New Guinea challenge

filled in later by what he hoped would be a more cooperative, post-Bush US government. Some diplomats mistakenly thought Gore was telling them to give up their tough stance at Bali. The biggest bit of theater wasn't generally reported as theater at all. And that was a European push to include non-binding language in the preamble of the Bali Roadmap. That language called on developed nations to cut their emissions by 25 to 40 percent, in the next dozen or so years. The United States of course objected. Their argument was based in part on the inconvenient truth that it would be impossible to achieve. It's hard to deny that, when you consider that most European nations will only reach their much more modest Kyoto treaty targets by buying their way out, rather than reducing domestic emissions. Never mind. This drama played out as the Europeans intended. They came away looking greener than green, secure in the knowledge that the US would take the heat for balking at an impossible but impressive sounding goal. In the end, being in the hallway at 3 a.m. was actually a bad call on my part. Unlike most climate negotiations, in this round there was no final backroom deal. The hitch wasn't US versus Europe, but North versus South. Some developing countries wouldn't agree to language that would commit them to " measurable, reportable and verifiable " mitigation actions. Instead, in a dramatic, open plenary session that took place long after delegations were supposed to have packed their bags, India managed to rewrite that language to make assistance to the developing world, rather than the developing world's actions, " measurable, reportable and verifiable. " The assembled crowd then had a choice — swallow this odd contortion, or risk having the entire Bali process blow up. At first the US objected. But when it became evident that theirs was the lone voice, and the US could take the heat for scuttling the talks, America backed down. That final session was, at last, the action we had come to see — and not just theater. The announcement last month of the discovery of two new species of mammal in western (Indonesian) New Guinea made news around the world last month. The pygmy possum and giant rat were found during an expedition to the Foja Mountains — a pristine wilderness that has already revealed a rich array …