Klaus Topfer, head of the United Nations Environmental Porgramme (UNEP), extended greetings to the delegates from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Annan urged COP-7 negotiators to build on the "breakthrough" achieved last summer in Bonn and to move toward ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in time for the UN-sponsored conference on sustainability set for next September in Johannesburg.

The mood of the delegates was generally upbeat after negotiators working on the ticklish issue of compliance reached a "deal" late Tuesday night. The compliance package, which will be presented to ministers for their approval before the conference closes on Friday, expands on the framework agreed to in Bonn. It contains "early warnings" for countries not living up to their commitments to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. The system foresees "action plans" to bring them back into compliance with the global warming treaty. And for those who still fail to meet their targets, the compliance system establishes "penalties."

Yet for all the handshaking and hugging negotiators engaged in after they cut their deal, the compliance system remains a work in progress. Will it be legally binding? And, if so, how will it be enforced? Japan, one of the key players in Marrakech, vigorously opposes a legally binding system. The EU, another COP-7 heavyweight, strongly favors an arrangement that is legally binding. Under the Bonn Agreement, the final determination on whether the compliance system will be legally binding will be the subject of future negotiations.

To purists, anything less than a legally binding compliance system, complete with an effective enforcement mechanism, must seem like a hollow shell. Countries can promise to do anything; following through is something else. It was the failure, or outright refusal, of countries at the 1992 Rio summit to live up to their voluntary commitments to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that gave rise to the idea of the Kyoto Protocol which was to contain legally binding targets.

Aware that the subject is a delicate one, the EU emphasizes the importance of accepting the compliance system, because this will open the door for parties to the treaty to use "flexible mechanisms" to meet their targets. This is COP speak for allowing countries, within bounds, to cut their emissions in ways they deem appropriate. (The Bonn Agreement expressly prohibits the use of nuclear power, which emits no greenhouse gases, to be used as a flexible mechanism.)

Mechanisms, flexible and otherwise, have been a stumbling block at Marrakech. Delegates report no progress on the thorny question of sinks and the related issue of inventories. Russia has not backed away from its demand that its sink credits be doubled to 34 million metric tons. At Bonn Russia was allocated a sink credit of 17 million metric tons, and the EU fears that giving in the Moscow's demand will simply reopen the Bonn Agreement to all sorts of demands from other countries. Furthermore, the carbon sinks a country will use to get credit for cutting its emissions must be put in an inventory. But how that inventory is to account for, in Russia's case, existing forests, future forests, or forests which are disappearing, is a matter on which negotiators have not been able to agree. And with just two days left before the conference closes, delegates are getting nervous.

Margot Wallstrom, the European Union's environmental commissioner, told a press conference this morning that the EU is not prepared to reopen the Bonn Agreement, a statement obviously aimed at Russia. She also expressed the hope that the United States will rejoin the treaty but acknowledged that "this will take time." In a clear reference to the US-led war on terrorism, Wallstrom said America's cooperation with its allies in the wake of the events of September 11 could also lead to the US once again becoming active in the Kyoto process.

This view is not shared by the American delegation which has not budged from President Bush's rejection of the global warming treaty. Though its profile is relatively low, the US has a sizable presence here, and its delegates are keeping a close tab on all developments at COP-7.

In contrast to earlier COPs, developing countries (Group of 77) and China are also staying mostly in the shadows. Developing countries are exempt from the Kyoto Protocol's emissions-reduction mandates and, under the treaty, are supposed to be the recipients of funds and technology to assist them in developing clean sources of energy. But the difficulties in implementing the Kyoto Protocol have delayed these transfers, save for those which are taking place under normal commercial agreements or are the result of existing foreign aid programs.

Still very much on the outside looking in, the developing countries seem aware that the promised largess will not be forthcoming until the Kyoto Protocol goes into force. And that means creating a document that can be ratified. This, as Topfer and Wallstrom have made clear, is the goal at Marrakech.

Bonner R. Cohen is a senior fellow at the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va.