Predictions are now certain: planet Earth is undergoing a climate change that could have dire consequences for all forms of life. Thousands of delegates are gathered in India to try to reach agreements aimed at confronting this problem, debating at the conference known as COP 8.

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The Framework Convention (pdf), which dates back to 1992, has been signed by 185 countries. For the last decade, the world's governments have carried out intense negotiations to define a strategy to halt climate change, attributed to the so-called “greenhouse effect”, caused by the accumulation in the Earth's atmosphere of gases emitted in the combustion of fossil fuels like petroleum or coal.

The main outcome of the negotiations was the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. After the COP 8, the possibility for this legal instrument entering into force should become clear. The idea is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions overall by 2008- 2012 to 5.2 percent less than they were in 1990.

The Protocol will take effect after being ratified by at least 55 countries whose total greenhouse gas emissions made up at least 55 percent of total emissions in 1990.

When the COP 8 got under way, the Protocol had been ratified by 96 countries, but their total greenhouse gas output is just 37 percent of the total. The situation could change dramatically if industrialized countries like Russia or Japan were to ratify the accord.

The United States, responsible for a quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, will not ratify the Protocol, as President George W. Bush has repeated on several occasions.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, say it is urgent to reach an agreement on how to immediately begin reducing emissions. Climate change is considered a perturbing factor in atmospheric conditions, sea level and harvest timeframes