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Salem Press

Encyclopedia of Global Warming

United Nations Climate Change Conference

by Cynthia A. Bily

Category: Conferences and meetings

Date: December 3-14, 2007

Background

In 1994, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) entered into force, and the nations, or parties, that ratified it have met annually in different cities in what are called the Conferences of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP). It was during the third annual meeting in 1997, or COP-3, that the Kyoto Protocol was adopted. COP-11, held in Montreal, Canada, included the first official meeting of the parties (MOP) of the Kyoto Protocol since the protocol was adopted, and the group agreed to continue to meet annually. The United Nations Climate Change Conference (also known as the Bali Conference) was hosted December 3-14, 2007, by the Indonesian government and held in the Bali International Convention Center.

The conference was attended by over ten thousand governmental representatives, members of nongovernmental organizations, and journalists, from more than 180 countries. It comprised several separate but related events, including COP-13 and MOP-3, as well as an annual meeting of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice, the Subsidiary Body for Implementation, and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol.

Going into the Bali Conference, serious tensions and conflicts existed between several major parties. The United States was at odds with most of the rest of the European and the developing nations, because it did not believe that any nation should be bound by internationally determined targets. The United States hoped to persuade other nations that global warming could be addressed by each nation voluntarily setting its own targets and procedures for reaching them.

Summary of Provisions

The focus of the Bali Conference was preparing for what will happen after 2012, the last year covered by the Kyoto Protocol. Most experts agree that, however difficult it has been for the world to reach Kyoto Protocol targets for emissions reductions, even greater reductions will be necessary after 2012 if global warming is to be effectively addressed. At the end of the conference, representatives from both developed and developing nations adopted the Bali Roadmap, a series of future steps to reduce global warming. One part of the roadmap, the Bali Action Plan, outlines a two-year process for a series of negotiations that would determine how countries would reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions after 2012. The negotiations were scheduled to occur four times in 2008, with a major meeting at COP-14, in Poznan, Poland, and to conclude with a binding agreement at COP-15, in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009.

Former U.S. vice president Al Gore addresses the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, on December 13, 2007.

ph_Gore_Al_climate.jpg

The roadmap included the launching of the Adaptation Fund, which will finance projects for developing clean energy technologies in developing countries. The fund had been devised in 1997 at the Kyoto Conference, to be paid for through proceeds from the clean development mechanism, but it had not actually been created. As established at Bali, the fund is administered by a board of sixteen members that will meet twice each year to consider projects. Also included in the roadmap were clarifications and agreements on the scope of Article 9 of the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for periodic scientific review of global warming and its effects. The roadmap also included agreements about how developed nations can effectively transfer clean energy technology to developing nations and how deforestation, which increases the harmful effects of GHG emissions, can be reduced.

Significance for Climate Change

The Bali Conference had the potential to draw more participants into concrete plans to reduce emissions than had been involved previously. The roadmap, while it does not specify reduction targets overall or for any individual country, leaves open the likelihood that the two-year negotiation process will result in reduction commitments from additional nations. China, India, and Brazil, countries whose economies have grown quickly in the twenty-first century and that are among the largest emitters of GHGs, will likely be called upon to reduce their emissions after 2012.

Further Reading

1 

Burleson, Elizabeth. “The Bali Climate Change Conference.” ASIL Insight 12, no. 4 (March 18, 2008). Optimistic analysis of the Bali roadmap by a law professor who attended the Bali Conference with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Delegation.

2 

Fletcher, Susan R., Larry Parker, and Jane A. Leggett. Climate Change: Issues Underlying Negotiations at the Bali Conference of Parties. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2007. This report, prepared for the United States Congress before the Bali Conference, includes background information about the Kyoto Protocol and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a review of the science and economics of emissions reduction, and expectations for future negotiations.

3 

International Debates: The Pro and Con Monthly. “Controlling Global Warming, the Bali Roadmap and Beyond.” 6, no. 1 (January, 2008). This special issue includes background information about Kyoto and Bali, remarks by the Bali Conference president, and articles arguing opposing sides by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former U.S. vice president Al Gore, President George W. Bush, and others.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Bily, Cynthia A. "United Nations Climate Change Conference." Encyclopedia of Global Warming, edited by Steven I. Dutch, Salem Press, 2009. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GloW_1502.
APA 7th
Bily, C. A. (2009). United Nations Climate Change Conference. In S. I. Dutch (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Warming. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Bily, Cynthia A. "United Nations Climate Change Conference." Edited by Steven I. Dutch. Encyclopedia of Global Warming. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2009. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.