Courtesy of the @tcktcktck, this is the most socially responsible, fair and intelligent answer to international emissions targets there is. India's Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Jairam Rames, has laid out India's expectations for at the latest round of climate discussion in Bonn, Germany. Specifically, he:

.....reiterated India’s position on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities – a principle that the entire global community has enshrined in UNFCCC concluded in 1992 at the historic Rio Summit. He said that India was for fixing per capita emission limits of countries. He said that India’s per capita emission level was low at 1.2 tonne of carbon dioxide as compared to 20.6 tonne in US, 20 tonne in Canada, 9.8 tonne in UK and Germany, 9.9 tonne in Japan. He said that under circumstances (sic) India was not committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and have already assured that its per capita emission would never exceed that of the developed countries. The developing countries have the right to take up development projects to fight poverty , he said.

And this is the entire point. The United States has been prominent through the years attempting to unload it's responsibilities on developing nations like China and India, but let's be clear. The US has a third the population of China or India and it produces more than double the per capita emissions of other developed nations like the UK and Japan. To date, they have fallen short on every side of the equation, and this points to the heart of the matter.

The entire issue of 'who needs to cut emissions and how much' is a red herring that has disabled legitimate action for years. We know the atmospheric level of carbon that needs to be maintained. Divide that by population and you have your per capita figure. Those countries falling under it (the developing world) have room to grow. Those of us above it are looking more and more like the morbidly obese heading for a tenth helping at the buffet table.

The math couldn't be more clear, from every perspective.

This week the Union of Concerned Scientists published a new report stating that between 1998 and 2005 Exxon-Mobil gave nearly $16 million to organizations working to create confusion over global warming science. The report is only the latest in an increasing number of statements condemning the oil giant for funding disinformation campaigns, but this one may have been the straw that broke the camels back.

Exxon Vice President for Public Affairs Kenneth Cohen has announced that the the company now accepts the reliability of global warming science and has announced the end of their funding to organizations that deny climate change science, such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) who were made laughably famous for their near parody "CO2 - They call it pollution, We call it life" television ad.

Exxon now says they ready to work with policy makers on regulations, which they anticipate will be coming soon.

Exxon wants any regulation to be applied across "the broadest possible base" of the economy, said Jaime Spellings, Exxon's general manager for corporate planning. Exxon says avoiding a ton of carbon-dioxide emissions is, with certain exceptions, less expensive in the power industry than in the transportation sector. Though solar energy remains expensive, reducing a ton of emissions by generating electricity from essentially carbon-free sources such as nuclear or wind energy is cheaper than reducing a ton of emissions through low-carbon transportation fuels such as ethanol.