A little over a week ago, the U.N.’s World Food Program began a contest on YouTube.  Before that, Cisco, Google, and the U.N. launched a website to track (and hopefully decrease) global poverty.  You might expect Eric Schmidt to stand up at the Bali conference and command all 190 countries to turn off their lights and cars.

That shouldn’t be the case, though.  Google.org’s Michael Terrell simply writes, “[W]e are participating in the Bali conference. . . .  Over the coming days, we’ll share our reflections and the stories of those who are there.  You can also check out the live webcast of the conference.”

Still, it’s impressive – and interesting – to see Google in such a setting.  The corporation’s environmental efforts have gone far beyond what anyone might have expected, so it could have a reasonable amount of influence there.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference is scheduled to run through December 14th.