More than 200 yachtsmen are heading off around the world in two cruising rallies. One – the Blue Water Rally – has already set off, the other World Cruising Club starts in January. Both will visit the archipelago of Indonesia. They can take great comfort in the fact that their individual journies will, in carbon footprint terms, be negligable.

Not so the panjandrums of globalised lunching when the world’s leading policymakers leave the blue skies of the Tropics a spaghetti junction of vapour trails as they circle over Denpasar in Bali for the 3 December climate change conference.

They will mull the fact that without policy change, world energy demand will be 50% higher in 2030 than it is today and global CO2 emissions will jump 57% between 2005 and 2030.

Can there be one good reason why they could not set a good example by staying at home and linking desk-tops to hold this conference electronically?