Does the Durban Platform really "set a new course for the global fight against climate change"? Maybe, but it will require a whole lot of work by the likes of the United States and China to keep the world on that course.

We were supposed to get a fair, ambitious, and binding international agreement on climate change in 2009. A binding agreement has thus become the yardstick for measuring success.

The world is facing an escalating global epidemic. Today, it claims 350,000 deaths per year and in 2030 the annual death toll will be approaching one million -- the majority of them will be children.