Over the weekend, and finally, the exhausted delegates to the UN climate summit in Indonesia came up with a “Bali Action Plan” or road map document for moving beyond Kyoto. The meeting logo’s high-five handclasp celebrates, it appears, an enigmatic result. Several press versions credit the emergence of anything signature-worthy to a last moment shift by the US. That in turn is being credited, variously, to US wisdom, to US humiliation, to Al Gore, or to European Union sturdiness. It appears, however, that without declaring any precise goals or targets, those countries willing to adopt them eventually still have a UN-blessed forum for talking with those that don’t want to be pinned down, including Japan, China, and the US.

The Times of India expresses, in an editorial on Bali’s results, its own somewhat pleased befuddlement over exactly how a consensus emerged, or why the US relented just a bit.

This morning, The Toronto Globe and Mail’s Geoffrey York offers about as well-calibrated, and succinct, summary of things as the Tracker could find. It is, he writes, “disappointing and unenforceable,” yet his piece adds that it reflects a shifting global mood, or resignation, to work toward something with teeth.

The US humiliation angle comes from this little AP piece, brought to our attention by Joe Romm at the rather testy Climate Progress blog. It reports that one small nation’s scolding triggered such a wave of hooting that American delegates promptly pulled in their horns.

The NYTimes, in a good roundup found in the Int’l Herald Tribune by Elisabeth Rosenthal, includes more on that episode. Ditto for an account in the Wall Street Journal by Jane Spencer (maybe you can find the whole thing free. This one says it’s for subscribers only), which notes that the US bent mainly in agreeing to more technical aid to developing nations. The White House got its way with its most important goal of having no specific, binding targets for emissions reduction.

The AP’s Charles J. Hanley provides a well-crafted explanation of the numbers that the final document omits — but that all participants know are still on the unwritten agenda.

Some say the US did a U-turn in the last moment to avoid scuttling the whole deal, but has since reneged. At any rate, the White House appears to have issued an international version of one of the signing statements that President Bush appends to his signatures on bills — spelling out the parts that his team regards as illegitimate and thus ignorable. Even without specifics goals in the document, White House reps say the US won’t countenance any mandatory cuts. At the Telegraph (UK) Charles Clover reviews all this, and adds that Russia also was key to keeping the agreement weak and fuzzy.

Cooking along in the background is the short remaining tenure of the current US administration. A new president will likely bring reassessment of America’s role in stemming global warming. Even the Bush administration, reports the NYTimes’s Thomas Fuller and Andrew C. Revkin, had begun to drag its feet considerably more softly in recent months. Revkin also provides perspective , via a look at China’s and India’s roles, in the Times’s Sunday Week in Review section.

Grist for the Mill:

U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change site including text of agreement, final statements. ; Int’l Inst. for Sustainable Development Earth Negotiations Bulletin summary of meeting ;

*UPDATE: Blogger Joseph Romm at the Gristmill blog (appropriate for this part of this post) points out an extensive and good summary of what happened, penned by a Congressional fellow and Stanford PhD. It has some editorializing in it, including a reference to war funding in the US budget, but looks expert to these eyes.

SPEAKING OF GLOBAL WARMING:

Finally, the Tracker has received an honor he accepts with pleasure — if at arm’s length, too. Which is: a “Disposable Bullshit Bag” for preventing nonsense in public. Dunno if it comes empty, or pre-filled. It is bestowed by the wise heads (…”rip snorting gang of right-wing cutthroats”…) at Death by 1000 Papercuts blog. Thank you very much, it’s good to be appreciated … or noticed, anyway.

-CP

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