The Berlin Summit at first appeared to be a no-win battle between the environmentalists and the oil and coal lobby. The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), supported by environmentalists, pushed the industrialised countries to cut emissions by 20 per cent by 2000. But the proposal failed to get support from the G-77.

To avoid the implications of the proposal, the US and Australia began supporting an earlier proposal by Germany, which asked for simultaneous curbs on emissions by developing countries like India and China. They argued that these countries are likely to emit greenhouse gases on a large scale in the near future, and that this would neutralise any reductions by the industrialised countries.

Egged on by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), the Climate Action Network