More than 2,000 delegates from 162 nations opened up a two-week meeting in Bonn today, officially launching an 18-month process to come up with a climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol at the end of 2012.

We know these things move slowly, and an international climate agreement like this will involve some intense negotiating, but we still winced a bit at this line from the AP's meeting roundup: "Few, if any, conclusions were expected from the Bonn talks." Really? That's not a very optimistic outlook for a meeting that still has 13 days to go before it concludes.

This is exactly why Bonn is only the first of at least seven other meetings before the Copenhagen summit next December, at the end of which delegates say a new pact must be in place. The next major meeting is scheduled for August in Accra, Ghana. Those climate negotiators sure do excel at racking up frequent flyer miles.

We don't mean to come off as overly-cynical about such important work, but the delegates have already proven that they're good at holding meetings to discuss other meetings. However, if the first day is any indication, they're going to be some interesting proposals and presentations over the next two weeks in Germany. Among today's news from Bonn:

• Officials from some of the world's poorest countries said they're already suffering from the effects of global warming, with last month's monsoon in Myanmar as the most recent example. Climate change "for us is not a distant reality, but a present reality," said Amjad Abdulla of the Maldives, whose island nation is in danger of disappearing due to rising sea levels.
• Yvo de Boer, the United Nations' top climate official, said that by 2030 the world will need to spend $200 billion to $300 billion a year to cope with and adapt to the effects of climate change.
• Where will the money come from? Some European countries are working on proposals for a climate tax on aviation and shipping.
• De Boer continues to float a proposal to create a climate change bond that would be sold by developing countries to investors.