In the past aristocratic women who were too lazy to suckle their own children relied on wet nurses. These were poorer women, who having recently having had a child of their own, were paid to feed the hungry young heirs to the estate as well.

The proposal by Yvo de Boer, that rich nations should be freed from the need to cut emissions if they pay developing countries to do it for them, amounts to nothing more than environmental wet nursing.

The suggestion from head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) illustrates perfectly the attitude that got us into the environmess in the first place i.e. with enough money you can get out of responsibility for anything.

The Kyoto Protocol, obliges industrialised nations to cut the bulk of emissions themselves.

But Mr de Boer says the size of the problem the world faces means countries should be authorized to invest in emission cuts wherever in the world it is cheapest.

His argument is that cutting emissions in developed countries any further than has already been done would be too expensive. In poorer countries, where little work on cleaning up industrial production has been done and money goes a long way, the CO₂ giants could make up their cutting targets with ease.

Most controversially he says rich nations should be allowed to buy their way out of 100% of their emission-cutting responsibilities.

Mr de Boer says his is a practical suggestion for an emergency situation and not a get-out-of-jail-free card for the developed nations. I am sure he is sincere, but I fear that it is exactly what the industrialised nations will take it as.

Such a scheme will create a C0₂ burning Hellfire Club. Like the 18^th Century English Toffs, who drank and ate until they vomited, the developed nations will go on guzzling fossil fuels with a clear conscience, knowing they can pay poorer countries to clean up, like servants, after them.

We will end up with wailing great carbon-obsessed babies being pampered by poor under-developed wet nurses. When what we really need is a radical emissions fitness programme and environmentally concerned surgeons willing to make the drastic cuts we need.

Green Hornet