The final round of United Nations climate negotiations before a summit late this year in Paris to produce the world's first global climate agreement closed Oct. 23 with what the UN's top climate official called a "balanced and manageable" negotiating text that nonetheless left 1,500 unresolved questions. Delegates went through three separate drafts of the negotiating text in the five days of negotiations in Bonn with the document ballooning from a 20-page version drafted by the co-chairmen of the main negotiating text to a 55-page version released on the final day. The final version includes more than six times as many sections of bracketed text-indicating contentious phrases, words, or sometimes even punctuation marks-than the 235 in the initial version. But unlike the start of the talks Oct. 19, both rich and poor countries said they were pleased with the final document.
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