FIRST THE world held its breath, then it sighed with relief. In the end, the wind that blew from Bali yesterday was favourable. After two weeks of intense negotiations, a sleep-deprived night and a morning of high drama, more than 180 countries gathered on the Indonesian island finally agreed a way forward for combating one of the most serious threats humanity has ever faced - climate change.
Over the next two years countries are committed to agreeing how to cut the pollution that is warming the globe, causing floods, droughts and storms. The aim is to come up with a deal in Copenhagen in 2009 which will succeed that made at Kyoto in Japan, which runs until 2012.
Unlike at Kyoto, the US and developing countries such as China and India are promising to play a part. But there are as yet no firm targets, and no international agreement on how much it will be necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to protect the planet.
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Hailed by some as historic and attacked by others as weak, the Bali "roadmap" for more talks is a compromise. To agree a deal, all the main players - including the US, the European Union (EU) and the developing countries - had to give ground.
It was the US U-turn that was the most dramatic. The final argument yesterday was about the strength of commitments from developing countries to tackle pollution, with the EU and China having agreed a softened form of words.
But when the head of the US delegation, Paula Dobriansky, announced she was not prepared to accept the wording, a chorus of boos echoed round the huge conference chamber. "If you're not willing to lead, please get out of the way," said a member of Papua New Guinea's delegation, to cheers.
Within minutes, however, Dobriansky had changed her mind, and was rewarded with warm applause. "The United States is very committed to this effort and just wants to really ensure we all act together," she said. "With that, Mr Chairman, let me say to you we will go forward and join consensus."
Still, the US triumphed in annoying some:
But the Bali agreement was weakened because the EU was forced to make concessions to the US, which was backed by Canada. The EU had wanted a reference in the final document to the need to make cuts in greenhouse gas emissions of 25%-40% below 1990 levels by 2020, as that had been backed by scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The US argued that this would "prejudge" future talks and in the end succeeded in relegating the figures to an indirect reference in a footnote. Also missing was any mention of the need for emissions to peak within 10 to 15 years and for the global output of greenhouse gases to halve by 2050.
Instead, all the final document said was that countries recognised that "deep cuts in global emissions" will be required, and called for a "long-term global goal for emissions reductions".
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