Personally, I was sitting my GCSEs, watching England come heart-breakingly close to winning Euro 96, and getting up to the kind of things 16 year old boys get up to, little of which I'm willing to commit to print. None of it seems like it was twelve years ago.

Now here's the scary thing. The distance in time between 1996 and now is the same as the distance between now and 2020, by which point, according to the EU, we will have cut carbon emissions by 20 per cent, be generating 20 per cent of our energy from renewables and generally be well along the way to operating a truly low carbon economy.

Feeling confident? I'm not.

Is it just me or is anyone truly aware how short a period of time twelve years is? Seriously, I've met people who can hold conversations that last longer.

To illustrate this just think back to 1996 again. The Spice Girls were touring, Kevin Keegan was manager of Newcastle United and every time you opened a paper there was a story about Princess Di. How things have changed.

All very glib I know, but even when you take a more serious look at the changes in the economic, political and social landscape over the past 12 years you also start to see staggering similarities. It has become fashionable to comment on the breakneck speed at which the world is evolving, but what is often forgotten is the glacial pace of change that define many spheres of activity.

Take politics for example, we've had three prime ministers since 1996, and but for a slight Middle Eastern miscalculation from Mr Blair we probably would have had only two. Similarly, the US transitioned neatly from the House of Clinton to the House of Bush and looks like it could transition back again next year.

Over twelve years most developed economies will have two, or at a push three administrations (with the ever amusing exception of Italy), which means that the politicians who will have to finally meet the EU's 2020 targets are already on the world stage. They may not make it through to 2020, but it is easy to imagine that Merkel and Sarkozy will not be that long into their retirements. In the UK, Brown surely won't go one better than Blair and last 12 years, but given their age and the fact two of the last three prime ministers have lasted a decade waking up in Downing Street come 2020 is not an unreasonable aspiration for David Cameron nor his likely long term rivals Ed Balls or David Miliband.

Similarly in the US, the targets - which the US may well adopt itself if a successor to Kyoto is agreed - are just three administrations away. If they lose the nomination this time what price a President Obama or Edwards making it to the White House in 2016. In fact, given the US political dynasties' Teflon-style resilience what price a President Jeb Bush?

The same level of stasis is evident in the world of business. Of course, the web has delivered a clutch of new firms - Google, Amazon, eBay et al - that have broken through to attain multinational status and global brand recognition. But on the most part the brands and companies that dominated the business world in 1996 have a decidedly familiar ring. IBM, Wal-Mart, Tesco, Boeing, GE, Microsoft, GM, BA, Lockheed Martin, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, they are all pretty much as influential now as they were in the mid 90s.

Again the chief execs who will run these firms come 2020 are already a long way up the career ladder, if not yet in the hot seat then either sitting on the board or knocking on the boardroom door.

These targets are not some distant aspiration; they are the objectives that the current generation of political and business leaders will be judged by.

In terms of economics and technology progress has been a bit more rapid over the past 12 years, but then again the pace of change is often exaggerated.

Globalisation, for example, has gathered speed and China and India have grown in influence and power, but both these trends were already well under way by 1996. Equally, many of the most carbon intensive industries and technologies - automotive, shipping, aviation, construction, steel, and, of course, energy – may now be making noises about decarbonising their operations, but they remain fundamentally the same now from a technological and business model perspective as they were in 1996. If they are to hit their emission targets these industries will  have to change more in the next 12 years than they have done in the last 50.

The one cause for optimism for those hoping we can build the low carbon economy within the next twelve years is the internet-led technology revolution that has done the most to change social and business mores since 1996. As mentioned completely new brands have become global household names and new technologies, such as the iPod, SatNav and the laptop, have gone from being a glint in a designers eye to ubiquitous sensations, sometimes within three or four years. It is worth noting that it was 1996 when mobile phones first became affordable and portable enough to attract the interest of the mass market – twelve years on many people carry two phones with them and would be lost without them.

There is plenty of reason to hope that a Solar Century, a Vestas or a Tesla could become the Google of the next twelve years and go from ambitious start up to global powerhouse in next to no time. Just as it is possible to imagine that solar panels or plug-in hybrid cars may be as ubiquitous in 2020 as the mobile phone is today.

And yet this will not happen without a degree of urgency from business and political that is still sadly lacking. What is required is an industrial revolution far greater in scale, impacting far more sectors and achieved far faster than the aforementioned IT revolution and yet too many of the key players continue to procrastinate.

The EU itself provides a case in point. The action plan was published this week and yet it is likely to be eighteen months or so before it is finally approved. In the meantime, vested interest groups will try and water it down and those companies planning green investments will still have to deal with a degree of uncertainty over how legislation will pan out. There is always a fear that rushed decisions simply mean you repent at leisure, but that doesn't stop that fact around ten per cent of the time left until 2020 will have passed before we even know for certain that the EU's measures will be adopted.

Similarly, the UK this week launched its feasibility study on the proposed Severn Barrage. It won't be finished until 2010, despite the fact the Sustainable Development Commission has already produced a 158-page study on tidal power in the UK claiming a barrage could produce five per cent of our electricity.

Once it's completed, and assuming the government decides to go ahead with the project, we'll have to go through a tortuous process of appeals as those infuriating twitchers at the RSPB insist the whole thing will upset some wading birds, forgetting of course that the birds will be a damned sight more upset if sea levels rise and their homes disappear altogether. Then we'll have to find someone to build the thing and put up with the inevitable construction delays.

The net result, according to the British Wind Energy Association, is that a source of clean energy that could deliver a huge chunk of the UK's 2020 renewable energy obligation will simply not be ready by then.

It's easy to understand this lack of urgency. Time might march inexorably on at a constant rate (would the physicists amongst you please not write in to correct me, I won't understand it), but our perceptions of it vary enormously. Being 16 might seem like yesterday, but being 40, as I will be in 2020, seems almost impossibly distant. Most people feel the same way regardless of their age and it is this psychological reality more than anything else that explains our leaders' apparent complacency.

But this is a highly dangerous trick of mind that only encourages inaction. And of course those firms and countries that act now to meet their emissions targets are those who will enjoy the smoothest and most inexpensive and risk-free transition to low carbon business models

So the next time you are looking at how to meet your company's emission reduction targets and calculating if you can put off those changes for a few more years, just remember what you were doing in 1996. That should be enough to shock you into action.