Delegates from some 190 nations have gathered in Bali, Indonesia, to negotiate a new framework to combat global warming. The Bali conference only represents the first round of negotiations that may continue into 2009. But at stake is the sustainability of the Earth itself, which is facing the danger of more heat waves, floods and droughts, rising sea levels and food and water shortages due to climate changes.
In November, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its final report, which pointed to an over 90 percent possibility that emissions of carbon dioxide from human activities have caused global warming. It concluded that global warming is "unequivocal" and already threatens hundreds of millions of lives and as much as two-thirds of species on the Earth. The message is clear: Immediate action by all nations must follow.
The goal of the negotiations is to work out a global climate change treaty that will replace and widen the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The protocol requires 36 industrialized countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent from the 1990 levels during the 2008-12 period. But they are only responsible for about one-third of the world's total carbon-dioxide emissions.