The Bali road to nowhere

Rejoice. The world has a second “road map”! Judging by the bad karma given off by the original Middle East version, one would have expected the world’s political elite to avoid the term at all cost, but no. Following two weeks of intense debating and tabling, participants of over 180 countries at the December UN Conference on Climate Change (UNCCC) accepted the “Bali Roadmap.” The Kyoto Protocol, which requires its 178 member states to cut their 1990 levels of green house gas emissions by 5%, expires in 2012. The Bali mega-conference aimed to reassurance the world’s increasingly concerned citizens about the environment. But the Bali Roadmap nearly never saw the light of day. At the UNCCC’s dramatic grand finale, negotiations were broken off. The Europeans suggested cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 25% to 40% by 2020, which would mean an immense incentive to boost investments in cleaner, greener technology. Yet