The Bali roadmap: Climate change, COP 13 and beyond

Halfway through the Thirteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 13) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a major earthquake shook Bali.Perhaps it was a sign of what was to come.By the close of the conference a week later, the Earth's geopolitical axis had shifted slightly.The Bush administration discovered that -despite unparalleled US military and economic power -its legitimacy and capacity as a global hegemon had been constrained by the force of international censure.This revelation, when it came, surprised US negotiators and others as well.Held in the Balinese resort village of Nusa Dua, COP 13 ran from 3 to 15 December 2007 and included nine days of meetings of scientific and expert groups followed by four days of 'high level' ministerial talks leading to its conclusion.It was attended by some 10,800 participants, including six heads of state, 3,500 government officials from 187 nations and 5800 registered participants from the UN and environmental, development, business and other NGOs, and some 1,500 members of the media.The conference followed a tightly intertwined dual track which included the work of COP 13 and, nested within this, a 'second' conference -known as the Third Conference of the Parties -serving as a Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP/MOP 3), which formally excluded non-ratifying parties such as the United States.The COP's main task was to define the path by which a post-2012 climate regime could be established -including emissions reduction targets to succeed those of the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period .Either the convention's parties would agree to a process to conclude by 2009 (in time to establish targets that would enter into force by the second commitment period,