NUSA DUA, INDONESIA — The landmark global warming document agreed to on Saturday at a United Nations climate conference here was weakened in furious last-minute negotiations, but still made important progress in two key areas.
Under pressure from the United States, the document abandoned setting any firm goal for worldwide emissions reductions and left open the possibility that industrialized countries could avoid individual caps on their emissions.
Nonetheless, for the first time, it enrolled the developing world in efforts to reduce global emissions and pushed those nations to consider ways to limit their output of greenhouse gases.
More important, the agreement kept the United States -- long considered the biggest roadblock to unified action in curbing global warming -- at the negotiating table and offered hints that the country might finally be willing to join international efforts.
"At long last, the warnings from the world's leading scientists are no longer being totally ignored by the Bush administration," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming. "When every other world leader is calling for action, not even this administration can refuse to listen."
The unanimous approval of the document by thousands of delegates meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali now sets the "road map" for two years of negotiations to create a formal climate treaty to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The next phase of talks is scheduled to begin in April and, ideally, conclude in Copenhagen in late 2009.
The document was almost not completed.
A primary sticking point during the last week was the inclusion of tough emissions targets recommended by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, in a series of reports issued this year, and pushed hard by the European Union.
Working through the night Friday, negotiators reached a compromise that seemed to pave the way for acceptance of the document. The targets -- which include a 25% to 40% reduction in emissions by industrialized countries by 2020 and a 50% reduction in overall emissions worldwide by 2050 -- were eliminated from the text and replaced with a footnote referring to a broader range of options in the IPCC reports.
Some delegates called the compromise weak, but it was, at least, strong enough to win the Europeans' support. The United States also seemed pleased.
