‘Critical’ Copenhagen treaty on climate change goes up in smoke

Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response.

A year ago today, this was how President-elect Barack Obama dismissed any thought of compromising on the deadline to sign a binding global-warming treaty at next month’s climate summit in Copenhagen.

Yet at last weekend’s summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in Singapore, he and leaders of some of the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases conceded that the only thing they will accomplish in Copenhagen is, well, to emit more hot air.  Incidentally, the US is by far the biggest polluter, but China is growing into a formidable competitor.

Here’s the spin Michael Froman, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, put on this latest setback:

There was an assessment by the leaders that it was unrealistic to expect a full, internationally legally binding agreement to be negotiated between now and when Copenhagen starts in 22 days.

But, given that, you’d think awareness of the purported urgency of combating climate change began only last year (with Obama’s election) and that negotiations on this historic Copenhagen treaty began only last month.

Whereas, in fact, the Chicken-Little nature of the efforts to combat global warming is such that I felt moved to sound this cynical note 18 months ago:

Virtually none of the countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol (adopted in 1997) – with its legally binding emissions targets – is honoring promises made in this agreement. In many cases their emissions have actually risen….

I won’t even comment on the “emissions trading” scheme, which allows rich countries to pollute all they want provided they pay poor countries (that typically pollute far less) for the privilege: a scheme eerily reminiscent of papal indulgences….

[G8 Summit: emitting more hot air about global warming…, TIJ, July 9, 2009]

In fact, the only thing surprising about this latest episode of all talk and no action on global warming is the extent to which the great expectations Obama set are coming back to haunt him.  For here’s a sample of the extraordinary reaction amongst Europeans who hailed him as a black Moses for their liberal causes:

US President Barack Obama came to office promising hope and change… Now, should the climate summit in Copenhagen fail, the blame will lie squarely with Obama.

In his Berlin speech [summer of 2008], he was dishonest with Europe [when he claimed to be a citizen of the world]. Since then, Obama has neglected the single most important issue for an American president who likes to imagine himself as a world citizen, namely, his country’s addiction to fossil fuels and the risks of unchecked climate change.

(Spiegel 11/17/2009)

This is absurd of course.  But it illustrates the extent to which disillusionment is replacing the hope Obama once inspired … worldwide.

Meanwhile, I suspect the Chinese, whose participation in this cause is indispensable, have no more regard for environmental prophecies about global warming than atheist have for religious prophecies about Armageddon. This is why, even though they’ll talk about combating climate change, as Chinese President Hu Jintao did in Beijing at a joint press performance with Obama yesterday, they will never sign on to any binding global treaty.

(Incidentally, I call it a performance because the Chinese insisted that, instead of asking questions, the members of the press had to sit quietly – like a theatre audience – as Obama and Hu Jintao delivered their well-rehearsed lines.)

With that, my sympathies go out to all of the true believers who must now fret about the world coming to an end in four years. After all, this is what no less a person than Al Gore warned, er, prophesied just days ago would be the case if world leaders fail to act.

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