Developing countries will disproportionately suffer the consequences of climate change. Absent a global agreement on climate change, it will almost certainly become more difficult to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the fundamental framework for global development.

In the United States, a sustainable recovery from the recession also depends on reaching a global agreement on climate change. The U.S. government, its credibility harmed by a dismal record to date, must prove convincingly to the rest of the world that it is prepared to lead in the battle against climate change.

A meaningful global agreement on climate change must do the following:

• establish acceptable limits on greenhouse gas emissions and determine which countries should be bound by these;
• transfer technologies from rich countries to poor ones and accelerate the development of clean-energy alternatives to fossil fuels in all countries;
• commit rich countries to providing funds over and above current levels of official development assistance to help poor countries adapt to climate change;
• reward agricultural producers for sequestering carbon in the ground.