It is a deal that, for all its flaws and limitations, just six months ago few had thought would come. For the next two years, government officials from 187 countries will meet regularly to hammer out an agreement intended to slash greenhouse gas emissions and curb global warming.

That pact would replace the current Kyoto protocol, which scientists say goes only a small way to produce the emission reductions needed to avert disastrous changes to the climate. Rich and poor countries are to work together to make the political, economic and technological changes needed to wean their economies from a dependence on fossil fuels. But if the United Nations-convened talks that ended in Bali at the weekend are anything to go by, the next two years will be fraught, fractious – and possibly fruitless.