Guarded optimism
Does the adoption of the Bali Road Map mean that the international community now has a new climate change regime to save the Earth's atmosphere? Unfortunately, it provides no such guarantee, which naturally makes the agenda a target for criticism from some quarters. Some environmental groups, hopeful for more drastic and immediate measures to address climate change, are already referring to the Bali document as the 'Mother of All Indecisions.' And Washington wasted little time in watering down its own hopeful Bali rhetoric, as White House Press Secretary Dana Perino announced on the very day of road map adoption that the US would not make any further commitments unless the biggest developing nations and emerging economies would take on greater responsibilities of their own.
So, is there any hope? There is definitely some. The success during negotiations on topics not under the Convention but the Kyoto Protocol (such as the Ad Hoc Working Group negotiations, the setting of a 2009 deadline, the Adaptation Fund, and providing scope and content for the Article 9 review of the Kyoto Protocol) are clear evidence that the international climate change community is willing to adopt the next climate regime. There is also a strong chance that COP 13 in Bali, Indonesia, COP 14 in Poznan, Poland (2008) and COP 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark (2009) will succeed in finalising the next climate change regime.
