Bali Climate Change Conference: No UN climate change summit witnessed such high drama and raw emotion as Bali.
It was an extraordinary spectacle - one developing country after another lining up to denounce the Americans, impassioned pleas to find an honourable compromise, reactions that swung from loud booing to rapturous applause, and the unusual sight of a top UN official breaking down in public.
The final plenary session of the UN climate change conference in Bali had it all. After an all-night round of tough talking in smaller groups last Friday night, delegates were tired and emotional - but none of them wanted to leave without a "roadmap" to guide future negotiations on how to tackle global warming.
Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (known as "SBY") came in to say they had to "make the last mile" of what had been an exhausting marathon, and UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon flew back from a mission to East Timor, telling delegates they simply had to compromise to strike a deal.
Both men received brief but enthusiastic standing ovations. But the mood changed within minutes when China accused the conference secretariat of deliberately scheduling parallel meetings while the plenary was under way, in an attempt to wrong-foot developing countries that were already feeling neglected.
This was more than Yvo de Boer could take. The usually urbane Dutch executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change insisted he was not aware that "text was being negotiated elsewhere", put his hand over his face to cover his tears and surprised everyone by walking out.
India then tabled an amendment to the text of the "Bali Roadmap", as the conference mandate is now officially called.
Its aim was to ensure that the different capacities of developing countries, especially the poorer ones, would be taken into account in any new worldwide drive to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Portuguese environment secretary Humberto Rosa got a standing ovation when he announced that the European Union would row in behind the amendment.
But US delegation chief Paula Dobriansky was booed when she made it clear that the world's only superpower "cannot accept" the revised formula of words.
South Africa, Mali, Brazil, Indonesia, Tuvalu, Chile, Pakistan, Uganda and Tanzania all spoke in favour of the amendment.
But Papua New Guinea went much further, saying that if the US was not willing to provide leadership in tackling climate change, it should "get out of the way and leave it to the rest of us".
This blunt call from the developing country's ambassador, Kevin Conrad, drew a huge round of applause - and it turned out to be the straw that broke the camel's back.
To the amazement and delight of delegates, Ms Dobriansky then declared that the US would "join consensus on this today".
Having "listened carefully" to appeals for compromise from countries as diverse as Bangladesh, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Mauritius, Switzerland, Turkey, the Maldives and even Saudi Arabia, its long-time ally in climate talks, Ms Dobriansky won a round of applause when she indicated that the US would not block the roadmap.
India warmly thanked the EU for "co-operating in the true spirit of accommodation", saying they had all come to Bali to "fight a bigger battle, which we have to win - otherwise we will all be losers".
It was not a question, its ambassador said, "of what you commit, or I commit, but what we together commit".
Suddenly, the deal that had taken so long to negotiate looked like it was in the bag - which indeed it was, despite a last-minute objection from Russia that was not pursued. Egypt felt they had been "watching a movie with a lot of plots", while Pakistan said they would have "preferred more time to explore the beaches".
There were handshakes all round among the "climate tourists", as one anti-poverty campaign group dubbed them. As Indonesia itself said, the "spirit of Bali, which is at one with nature" had prevailed, and now the world could get on with the task of taking action to confront what Al Gore called "this planetary emergency".
Meanwhile, Yvo de Boer had recovered his composure, heartened by several expressions of confidence in his capacity to steer the next round of negotiations in Poznan next year and Copenhagen in 2009, by which time the US will have a president with a more flexible approach than George W Bush.
The road from Bali: agenda set for two years os negotiations
Adoption of the "Bali Roadmap" sets the agenda for two years of negotiations on ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions - though without specifying the range of reductions required to avert "dangerous" climate change.
However, it explicitly endorses the latest assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that global warming is "unequivocal" and that delay in reducing emissions would increase the risk of more severe impacts.
Due to conclude in 2009, the negotiations will ensure that a new deal can enter into force by 2013, after the "first commitment period" of the Kyoto Protocol expires. They will also cover adaptation to negative consequences of climate change.
Delegates decided that funding for adaptation projects in developing countries would be managed by the Global Environment Facility.
But delegates could not agree in Bali on additional practical measures such as how to integrate adaptation into national policies.
Important progress was made on the issue of technology transfer, one of the key concerns of developing countries, with a decision to kick-start a strategic programme to scale up the level of investment for concrete demonstration projects and incentives.
The Bali conference also reaffirmed the urgent need to take further meaningful action to reduce emissions from deforestation - responsible for 20 per cent of the total - and adopted a work programme for demonstration projects in this area.
Small-scale afforestation and reforestation projects are to be expanded in scope under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and, for the first time, the CDM may also be broadened to include "carbon capture and storage" projects.