Bali heats up for climate change talks
Is it hotter than it should be? This is Bali after all. An Indonesian tropical paradise.

Yet you can't escape the irony. Bali is lush and green and to the untrained eye, the immediate effects of global warming are nowhere to be seen.

But it is hot, unbearably so and here it is playing host to the United Nations climate change talks on finding ways to stop cooking the planet.

Outside the air-conditioned Westin Resort where the talks are being held, a giant earth balloon is high in the air. It towers above the trees. It has two gigantic eyes and underneath a banner reads: "The world is watching you."

That is a message to the world's representatives who are inside talking about what to do when the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change ends in 2012.

It was 10 years ago this week that the Japanese city of Kyoto championed a historic mandate. It agreed to an ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within five years from 2008 to 2012.

But on the eve of that plan, the temperature is still rising. The problem is the two biggest polluters, China and the United States are not party to the Kyoto deal. The US because it refused to ratify it and China because it wasn't required to.

Now the same Kyoto players are in Bali to talk about what to when 2012 rolls by.

As world leaders are escorted into the sprawling resort by a cavalcade of police cars. The lesser important party delegates take the longish walk from the entrance to the complex. By the time they reach the air-conditioned security checkpoint, beads of sweat are dripping from their heads and the crisp white shirts so perfectly ironed just half an hour earlier are now stained with perspiration.

I wonder if they have the heart to tell the decision makers inside about how hot it really is. But is this really just tropical heat or something more sinister.

The UN's top scientists say the world is getting warmer.

And they warn we are hurtling towards catastrophe unless something is done about greenhouse gas emissions. They warn the impacts will be abrupt and irreversible - crop failure, storm damage, disease, drought, floods, cyclones, rising sea levels and on and on it goes.

If the science is clear, why isn't the world listening. Many at the Bali talks are. Others are not so convinced. It seems there are two camps here, those who do want to be tied to set emission targets and those who don't. The US, Japan, Canada and Australia don't. They say they can't be bound to set targets and anyway why should they bear the biggest burden when the world's polluting culprits, like China and India, continue to fire up their economies without making big cuts to their emissions.

As I walk from the airless media centre to the cool marble floored Westin Resort , I pass the Greenpeace giant thermometer. It is there to remind delegates of their obligations.

But once inside, it is easy to forget.

The air conditioners blast cool welcoming air and everything is ordered just like the UN.

Every day it releases thousands and thousands of copies of press releases and statements. In addition, Non Government Organisations (NGOs) release their reams of flyers and now they're giving away 2008 calendars. And all the while the VIP cars wait outside, ready to emit more pollution.

When the leaders have left, when the paper has been thrown away and the air conditioning units have been turned off, who knows how big an environmental footprint the Bali climate change talks have made.

The irony is not lost.

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