I'm in New York City this week to attend a UN meeting tomorrow where various heads of state are gathering to begin the dialog on climate change. This meeting is presumably the groundwork for a summit scheduled for December in Bali, Indonesia. Among those heads of state that will be absent tomorrow are the United States (although Bush is scheduled to appear later in the day), China (due to elections there), and India.

It appears that while it's definitely progress to have a lot of heads of state get together to talk about climate change, there seems to be a lack of, ahem, leadership among the most industrialized nations. Many young college students out there care deeply about climate change. They're willing to bring their own tote bags to the grocery store to save on plastic; they're willing to lobby their universities to build according to LEED standards; they'll even give up driving a car in favor of more environmentally friendly modes of transportation. But it seems obvious that unless heads of state around the world are willing to make hard policy decisions about industry, all that personal greening will be for naught.

It's unclear what will come out of the summit meeting tomorrow. I'll be blogging from there. I was told a "youth representative" will be at the opening planery. More to come on the blog.