The Bali conference

Between 3 and 12 December 2007, about 15 000 diplomats, experts and NGO representatives conferred in Bali to prepare the work for the entire world's Environmental Ministers expected on December 12 for the United Nations conference on climatic change. The main purpose of that conference is to lay down a negotiating framework for extending the Kyoto protocol beyond the year 2012.

An international consensus was found on the need for setting numerical objectives for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases. But the future of that consensus looks fragile because of the United States' refusal to commit itself fully to fighting planetary warming.

We should point out that the conference gave Australia an opportunity for joining the countries that have signed the Kyoto protocol.