This meeting will be the first major international conference to be held after the terrorist attacks on America on September 11. The World Children Summit scheduled to be held in New York, the World Bank's annual meeting in Washington and the Commonwealth Head of Government meeting scheduled to be held in Brisbane have all been canceled.

Despite the relatively small American presence at the last climate conference in Bonn last July, President George W. Bush seems to be serious about his pledge to follow the climate change process -even though he has rejected the Kyoto Protocol calling for specific national targets for reducing "greenhouse" gas emissions.

The US State Department has reserved more than 120 rooms at the Mansour Dahbi hotel next to the Palais de Congres. "The Americans have indicated their willingness to come and discuss," said Mohamed Elyzghi, Morocco's Minister of Territorial Management, Urbanism, Habitat and the Environment, who will also be the President of 7th Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP7). "We hope that once we have worked out the details of Kyoto that they might consider coming back on board."

In the days remaining before COP7 is due to begin in Marrakech on October 29, conference rooms across Morocco have been filled with groups finalizing last-minute preparations. In Rabat a workshop on Climate Change gave Canadian and European representatives a chance to debate about how best to tackle the five remaining issues left to be addressed on the Kyoto Protocol-issues that the Bonn meeting was unable to finish.

"This meeting was requested by the Moroccans amongst the Francophone countries to discuss how to get around the main issues at COP7 and how best to get the maximum number of countries to ratify it," said David Drake, the director of climate change and energy at the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who will also be part of the Canadian delegation in Marrakech. "They have really worked so hard to make this conference a success. We've been very impressed," he said.

The five points left to discuss are: mechanisms, compliance, monitoring, land use and carbon sinks. "Of the five the mechanisms, monitoring and compliance are the most important. This is how countries will implement the treaty, and if we don't get an agreement here it puts the whole protocol at risk," said Drake.

Abdelhay Zerouali has had a packed schedule. As director of the climate change division within the Morocco Ministry of the Environment, he was heading up the Rabat workshop as well as many of the preparations for COP7. "The Americans and Germans are also doing preparatory workshops with us in Casablanca next week," he said with a weary chuckle. "That'll happen just after I get back from Paris."

At the same time, across the country in Marrakech, a biodiversity conference was getting started. "We wanted to present a unified national biodiversity policy to the COP7," said Jafar Boulejiouch, a colleague of Zerouali's at the Environment Ministry and head of this conference.

In the hotel next to the Palais du Congres where COP7 will be held, the guests and participants skirted their way around last-minute hotel renovations. Like all of Marrakech, the hotel wanted to be in the best possible shape for COP7. Morocco's King Mohammed V had already arrived in Marrakech the week before to personally oversee the final preparations. He will also open and otherwise participate in COP7.

But for all of the preparations, the fixing of streets, the planting of gardens and painting of buildings, a shadow has fallen over the preparations. "We were expecting, and were told by the UN to expect, up to 10,000 people," said Fassi Fihri Ep Lakhdar, head of one of the two travel agencies entrusted by the government with handling the details of housing, transportation, and tourism side events during the conference. "We have only 2,500 confirmed reservations right now," she said. "The attacks have not only really hurt our tourism industry, but they have really affected this conference. We haven't had any delegations pull out, but most of the major American and Canadian NGOs have pulled out."

What those Americans and Canadians will be missing in Marrakech will be a COP like no other. Parallel events sponsored by local nongovernmental organizations plan to take participants as far as Essaouira (125 miles away) to view renewable energy and desertification programs.

Other events involve planting trees in the desert and "gazelle hikes." A separate cultural program is also being developed, offering tours of the souks and even Moroccan cooking classes. In contrast to the meetings in Bonn, The Hague and almost every other COP, here the Moroccans have worked hard to showcase not only their commitment to the environment but also their culture and the importance of climate change to an increasingly arid country.