Global: UN climate change conference: the day after

A day after the dramatic ending of the Bali climate talks, many are wondering if the result was indeed best outcome possible given the circumstances, writes Walden Bello. The US was brought back to the fold, but at the cost of excising from the final document--the so-called Bali Roadmap--any reference to the need for a 25 to 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020 to keep the mean global temperature increase to 2.0 to 2.4 degrees Celsius in the 21st century.