why the US did what it did at Bali

In a guest column on Grist, Professor Andrew Light provides the best analysis I have seen of why representatives of the Bush admimistration behaved the way they did at the Bali conference. We'll probably never really know for sure, but Professor Light provides several possible explanations. Considering it was all about setting the scene for the negotiations to come, rather than actually producing a binding protocol for post-2012 Kyoto, it seems bizarre that Washington should be so obstructionist.

What is heartening, though, is that despite the petty behaviour of US negotiators, the rest of the delegate countries were willing to leave a seat for the US at the negotiating table. Let's hope the next US president is as magnanimous.