HONG KONG — The 187 countries meeting to discuss climate change in Bali, Indonesia, this month narrowly averted a total breakdown by agreeing to set 2009 as the deadline for a new treaty to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. For that deadline to be met, China and the United States will both need to agree to something they have resisted so far: binding commitments on emission reductions.
One of the most dramatic moments of the two-week conference came when former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change, declared: "My country has been responsible for obstructing the process here in Bali, we know that. Over the next two years, the United States is going to be somewhere where it is not now. You must anticipate that."
Much will depend on the next American president, to be elected late next year. In the meantime, the Bush administration continues to insist that before Washington will agree to big cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, emerging economies such as China and India, whose per capita emissions are a small fraction of the U.S.'s, must agree to such cuts.