Perhaps this is because Santa kept getting stuck between CO2-emitting smokestacks trying to deliver it:
President Obama flew all the way to Copenhagen yesterday reportedly to seal a legally binding deal on climate change, which would compel 130 countries to take specific and measurable steps to limit ozone-depleting CO2 emissions. Yet he was forced to concede that all he managed to do was to get the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa to make non-binding pledges to do their best.
Virtually none of the countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol – with its legally binding emissions targets – is honoring promises made in this agreement (in many cases their emissions have actually increased). And Kyoto, which climate-change zealots in the European Union ratified in 2002, merely called on developed countries to reduce their collective emissions of six key greenhouse gases by a paltry 5 percent over the period 2008-2012.
[G8 Summit: emitting more hot air … not to mention hypocrisy, TIJ, July 9, 2008]
Therefore, one can only assume that Obama was speaking under the influence of the CO2 his and the private planes of other leaders and VIPs emitted in the Copenhagen atmosphere when he announced that this constituted a “meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough”. After all, this non-binding agreement will clearly prove no more meaningful than his flying all the way to this same city in October to seal a deal for Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics only to have the IOC award it to Brazil.
This non-binding agreement would mean the deaths of millions because of the effects of global warming such as floods and droughts. [It is] devoid of any sense of responsibility or morality… It is a solution based on the same values that funnelled six million people in Europe into furnaces.
(Sudanese diplomat Lumumba Di-aping, chairman of the G77 group, which represents 130 of the world’s poorest nations)
Of course, Di-aping can be forgiven for overstating the consequences of this failure given that this summit was billed as the last chance to secure binding commitments to stave off the catastrophic effects of global warming that environmental Cassandras like Al Gore have been preaching about for years….
Meanwhile, there’s no greater indication of what a failure this summit was than the fact that Obama and other feature players blew off the traditional “family photo” of all leaders, which is often the highlight for many of the more marginal players.
Not to mention the irony of Obama claiming that he had to rush off from this summit on global warming to get back to the White House before an unprecedented snowstorm blankets Washington, DC.
In any event, I think Obama would be well-advised to avoid Copenhagen like the plague for the remainder of his presidency….
Finally, since this is probably the last international (finger-pointing) gabfest we’ll have for some time, I feel constrained to reiterate that I am not a climate-change denier. In fact, I can cite commentaries dating back to 2005 in which I conceded that global warming is real.
I am simply persuaded by the arguments of experts who maintain that, instead of being Anthropogenic (caused by humans), this warming is a manifestation of a naturally occurring, cyclical phenomenon, which, alas, has been grossly exaggerated to further political agendas (as the Climate-gate emails exposed).
In this context, I have often cited not only NASA research confirming the melting and re-freezing of the Arctic ice caps over time, but also the fact that the scientists who are warning about a global-warming doomsday today seem oblivious to the fact that scientists were warning about a global-cooling doomsday just a few decades ago.
I have also noted that my efforts to recycle and conserve energy means that I am much more of an environmentalist than Al Gore whose carbon footprint is more akin to Big Foot’s than that of any conscientious human being.
So, instead of attending these patently useless summits, developed countries should spend more time and money developing new green technologies to reduce CO2 emissions. More to the point, they should then donate these technologies to developing countries and make trade with and aid to them conditional on their comprehensive use of green methods of production, manufacturing and consumption.
Of course, if countries like China refuse to adopt such methods, then they should be shunned as international pariahs just as North Korea and Iran are because of their refusal to abide by the requirements of nuclear non-proliferation. After all, if Gore and others are to be believed, global warming poses an even greater apocalyptic danger to mankind than nuclear weapons….
Related commentaries:
G8 Summit: emitting more hot air…
Copenhagen treaty on climate change goes up in smoke
Climate-gate: emails expose scientific doubts about climate change
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