Bali. Heh. What is it good for...

It's been an up and down week.

While the heavy hitters have been at play in Bali this week, there's been a fair amount of pressure (see here) exerted on The United States to take their heads out of the sand (regarding Global Warming). The argument apparently revolving around the CO2 reduction targets (25-40%) actually appearing in the new treaty. One tends to wonder what purpose the treaty would serve if it does not have any targets. However, I have no doubt that the oil and energy sector, coincidently where the Bush family have notable interests, would prefer the targets to be as vague as possible. But I digress...

My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali.
-- Al Gore

Anyway, moving on... Agreement was reached. All seems rosy and expressions like U-turn and reversal were being used to describe the US position.

However... and this is one big b*stard of a however... this unusual generosity of stance was, naturally, not related to anything meaningful on the United States' part. The US had wanted firmer commitments to CO2 reduction from the developing countries. That is, they wanted the countries that were not responsible for the huge problem we have now to do more to reduce the polution that they undoubtedly will create in the future. While this is not a bad point, it does rather deflect attention away from the vast amount of CO2 the US have been producing and continue to produce. So, the great U-turn was to allow this to slip by but in the final text of the treaty the emission reduction targets have disappeared.

As such, the "Bali Roadmap", as it has been named, seems to be lacking in directions.