A new global climate deal has been struck after being brought back from the brink of disaster by three powerful women politicians in a 20-minute "huddle to save the planet".

A major crisis had been provoked after 3am on Sunday morning when the EU clashed furiously with China and India over the legal form of a potential new treaty. The EU plan to bind all countries to cuts was close to collapse after India inserted the words "legal outcome" at the last minute into the negotiating text.

EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard, backed by UK energy secretary Chris Huhne, said it would have made the EU plan legally meaningless and would have forced the EU to walk away, effectively collapsing the negotiations.

With ministers exhausted after nearly six days and three nights of intense discussions, Hedegaard told the 194 countries in Durban: "We need clarity. We need to commit. The EU has shown patience for many years. We are almost ready to be alone in a second commitment period [to the Kyoto protocol].

DURBAN, South Africa--When roughly 25,000 people descend on a city to talk climate change, you can expect at least two things: mountains of waste and copious emissions of the greenhouse gases that they've come to talk about so seriously. To offset the hundreds of thousands of tons of these lightweight gases emitted in the pursuit of a global climate treaty, recent such conferences have taken compensatory measures, such as subsidizing retrofits of Bangladeshi brick factories, so that ambassadorial emissions are offset by a reduction in pollution from kilns.

Here in eThekweni municipality the local utility may have a small wind turbine spinning briskly on the roof of its headquarters, but the bulk of the power comes from coal, and the smell of smoke is evident except in those locales cleansed by sea breezes. In fact, 99 percent of the power here comes from burning fossil fuels, whether for electricity or transport. Yet, the municipality spent some $715,000 to ensure the greenhouse gas emissions of this conference are eventually tabulated--and accounted for rigorously.

The idea then is to offset the surplus CO2 by investing locally in emission reductions: There are free bikes for delegates (as well as free buses running on diesel partially made from coal). There is tree planting in Paradise Valley ("alien species" of trees are removed and replaced with "locally indigenous" varieties). And there is a 500-kilowatt (at peak sunlight) concentrated solar-photovoltaic array from France-based Soitec Solar--the largest in all of South Africa--in nearby Verulam (as well as one showcase array outside the conference itself). Finally, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change's 767 staff members offset their emissions by investing in CO2-reduction credits generated by switching a coal-fired brick kiln in Johannesburg to natural gas.

China's rise to superpower status seems unstoppable. But what course will it take over the coming decades? Let's take a look at two very different scenarios for the China of 2025:

• Under the first scenario, China has become the largest economy in the world, due to a close trans-Pacific alliance with the US. The People's Republic mainly generates its wealth by providing its American neighbor in the Far East with cheap money and cheap consumer goods. But the toll for this strategy is high: Chinese CO2 emissions are now higher than the emissions of all other nations combined. Per capita emissions have soared even above the levels of the United States. As droughts, floods and food shortages increasingly ravage the planet, billions of people perceive Beijing as the main culprit behind climate change. More than 100 nations, including the EU, have formed an official alliance against "Chimerica," as the two superpowers threaten to destroy the biosphere. There are warnings of an impending "climate war."
• Under the second scenario, China has become the largest economy in the world, due to a close Eurasian partnership with the EU and India. The People's Republic mainly generates its wealth by developing and exporting green technologies. In collaboration with the EU, Beijing has put in place rules against excessive indebtedness, which apply both to financial and "ecological" debts. The cost to the environment is now integrated into how Eurasian nations calculate their gross domestic product. CO2 emissions are beginning to decline around the world, except in the United States. The former superpower is culturally incapable of modernizing itself ecologically and is losing its power due to its addiction to cheap oil. Eurasia has become the new superpower, with China as the dominant force.