The joy of text: SMS used for SOS at climate talks

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2007

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AFP) — A German minister confided Saturday he nearly text-messaged Chancellor Angela Merkel on his mobile phone to ask her to lobby President George W. Bush after the US threatened to wreck a historic deal on climate change.

US senior negotiator Paula Dobriansky triggered loud booing at the end of a marathon conference on global warming in Bali when she said Washington rejected a hard-negotiated draft accord.

But she quickly retracted her objections after coming in for a barrage of fierce criticism and signed up the world's largest economy for the framework deal seeking a new treaty to fight global warming by 2009.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a leading critic of Bush's climate policy, said he nearly asked Chancellor...