PrintDecember 19, 2009
Flame-out in Copenhagen
President Obama hustled himself back onto Air Force One after a brief, embarrassing, unsophisticated, unsatisfying, and insignificant appearance at the United Nations Climate Conference, which is thankfully over after two very expensive weeks of massive carbon emissions.
Let's count the ways it all went "south" at the climate change summit in Copenhagen:
1) There was no worldwide "treaty" signed. There was nothing signed. There was an "agreement" which some of the leaders, including President Obama, looked at and re-drafted. It has no defined goals, no enforcement provisions; there was a discussion of giving $33 billion to the developing countries, or $10 billion, but maybe not, and certainly not the $722 billion that a certain African dictator was demanding last week. There was lots of discussion about doing something later, as in 2050, when everyone involved in the discussion will either be six feet under or won't remember. The draft of the "agreement" is here.
2) Venezuelan dictator Hugo "Ego" Chavez used to call President Bush the "capitalistic Satan." After President Obama spoke today, and "Ug" realized there would be no carbon-guilt bucks give-aways, Chavez hissed that the room still "smelled of sulphur," after President Obama left.
He (Chavez) accused US President Barack Obama of behaving like an emperor "who comes in during the middle of the night ... and cooks up a document that we will not accept, we will never accept...
3) There is no joy in "Dopenhagen." After protesting and vandalizing Denmark for two weeks, thousands of environuts are leaving with nothing but granola bar wrappers and a suitcase full of crunchy underwear.
Greenpeace International, which funded a lot of the climate conference sideshow on the streets, might as well take another bong hit. Executive director, Kumi Naidoo on the organization's website:
The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame. World leaders had a once in a generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change. In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through.
We have seen a year of crises, but today it is clear that the biggest one facing humanity is a leadership crisis.
During the year a number developing countries showed a willingness to accept their share of the burden to avert climate chaos. But in the end, the blame for failure mostly lies with the rich industrialized world, countries which have the largest historic responsibility for causing the problem. In particular, the US failed to take any real leadership and dragged the talks down.
We have seen a year of crises, but today it is clear that the biggest one facing humanity is a leadership crisis.
During the year a number developing countries showed a willingness to accept their share of the burden to avert climate chaos. But in the end, the blame for failure mostly lies with the rich industrialized world, countries which have the largest historic responsibility for causing the problem. In particular, the US failed to take any real leadership and dragged the talks down.
4) President Obama looked wiped out from his overnight flight to Denmark. His remarks to the conference were downright testy at times. His digs at China's reluctance to allow monitoring of its industrial output caused Premier Wen Jiabao to get up and leave the speech in a huff. Obama met with Wen twice privately before he left. China owns most of our national debt, after all.
5) The liberal New York Times, which has spent months touting the need for universal "reparations" from rich to poor countries says the Copenhagen summit "Falls Short of Expectations."
6) The equally-eco-lib London Guardian says the agreement is "feeble," and carried the headline "Barack Obama's speech disappoints and fuels frustration."
7) Politico.com calls the deal: "Not sufficient."
8) Mother Nature even got in her licks. The President beat it back to Air Force One to leave the "global warming" summit early because of a huge winter SNOW storm headed for Washington D.C. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and her 21 -person delegation, also decided to cut short cocktail hour and fly out hours ahead of schedule.
After the way things were going, it would have been pretty awkward to get marooned in Copenhagen with Wen and Hugo!
Jane Jamison is publisher of the conservative news/commentary blog, UNCOVERAGE.net
