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December 15—Roller Coaster Ride in Overtime Session (Posted by Alden Meyer, Director of Strategy and Policy)
We entered the final day of the Bali conference after speeches by Al Gore and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, numerous private meetings with key ministers and delegates, and two near-sleepless nights of closed (to organizations and the press) negotiations, where ministers worked around the clock to try to reach agreement on a final deal. The sticking points were the “balance” between the operative paragraphs in the Bali Mandate on mitigation actions by developed and developing countries, and whether to reflect science-based emissions reductions goals in the preamble to the decision.
 The last-ditch negotiations started Thursday night. At about 2:00 am on Friday, the South African co-chair of the working group told me it’s “too early” for countries to start making concessions. This proved right, as the informal consultations ended up lasting into the wee hours of Saturday morning. My job, along with a handful of other organizations who have good relationships with ministers and delegates from key countries, is to linger outside the rooms where the closed meetings are taking place, talk to negotiators during breaks to get a sense of which countries are taking positions on different sides of an issue, and to provide our feedback on new draft text that’s being discussed by ministers. As it happens, the Indonesian Environment Minister, who’s serving as the president of the Conference of the Parties, had to make the call on which version of the text on developing country actions and industrialized country technology and financing assistance to put before the plenary session on Saturday morning. It’s a no-win situation, since whichever country’s text is left out will surely complain.
Sure enough, when India’s proposal to apply the words “measurable, reportable, and verifiable” to industrialized country obligations on technology and financing wasn’t in the president’s text, the plenary had to be suspended while urgent consultations took place. When the plenary resumed, India formally introduced its amended language, which in short order is supported by both the block of developing countries and the European Union (this represents a reversal of position by the E.U., in the larger interest of salvaging the Bali Mandate). Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky announced that the United States cannot support India’s proposal, which in this consensus-based process is enough to keep it from being included entirely. She charged that developing countries are not willing to translate their statements of willingness to do more to address the climate problem into concrete language in the negotiated text. The audience loudly booed her statement—something I have rarely experienced in nearly 20 years of attending international climate change negotiations.
 There then ensued nearly an hour of country after country imploring the United States to reconsider, and not to bring the whole package crashing down (you can watch the webcast of this drama by clicking on “part III” of the Saturday 8:30 am to 3:30 pm plenary). Most telling is the South African minister’s stern rebuke to the United States: “the reference by the representative of the United States to developing countries not accepting their full responsibilities,” he intones, “is most unwelcome and without any basis.” The audience broke into applause and cheers. “Developing countries are saying, voluntarily,” he continued, “that we are willing to commit ourselves to measurable, reportable, and verifiable mitigation actions. It has never happened before; a year ago, it was totally unthinkable…admittedly, we would have liked to see a much stronger commitment from the United States.”
 With no support from any quarter, abandoned even by its usual ally—Saudi Arabia—the United States was backed into a corner. Unwilling to take the responsibility, in full view of the world’s media and civil society, for blocking a constructive deal in Bali, Paula Dobriansky took the floor again to announce a 180-degree reversal in the U.S. position. With that last-minute acquiescence by the world’s largest polluter, the Bali Mandate was agreed to, and weary delegates moved quickly to approve the remaining decisions and conclude the Bali conference—a full day later than planned.
I then joined five of my colleagues from around the world in an impromptu Climate Action Network press conference, just outside the plenary hall. While we are all exhilarated by the unity and strength demonstrated by the rest of the world in standing up to the United States, we expressed disappointment that the agreed text doesn’t more explicitly reflect the urgency of the science and the clear need for deep reductions in emissions. But at least we have a clear way forward, with the right issues on the table for intensive negotiations in the months ahead, and as we’ve been telling delegates and media from other countries over the past two weeks, the U.S. position will certainly change with the arrival of a new president in January, 2009, giving hope that a strong agreement can be reached by the climate meeting in Copenhagen at the end of that year.
Before taking a break, I still had a couple hours of meetings with many reporters to hold. My very last interview was live with Al-Jazeera TV, leading off their hourly newscast. Then I headed off with some colleagues for dinner and a couple of beers before heading back to the hotel, where exhaustion overcame me and I collapsed into bed for my first good sleep in three nights.
