heal the world

i'm taking a break from hanging around with the timorese bad boys to cover the climate conference thing here in bali. with approximately 10 000 people attending, its probably the biggest and most hyped environmental happening since the rio summit in 1992.

so why has everybody and their dog (incl. myself) rocked up in bali? good question. what this meeting actually is is the 13th annual revision meeting of the kyoto protocol. anyone who can remember the previous 12 gets a beer from me. and like the previous 12, this one is in fact a technical meeting for technocrats who will try to work out the technical details for the framework of how to proceed with the negotiations for the next phase of international climate negotiations. in other words, dry procedural stuff in the best un tradition, hardly the kind to raise the interest of anyone except the most hardcore international politics junkies and bureaucrats.

so that brings me back to the question: are all 10 000 of us really that keen on the technical details of the negotiation framework? or is it because we couldnt resist the offer of a free ticket to bali, a chance to feel good about healing the world one workshop at a time and the chance of a photo-op with al gore?