THE meeting in Lima, Peru, of the United Nations Framework Convention on Global Warming, which concluded on Sunday without a pathbreaking agreement, sent a strong message about how seriously we should be treating the global climate crisis.

But, really, it is only the actions of a select few nations that will have any lasting impact in terms of stopping or reversing global warming. Among those critical nations are the United States and China, who together contribute massively to climate change.

In the wake of the Cold War, the US emerged as the dominant superpower on the world stage. The Americans' capitalist system had outlasted Soviet Russia's communist philosophy and the US seemed poised to dominate the globe for decades to come. And, for some years after, it seemed there would be no new rival and no new war.