 On my 30-hour series of flights back to Washington, I alternated between catching up on some reading, grabbing some sleep where I could, and starting to outline the testimony I delivered at a hearing called by the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, to discuss the outcomes of the Bali meeting and next steps for the United States (Click here for pictures of the hearing and links to my testimony as well as that of the other witnesses.)
I’m really proud of the work the whole UCS team did in Bali. While the outcome isn’t perfect, it gives us a foothold to keep pushing the United States to re-engage in the international climate treaty process, and to work for the new global deal needed by 2009 at the latest.
December 15—Needed Progress on Tropical Forests (Posted by Peter Frumhoff, Director of Science and Policy & Doug Boucher, Director, Tropical Forest & Climate Initiative) 
What a difference a few years can make. In 2000, climate negotiators striving to map out the major operational details of the Kyoto Protocol were stymied by the fact that governments—and organizations—were deeply divided over whether reducing emissions from tropical deforestation should be included within the protocol. Tensions were extremely high. Activists unfurled a huge banner reading “Don’t Sink the Protocol” (meaning, don’t include forests) in front of the conference center in The Hague, Netherlands. Ultimately, negotiators agreed on an outcome that accomplished little for forests.
It is fitting that Indonesia—the world’s fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases, more than 80 percent of it from deforestation—was the setting for Saturday’s decision to start a two-year negotiation towards a very different outcome. Underlying the many hallway discussions, presentations in side events, negotiating sessions, and plenary addresses that have addressed deforestation in Bali is the now broadly shared understanding that Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) can contribute greatly needed reductions in emissions at a relatively low cost. UCS analyses indicate that stopping tropical deforestation would provide 6-14 percent of the total reductions in heat-trapping emissions that are needed by mid-century to keep global average temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above pre-industrial levels.
There still remains a lot of work to be done. Several parts of the Bali text on REDD are either disappointingly vague on details or conversely, introduce extraneous elements for consideration that distract attention from the key components. At times the REDD negotiations at Bali became incredibly complicated and difficult to understand, even for those of us well-versed in the issues. Several hours of one day, for example, were devoted to whether a semi-colon should be substituted for a comma at one place in the text (in the end, it was, and that actually represented an important victory for our side). But ultimately, the most important issue concerning tropical forests is simply that now they're part of the agreement. They never have been there before, which has meant that a fifth of the world's global warming pollution has simply not been dealt with. That's the equivalent of not dealing with the entire emissions of the United States, or China, or those of every car, truck, ship, plane, and train on the planet. The inclusion of REDD in the agreement gives us a lot more work to do, but it means that for the first time, we can reach a climate agreement that is truly broad enough to solve the problem. It's an accomplishment in which we all should take pride.
December 15—Final Word on Bali Negotiations (Posted by Kevin Knobloch, UCS President)
One of the heartening aspects of the international climate negotiations is the influence that key representatives of our participatory democracy can bring to bear. U.S. Congressional staff, state leaders, big city mayors, students, and advocates with public interest organizations played a pivotal role this past week in building pressure on the Bush administration delegation to support forward movement, as well as educating delegations from other countries about the tremendous range of leadership on climate happening on every front in the states.
 Although Senator John Kerry (D-MA) was the only Member of Congress to make the long journey to Indonesia, more than 30 Congressional staff members were on hand. The State of California sent a large delegation to showcase that state’s first-in-the-nation leadership on climate emissions regulation—economy-wide as well as from the tailpipes of cars and trucks. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg parachuted in to spotlight his impressive climate leadership at the urban level, appearing with London’s Deputy Mayor. Hundreds of college students were here too, rallying outside the convention hall for bolder action, and pressing delegates at every opportunity inside the hall with their clear-eyed integrity.  And former Vice President Al Gore, fresh from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, came to Bali to deliver an electrifying speech on Thursday night, where he charged that "My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali." He told delegates that "You can feel anger and frustration and direct it at the United States of America, or you can make a second choice. You can decide to move forward and do all of the difficult work that needs to be done."
Citizen advocates, not only from the United States but from across the planet, were an integrated part of the fabric that makes up these unique gatherings. One moment exchanging intelligence with delegates, another moment giving quotes to the many reporters on the scene, and yet another distributing analysis on a key point of debate within the plenary hall, the leaders from environmental organizations did a fine job representing the many millions of people their organizations represent.
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