed the UN process as an "important step forward" on the issue of global warming.

In an interview with The Guardian on the eve of G-8 summit at Heiligendamm, Blair confidently asserted his ability to convince Bush on the subject. He apparently tried, and put on a brave face, describing the inclusion of climate change in the G-8 declaration variously as a "huge step forward" and as a "major, major step forward." But, given the document's tenor, it's hard to concur with that optimistic conclusion. It speaks only of a non-specific commitment to "taking strong and early action."

Few believe that the US will go out of its way to reduce emissions as long as Bush is in the White House. It's also not likely that his successor will be very enthusiastic about combating global warming, because it will involve sacrificing a good number of short-term benefits at notional level.

Bush made it clear at the G-8 summit that his country wouldn't be party to any agreement unless China and India signed it as well. The US insistence emanates from its fear that if it agrees to abide by emission controls and China, in particular, doesn't, it will enhance the latter's competitive edge.

On the face of it, the concern is genuine -- not least because China is expected in due course to overtake the US as the largest polluter on earth. However, it wouldn't be surprising to find China opposed to equivalent restriction on the ground that the US, Japan and Western Europe weren't encumbered by any such regulation at a comparable stage of their development.

The theories of climate change were for long dismissed as an anti-developmental leftwing conspiracy, and the curbs imposed by Kyoto would interfere with productivity and profitability of the industries in the West which, along with Australia, refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol.

The production of energy by burning fossil fuels is the main culprit which causes the green-house effect, and the recent converts to the cause of combating global warming now tend to focus on cleaner technology, meaning nuclear energy. But in that case the problems of nuclear waste disposal, and the risk of accidental meltdowns, seem to have been underplayed.

Alternatives such as solar power and wind farms haven't been sufficiently explored because they require huge investments and offer, at best, delayed returns. Had a serious exploration of these technologies been launched, say, half a century back, it could be possible to arrest the global warming and avoid all the oil wars fought so far.

Now, at this stage, the dangerous prospect is that the neo-liberal elite, which has co-opted the argument about global warming, will also appropriate the prerogative of managing the solutions. If the predicted effects of climate change begin to manifest themselves with increasing frequency and fury in the years ahead, the developed world's immediate interests will take precedence.

While the poorer countries, whose contribution to the green house effect has been miniscule, will bear the brunt of nature's wrath -- even though the planet's fate is effectively indivisible in ecological terms.

In the meantime, overt scepticism about the human role in global warming hasn't altogether vanished. A diminishing band of rightwing commentators continues to harp on the conspiracy angle.

Their doubts are shared by an even tinier concentration of critics on the left, who suspect that much of the alarm has been whipped up with a vested interest in alarmism, as it keeps the grant flowing, and is now being sustained by corporations that have realised that the growing penchant for green solutions can be milked for profit.

Most of us are, of course, ill equipped to judge the science behind climate change on its merits. There may be no harm in hoping against hope that the sceptics are right and that the climate change is a part of natural cycle that will run its course without causing too much disruption. Yet that complacency is considered unjustified, given that the consequence of inaction could be catastrophic.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.