More than any previous year, 2007 saw momentum build for concerted international action on climate change. With a lively public debate and several high-profile events, global warming enjoyed unprecedented media attention and also a prominent place on the political agenda as the year came to an end. In this article, Camilla Bausch, Head of Energy and Climate at Ecologic, and Michael Mehling, Head of the Ecologic office in Washington, D.C., review central developments in the area of international climate policy in the last quarter of 2007.

The focus of this article lies on the 13th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and on the 3rd Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (KP), which took place from 3 to 15 December 2007. The authors summarize these events and the resulting Bali Action Plan and assess the importance of their outcomes for the development of future international climate policies.