AN IN-DEPTH REPORT ON A SUMMIT OF JEERS, TEARS ... AND A HISTORIC DEAL TO FOLLOW UP KYOTO

First the world held its breath, then it sighed with relief. In the end, the wind that blew from Bali yesterday was favourable. After two weeks of intense negotiations, a sleep-deprived night and a morning of high drama, more than 180 countries gathered on the Indonesian island finally agreed a way forward for combating one of the most serious threats humanity has ever faced - climate change.

Over the next two years countries are committed to agreeing how to cut the pollution that is warming the globe, causing floods, droughts and storms. The aim is to come up with a deal in Copenhagen in 2009 which will succeed that made at Kyoto in Japan, which runs until 2012.

Unlike at Kyoto, the US and developing countries such as China and India are promising to play a part. But there are as yet no firm targets, and no international agreement on how much it will be necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to protect the planet.

Hailed by some as historic and attacked by others as weak, the Bali "roadmap" for more talks is a compromise. To agree a deal, all the main players - including the US, the European Union (EU) and the developing countries - had to give ground.

It was the US U-turn that was the most dramatic. The final argument yesterday was about the strength of commitments from developing countries to tackle pollution, with the EU and China having agreed a softened form of words.

But when the head of the US delegation, Paula Dobriansky, announced she was not prepared to accept the wording, a chorus of boos echoed round the huge conference chamber. "If you're not willing to lead, please get out of the way," said a member of Papua New Guinea's delegation, to cheers.

Within minutes, however, Dobriansky had changed her mind, and was rewarded with warm applause. "The United States is very committed to this effort and just wants to really ensure we all act together," she said. "With that, Mr Chairman, let me say to you we will go forward and join consensus."

Germany's environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, had been preparing to text his chancellor, Angela Merkel, to ask her to intervene with the White House. "I had already typed the text after Dobriansky's first statement but then I was able to cancel it," Gabriel said.

"In the end, nobody wanted to have a failure," he added. "We have achieved more than we could have expected previously, but it is less than what is needed to meet the urgency of the problem."

According to environmentalists, the US was forced into a humiliating climbdown. "The US administration was asked to get out of the way, and in the end it bowed to pressure," said Hans Verolme, director of WWF's global climate change programme.

Most delegates left Bali with the hope that US President George W Bush will soon be replaced by a more climate-friendly leader.

"The Bali roadmap leaves a seat at the table for the next US president to make a real contribution to the global fight to stop dangerous climate change," argued Verolme. "I've never seen such a flip-flop in an environmental treaty context ever," added Bill Hare from Greenpeace. "The US has been humbled by the overwhelming message by developing countries that they are ready to be engaged with the problem, and it's been humiliated by the world community."

But the US was defended by the UK environment secretary, Hilary Benn. "Nobody comes out of this humiliated," he said. "Everyone comes out of this with their heads held high because we didn't let the world down."

According to James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, a "new chapter" had been opened. "We now have one of the broadest negotiating agendas ever on climate change," he argued.

Shortly after the US U-turn, the conference host, Indonesian environment minister Rachmat Witoelar, banged down the gavel on the deal to a standing ovation. The conference, originally due to finish on Friday, had been extended into yesterday to give extra time for an agreement to be reached.

Pillows and blankets were taken into the conference on Friday night, and yesterday UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon returned unexpectedly to Bali from East Timor to plead with delegates not to disappoint him.

"This is the beginning, not the end. We will have to engage in more complex, long and difficult negotiations," he said.

The head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, Yvo de Boer, agreed: "All three things I wanted have come out of these talks - launch, agenda, end date." He had earlier had to leave the conference in tears after being accused by the Chinese delegation of flaunting conference procedures .

But the Bali agreement was weakened because the EU was forced to make concessions to the US, which was backed by Canada. The EU had wanted a reference in the final document to the need to make cuts in greenhouse gas emissions of 25%-40% below 1990 levels by 2020, as that had been backed by scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The US argued that this would "prejudge" future talks and in the end succeeded in relegating the figures to an indirect reference in a footnote. Also missing was any mention of the need for emissions to peak within 10 to 15 years and for the global output of greenhouse gases to halve by 2050.

Instead, all the final document said was that countries recognised that "deep cuts in global emissions" will be required, and called for a "long-term global goal for emissions reductions".

This was described as "very disappointing" by Tony Juniper, the executive director of Friends of the Earth in England. "We said we needed a roadmap, but this conference has failed to give us a clear destination."

UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, put a more positive spin on it. "The Bali roadmap is just the first step," he said. "Now begins the hardest work, as all nations work towards a deal in Copenhagen in 2009 to address the defining challenge of our time."

The deal was also welcomed in Scotland, with a promise that it would lead the world. "We plan to set a binding target of an 80% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050," said climate change minister Stewart Stevenson.

That target is planned to be at the heart of a climate change bill, already delayed a year by the government. And ministers seem reluctant to abide by mandatory cuts in emissions of 3% a year, as promised in the SNP manifesto. Nevertheless, most environmentalists are still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. "Scotland can be at the forefront of demonstrating real global leadership in tackling climate change," said WWF Scotland's acting director, Dr Dan Barlow. "Enshrining in law a commitment to cut emissions by 80% by 2050 through annual cuts of at least 3% will put Scotland on a path to a low-carbon economy and provide an example other developed countries should follow."

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