Wednesday, 5 December, 5p.m. — Getting to yes on a roadmap in Bali is proving to be no easy task. Every discussion and every issue is part of a bigger chess match, and few countries appear willing to give much ground at this point. Every country wants its key concerns recognized, and there are a great many such concerns.

Disagreements between rich and poor countries have been particularly pronounced according to Yvo de Boer who heads the UN's Climate Change Convention. Developing countries have raised concerns that past commitments, such as promises to provide assistance with new technologies and on adaptation, have not been met.

"There's this quite strong feeling that a number of commitments in those areas, commitments from the past, have not been met and will be conveniently forgotten when we switch to a new agenda item called the future."

"Our hope is that the meeting here will agree that more developing countries should be provided with the resources to really be able to assess properly how they are likely to be affected by the impacts of climate change."

Wednesday, 5 December, 2p.m. — There is nothing like a song and dance to get attention in Bali. Lest delegates become jaded by the minutiae of negotiations, an international coalition of youths has been working to call attention to the big climate change picture with a new routine everyday.

Greenpeace has taken another tack, putting up a red-hot colored thermometer outside that conference center with the words "Don't cook the planet." The thermometer has since served as a backdrop for interviews and photos. Greenpeace has also used a polar bear mascot to highlight the problem of melting glaciers.

But the most elaborate and successful attention-getter so far was a fully choreographed Balinese dance. The lunchtime dance, ostensibly about averting deforestation, was a major hit with conference-goers although it is still very uncertain how countries will handle the issue.

Wednesday, 5 December, 12p.m. — Part of Bali is about the negotiations between countries on how to move forward on climate change. But Bali is also a big carnival of ideas and there are all sorts of organizations with booths lining the halls of the Bali Conference Center dispensing advice and information on what should be done.

There is, for example, a booth explaining Pyrolysis Technology, a system, they say, that takes agricultural waste and turns part of it into energy and part into a form of carbon, which can be used to enrich the soil while keeping the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

And then there is the Swiss private sector-led initiative, "Ecodriving," that advises that simply by driving smarter, companies can realize major savings in fuel and greenhouse gas emissions. Ecodriving could save a company, they say, between US$1,900-3,8000 a month depending on size.

Wednesday, 5 December, 10a.m. — Agrofuels, like ethanol, are often hailed as a clean-energy alternative to fossil fuels. But in Bali, agrofuels have come under particularly heavy fire from NGOs, who say they the booming industry has become a major factor in deforestation, higher food prices and the eviction of indigenous peoples from their lands.

The NGOs say that these fuels have been embraced as a green solution, but in reality, have been pushed by corporate interests. The resulting pollution they cause and the ecosystem-destroying plantations are just not worth it.

"Agrofuels have nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with deforestation," said Rachel Smolker of the Global Forest Coalition. And the greenhouse gas emission savings might not be all that great, after considering the type of plant, the distance the fuel is transported, and the amount of nitrogen-based fertilizers used in growing the crop.