Sadly, but oh so predictably, as the world grapples to tackle climate change, George 'Dubya' Bush seems intent on derailing any positive plan for global action.
BBC Newsnight reported from the crucial climate change talks in Bali tonight (Friday) with news that the Americans have forced the European Union nations to give up on hard targets for nations to reduce CO2 emissions in coming decades.
As Environment Ministers - including our own very capable Hillary Benn - work through the night to try to prevent total collapse of the talks, the most optimistic outcome likely to emerge from the summit is a watered-down communique with nations agreeing to do 'not a lot' and certainly not enough.
Here's one view of what's going on (or not...)
It seems the Americans, who refused to sign Kyoto, are insistent that the porrer developing nations must cut emissions before the richest nation in the world takes action themselves.
As someone said on Newsnight, it's like Bush happily enjoying the comforts of the first class cabin on an airliner convinced that a catasrophe in tourist class won't affect him...
With the clock ticking, failure at Bali means another two years before there's another chance to replace the Kyoto Agreement.
And the longer the Americans refuse to show real leadership, the more urgent and more drastic the eventual action will have to be.
Let's hope that Al Gore is right and the next US President is more positive than the current one who's now entering his final year in office.
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2 comments:
I was pleased to see the other day a lack of progress - and some have argued failure - from the United Nations climate conference because as you may know the UN is a far-left organisation which believes in the myth of man-made climate change. The aim of the UN conference was to find a replacement for Kyoto which would involve setting unnecessary targets to cut CO2 and destroying businesses and industry in order to meet those targets.
The big roadblock to 'progress' was our great friends and allies the United States. The US did so well in the conference because they managed to eliminate ridiculous references (inserted by the EU) to specific cuts in CO2. The EU demanded that industrialised nations should cut their CO2 emissions by 25-40% by 2020. The US argued that climate change could not be curbed by emission cuts from developed countries alone.
Although I am not completely happy with the outcome of the conference because the US did in principle agree that climate change is a potential problem. In an ideal world the US would have argued (like they have in the past) the truth which is that climate change is a natural process and that CO2 emissions in no way affect the world's climate. Then the US should have told the UN and every delegate at the conference to piss off!
hats off:
yes, well done Dubya for managing to stop any concerted world action on global warming and instead encourage more hot air for another couple of years.
While the world talks, climate change continues apace...
but why should we care?
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