Climate change delegates work out an emotional last-minute agreement in Bali
By Maria Khovanskaya
"I propose to adopt the Bali Action Plan...and as I see no objections...it is so decided." The speaker of those words, Rachmat Witoelar, Indonesia's Minister of Environment and President of the 13th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, then struck the gavel on the table. The audience, overcome with relief and emotion, then rose to its feet for a standing ovation. Thus the adoption of the Bali Road Map proved the climax of long, painstaking negotiations — a hard-fought reward for negotiators' efforts and observers' patience.
For almost two weeks, negotiators from 192 parties to the convention worked feverishly, sometimes long into the night, trying to craft a final shape to this document, striving to reach a delicate balance between the interests of 'developed' and 'developing' countries, environmental interests and economic interests, present generations and future generations. The proceedings were supposed to conclude on Friday, December 14, but delegates took one extra day for round-the-clock negotiations. The last plenary session was adjourned no less than three times, with losses of mutual trust happening through frequent and significant misunderstandings, before negotiators could agree to adopt the Bali Road Map.
It is necessary to look back a few years to gain a better understanding of why the Bali Road Map is such an important document. The UN Convention on the Climate Change was signed in 1992, though ratification and entering into force was still several years away. The Parties to the Convention recognised even back then the threats that global warming posed to the planet and humankind, and that it was necessary to mitigate the effects of climate change. Of course, not all Parties to the Convention were equally responsible for the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere. (The parties who assumed their historical responsibility are listed in Annex I of the Convention.) The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the convention's governing body. A country becomes a Party to the Convention on a voluntary basis; however, the stipulations of convention decisions become mandatory, and can indeed have significant implications for the economic and social life, legal system or moral stance of a signatory country.