Monday, 3 December, 4 p.m. — Opening day was a day for staking out positions in Bali. While many countries made similar points — such as that the science was clear and that urgent action is needed — there were subtle and sometimes not so subtle differences between various approaches and specific national interests.

Developing countries strongly stressed adaptation and the need for an adaptation fund to provide assistance to the poorest in order to cope with climate change. The European Union stressed the need to act urgently on climate change lest it "change the face of our planet." And the US, saying that it was committed to advancing negotiations that would conclude by 2009, stressed the need for a new agreement that is "environmentally effective and economically sustainable."

The host country, Indonesia, called on countries to take action on deforestation, including the establishment of a fund that can provide incentives to dissuade logging in key areas. Kenya stressed the need for Africa to receive a fair share of projects under the Clean Development Mechanism, a vehicle that was devised under the Kyoto Protocol to allow industries in rich countries to offset their emissions by investing in developing countries.

-- Dan Shepard

Monday, 3 December, 1 p.m. — There was polite applause for the speakers opening the Bali conference, but the meeting really erupted in sustained applause when Australian delegate Howard Bamsey told the Climate Change Convention that Australia would ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Bamsey said that the new Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who was just elected on 24 November, planned to attend the conference next week.

Australia had been one of just of two industrialized countries that had not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. The Protocol requires developed countries to reduce emissions by specific targets.

Bamsey said Australia was committed to steep reductions in its greenhouse gas emissions, which he said would fall 60 per cent from 2000 levels by 2050.

Monday, 3 December, 11 a.m. — A "breakthrough" in Bali, according to Indonesia's Environment Minister Rachmat Witeolar who is also the President of the Bali Conference, should consist of the launch of negotiations that will lead to a global agreement to address climate change, an agenda that would structure the negotiations, and a deadline, such as 2009, for concluding the deal. "Anything short of that would constitute failure," Witeolar told the opening session of Bali.

But setting the agenda is pivotal, most parties say. Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Climate Change Convention, suggested that countries first focus on the tools and instruments needed and then, later in the negotiations, resolve tough questions, such as targets and the carbon market. "After all," he said, "a marriage contract is the culmination of a love affair, not the topic of discussion on the first date."