Roadmap is limited but paves way for progress

DO NOT be downhearted about the outcome of the Bali talks. They did not deliver the binding commitments to cuts in greenhouse emissions that are desperately needed, and as a result millions may die who might have lived. But they did show us something remarkable.

They showed us the human race trying to grow up and take responsibility for its common future.

It doesn’t feel like that, of course. It feels like 15,000 politicians, diplomats, journalists and activists flew across continents in order to sit in Bali for two weeks and achieve little. Disappointment, and even anger, are not out of order, for the commitment to early and deep emission cuts (25% to 40% by 2020) that most developed countries wanted to see in the draft treaty had to be dropped in order to keep the US involved.