Bali Who?

The other day when I posted excerpts from Al Gore's Nobel Prize acceptance speech I felt a little foolish. I did so immediately after opening my email, before I'd checked news on the net. I thought everyone would be doing this story, but maybe I would choose different excerpts.

Guess again. The first American to win the Peace Prize in a generation, and winning it not for stopping a war or advocating an end to war, but in an unprecedented recognition that the global environmental climate crisis is the chief threat to peace for the next generation or more. But the American media ignored it. Completely. (Except for NPR.)

Now the U.S. media is all but ignoring the 180 nation climate crisis conference in Bali. Most of the coverage is coming from foreign sources, including from news organizations in China.

I suppose all blogs would like to present you with news you won't find anywhere else. But news of what one leader called "the greatest project in the history of human civilization"? He's Indonesian, so what does he know.

So for the latest news from Bali...excerpts (my edits, my emphases) from the French news agency AFP:

Talks on halting the juggernaut of climate change swung into top gear here Wednesday with a blunt warning from UN chief Ban Ki-moon that the world was counting on a breakthrough.

Meeting on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, environment ministers have until Friday to agree a framework for tackling global warming past 2012, when pledges under the Kyoto Protocol expire. "If we leave Bali without such a breakthrough, we will not only have failed our leaders but also those who look to us to find solutions, namely the peoples of this world," Ban said.

"This is the moral challenge of our generation. Not only are the eyes of the world upon us. More important, succeeding generations depend on us. We cannot rob them of their future."

He said they had to focus not only on curbing greenhouse-gas emissions but helping those least to blame for global warming yet most at risk.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono echoed Ban's warning. "We are embarking on the greatest project in the history of human civilization. And the worst thing that can happen here is to end our conference with no consensus, no breakthrough, and it's all business as usual."

In a video message from Oslo, where he received the Nobel peace prize on behalf of the UN's top climate change panel, Rajendra Pachauri spelt out key points on global warming: The unbridled burning of fossil fuels is stoking a greenhouse effect that is warming Earth's surface with potentially calamitous consequences, he said. By century's end, millions of people -- many in poor tropical countries -- face the risk of drought, floods, storms and rising sea levels.

The Bali talks do not themselves seek to draw up a new climate pact but to set a format for further negotiations. However, delegates point to several sticking points:
-- DEADLINE: Ministers must decide whether negotiations for the post-2012 deal should be given a deadline to wrap up by the end of 2009. This would give countries time to ratify the new deal so it can take effect as soon as Kyoto runs out.

-- POLITICAL SCOPE: The European Union wants a reference by industrialised countries that a cut of 25-40 percent in their emissions by 2020, compared to 1990 levels, will be a guideline for the post-2012 haggle. The United States, Japan, Canada and others however are against that. "We want to be sure that the text that we have before us is going to be neutral -- it will leave all options on the table and, again, will not prejudge outcomes, which should be something that comes at the end of the two-year process," said US negotiator Harlan Watson.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel countered that such figures are essential for rich countries to show emerging giant economies they are serious about action.

-- DEFORESTATION AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER: There is no agreement yet on how future talks should address forest loss and a transfer of clean technology to developing countries poised to become major emitters.

One diplomat predicted that by Friday's deadline, ministers may be reaching for their phones to lobby for help from their leaders. The ministers have "a massive task at hand if they are going to rescue this meeting," said Greenpeace's Cindy Baxter.

However, on the issue of forests, yesterday the British paper the Guardian was, well, less guarded: Negotiators working on a new global climate deal in Bali scored their first success today with progress agreed on deforestation and how to help poor countries adapt to climate change.

Officials said steps to protect forests were included in a new draft of the so-called Bali roadmap, and that they expected them to appear in the final text produced at the end of the talks on Friday. The move would make financial rewards for not cutting down trees a key part of a new climate deal. Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, said: "It looks like we're going to get something on deforestation, which would be great."

It's no surprise that the U.S. of Bush is resisting anything substantive on anything, especially mandatory goals for greenhouse gas emission cuts. China is also flatly not interested in setting goals. Together these are the two major greenhouse gas polluters on the planet. But Canada and Japan are not being very constructive, either. With its newly elected pm, Australia has joined the coalition of the willing to do something to save civilization, but the question is what will the rest of the world do while it is waiting for the new U.S. president--who Al Gore told delegates is likely to have a different approach to the climate crisis, whoever he or she is. How strong a message will they send?

Update: To be fair, the New York Times now has an article, but it doesn't add much to the above.