Talking, Talking, Talking in Bali...

Hey..if you have to talk, why not do it in Bali?

The climate change talks have barely begun on the Indonesian island of Bali, but the U.S. broadcaster CNN has already packed its bags and left the island. The reason? "A probable lack of significant news", according to Britain's Financial Times. The lack of reporting about the conference may not a problem in the rest of the media, but most of the articles caution against high expectations of any tangible results coming out of the gathering of 190 nations.

"This is just talks about talks," says Dominic Lawson, writing in Britain's Independent.

Rather than real negotiations, the Bali meeting, as Sydney Morning Herald explains, is "but one step on a long, arduous road that may or may not lead to a more effective anti-global warming regime after 2012 than the existing Kyoto Protocol".

"The Bali gabfest," is Margaret Wente's verdict in Canada's Globe and Mail.

Both Lawson and Wente think that "despite all the earnest blather", politicians are simply not acting "like they mean it" when it comes to climate change. Take Germany, for example, says Wente. Nothing's been done about the emissions from its vast auto industry. And the Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown "has already shown his colours", says Lawson, when he approved the building of a third runway at Heathrow Airport.

An economic recession, while not inevitable, is expected to hit the developed world in the near future, according to Lawson. Since the hard numbers are what matters, in such a case we'll be more likely to worry about how to pay our children's school fees, rather than the world our grandchildren will live in, he concludes.

Instead of putting their own national interests at risk, the politicians will "change some light bulbs and subsidize some wind turbines ... (to) pretend they're taking action," agrees Wente.