But the rich protested too much, and now they are in a lethal debt crisis of their own. On January 2, as a family in the US sits down to have their evening meal, they would have already used per person, the equivalent of, in fossil fuel terms, as much a family in Tanzania will need year-round. In a world that needs huge reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions every day, the rich by using up more than their fair share of the atmosphere are running up an enormous ecological debt. This has implications not only for what will happen from 2008 in the next phase of the climate convention, but in all rich and poor country negotiations for balance in the global economy.

A quick look at the climate accounts shows a world turned upside down. Imagine if a hard-working Indian citizen came home after a long day’s work looking forward to rest, and finds his house crammed with 20 US citizens, a dozen Europeans, a handful of Australians, Canadians and Japanese. The Indian will be barely able to move. Add to that –– the uninvited guests leaving taps and gas running. This is what has happened to the atmosphere today.

The rich have occupied all the available environmental space leaving behind no room for others to live in. Because the global economy is still fuelled by coal, oil and gas, the ecological debt can be given an illustrative economic value. It runs into trillions of US dollars. Conversely, the least developed countries that take up far less than their logical share of atmospheric space have ecological credits that dwarf their conventional financial debts. The world, and the CoPs have so far failed to produce an accounting system that even recognises ecological debt. It is not surprising. The shame of having abused the global commons of the atmosphere would quickly strip away the veneer and smug sense of economic efficiency and moral authority that industrialised countries carry with them to every international meeting.

So now is the time to think ahead. And ask how the true picture of reckless ecological debtors on one hand, and suffering ecological creditors on the other, can be reflected in the next climate negotiations.

To start with, new resources have to be made available to deal with the immediate damages in poor countries, caused by an unstable climate. Instead of the insultingly small sums promised by the Global Environment Facility, it should be equivalent to the costs of adaptation imposed on developing countries by climate change. Given the readiness of the rich to pour hundreds of billions of US dollars into funding conflict, they cannot claim that the money is not available. But, perhaps more important is building reconciliation for ecological debt into an effective and forward-looking successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

The Centre for Science and Environment introduced the concept of equity into climate talks over a decade ago. Ten years on equity is an essential component of any new framework for climate that has logic, environmental integrity and political realism.

No global deal will work without setting a concentrated target for GHGs in the atmosphere. When the emissions budget is worked out, the international community must decide how to share it. The fundamental choice is between equity — the atmosphere is a global commons, which no one owns and we all need — and a carbon aristocracy where the accident of geographical birthright would give a minority a bigger share. Once a constitutional framework is agreed at, the question is –– how quickly the international community can negotiate the timeframe to make equal entitlements a reality. More than anything else, recognising the ecological debt crisis must give us the political energy to shrink and share the carbon cake. If we fail, there looms the prospect of an environmentally bankrupt world in our lifetime.