Bali climate deal paves way for hotter U.S. debate

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The United States joined the deal reached on the Indonesian island of Bali in a dramatic U-turn. But significantly, the accord sets late 2009 as the target for a climate treaty, months after U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who heads the Senate's environment committee, noted the Bush administration's lonely position after the Bali deal was reached on Saturday.

"In Bali, the president tried to treat the world the way he treats Congress - 'my way or the highway,'" Boxer said in a statement. "The difference is that in Congress he has supporters but in Bali he had no supporters."

The debate is largely over for the American public, according to Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the American Enterprise Institute. Americans view climate change as the world's top environmental problem, although few followed the Bali debate.

Americans are relying on policymakers, including the next president, to tackle climate change, Bowman said.

"I don't think the public has a clue about what to do next," she said.

U.S. policymakers predict there will be no law on climate change under a reluctant Bush but presidential hopefuls - including those from his own Republican Party - already are laying the groundwork for his exit in January 2009.

They have been bolstered in no small part by independent actions taken in Congress and states across the country.

While the Bali talks were raging, contenders for the U.S. Republican nomination were asked their positions on the world's changing climate at a debate last week in Iowa, which will have the first state contest leading up to the November 2008 election.

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