Representatives from over 180 countries attended, together with observers from intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations.

A meeting of environment ministers and experts held in June called on the conference to agree on a road-map, timetable and "concrete steps for the negotiations" with a view to reaching an agreement by 2009.

[2] It has been debated whether this global meeting on climate change has achieved anything significant at all.

The United States strongly opposed these numbers, at times backed by Japan, Canada, Australia and Russia.

The resulting compromise mandates "deep cuts in global emissions" with references to the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report.