It's not easy being green.

This has become abundantly clear at the global warming conference in Copenhagen this week, where efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions have triggered acrimonious squabbling between rich countries — the biggest polluters since the Industrial Age — and everyone else.

Even so, there remains some hope that groundwork can be laid for future agreements to mitigate global warming and its effects. It will take an array of solutions, from binding targets for reducing emissions, to adopting clean energy technologies or helping developing countries preserve their carbon-absorbing forests.

The need for action comes from economic as well as environmental necessity. Low-lying areas, including fertile deltas that produce much of the world's food, are threatened with inundation from rising seas. Here at home, Hawai'i's ambitious renewable energy goals — 70 percent from clean energy by 2030 — are motivated by volatile oil prices.

There has been some incremental progress. Congress is considering legislation to set modest emission-reduction targets. China, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has taken tentative steps to curb emissions.

The prevailing scientific opinion is that efforts like these need to be more ambitious to be effective. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are rising steadily, approaching record levels. Consequently, the world is warming, ice caps are melting and sea levels are rising, all rapidly enough to cause alarm. The so-called "Climategate" e-mails, while disturbing, don't change this reality.

It simply makes no sense to continue the indiscriminate dumping of man-made greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. On this point there's broad agreement, at Copenhagen and in the larger scientific community. What's needed is the will to act, decisively and in concert, to mitigate this potentially catastrophic problem.