It is rather unusual, if not unimaginable, to expect the world's mightiest and the richest nation face the prospect of isolation. Yet that is what the United States of America, the sole super power of the world, faced at the two-week conference on climate in the holiday island of Bali in mid-December. The fear of becoming a pariah nation forced the US delegation at Bali to fall in line with the wishes of the majority of the 190 nations that had assembled in the hope of preparing the roadmap for a new climate treaty after the Kyoto protocol ends in 2012.