Posted on 12/10/2005 6:16:16 AM PST by ncountylee
The US economy does not have to suffer if there is an effort to use existing clean energy and energy conservation technologies in America, former US president Bill Clinton told the United Nations climate change conference in Montreal. Bill Clinton was invited to the final day of the Nov. 28 - Dec. 9 UN summit at the invitation of the Sierra Club of Canada. While a summit usually lasts a few days, the UN officials needed almost two weeks in the colorful Canadian city. And what better person than Bill Clinton to end a summit attended by a bunch of pikers living the good life on someone else's dime.
Clinton received enthusiastic applause when he said if clean energy technologies are used, the Kyoto targets could be met and surpassed without economic harm. However, the long-winded ex-president never told his enraptured listeners how the Kyoto Protocol would not negatively impact upon the US economy.
"There's no longer any serious doubt that climate change is real, accelerating and caused by human activities. We are uncertain about how deep and time of arrival of the consequences, but we are quite clear that they will not be good," said Clinton.
He denigrated the main US fear about Kyoto -- that it would hurt the economy by chaining it to greenhouse gas reductions that were not achievable.
"...If we had a serious disciplined effort to apply on a large-scale, existing clean energy and energy conservation technologies -- we could meet and surpass the Kyoto targets easily in a way that would strengthen, not weaken, our economy," said Clinton to applause from the delegates.
(Excerpt) Read more at postchronicle.com ...
Clinton will go to his grave attempting to revise history.
It will not treat him kindly.
Don't worry, change the audience and ole billyboy will change his tune.
Odd, WJC wasn't half the contemptible scum while in office...that he's become.
You're giving Mr. Clinton way too much credit here. His business acumen would rattle around in a thimble.
a man whose business acumen would fit easily in a thimble.
You're giving Mr. Clinton way too much credit here. His business acumen would rattle around in a thimble.
We know Clinton after all these years, his business acumen
is nonexistant, his nose for the big CON however is very
sharp. One has to ask, what is it in Kyoto that will line
his pocket?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051210/ap_on_sc/climate_change_clinton;_y150 Nations Agree to Future Climate Talks By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
Sat Dec 10, 6:53 AM ET
MONTREAL - More than 150 nations agreed Saturday to launch formal talks on mandatory post-2012 reductions in greenhouse gases — talks that will exclude an unwilling United States.
For its part the Bush administration, which rejects the emissions cutbacks of the current Kyoto Protocol, accepted only a watered-down proposal to enter an exploratory global "dialogue" on future steps to combat climate change. That proposal specifically rules out "negotiations leading to new commitments."
The parallel tracks represented a mixed result for the pivotal two-week U.N. conference on global warming, doing little to close the climate gap between Washington on one side, and Europe, Japan and other supporters of the Kyoto Protocol on the other.
"These countries are willing to take the leadership," Swiss delegate Bruno Oberle said of the Kyoto nations. "But they are not able to solve the problem. We need the support of the United States — but also of the big emerging countries," a reference to China and other poorer industrializing nations not obligated under Kyoto.
But the Canadian conference president, Environment Minister Stephane Dion, said the decisions taken here amounted to "a map for the future, the Montreal Action Plan, the MAP."
The Montreal meeting was the first of the annual climate conferences since the Kyoto Protocol took effect last February, mandating specific cutbacks in emissions of carbon dioxide and five other gases by 2012 in 35 industrialized countries.
A broad scientific consensus agrees that these gases accumulating in the atmosphere, byproducts of automobile engines, power plants and other fossil fuel-burning industries, contributed significantly to the past century's global temperature rise of 1 degree Fahrenheit.
Continued warming is melting glaciers worldwide, shrinking the Arctic ice cap and heating up the oceans, raising sea levels, scientists say. They predict major climate disruptions in coming decades.
Former President Clinton, a Kyoto supporter, appeared at the Montreal meeting on its final day and urged nations to unite to confront the threat.
The United States is the world's biggest greenhouse-gas emitter, and Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, was instrumental in negotiating the treaty protocol initialed in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan — a pact the Senate subsequently refused to ratify.
When Bush rejected Kyoto outright after taking office in 2001, he said its mandatory energy cuts would harm the U.S. economy, and he complained that major developing countries were not covered.
The protocol's language required its 157 member nations at this point to begin talks on deeper emissions cuts for the next phase, which begins when Kyoto expires in 2012.
In days of tough negotiation, the Kyoto nations settled on a plan whereby a working group would begin developing post-2012 proposals. The agreement set no deadline for completing that work, except to say it should be done early enough to ensure that no gap develops after 2012.
That would guarantee an uninterrupted future for the burgeoning international "carbon market," in which carbon reductions achieved by one company can be sold to another to help it meet its target.
At the same time, the host Canadians tried to draw in the Americans on the parallel track, under the umbrella 1992 U.N. climate treaty, which does not mandate emissions cuts or other actions on global warming. As the days wore on, the language offered the Americans, and finally accepted by them, weakened.
"It's clear the Bush administration isn't willing to accept its responsibility," climate expert Bill Hare of Greenpeace International said of the continued U.S. rejection of global negotiations and emissions controls.
Explaining that stand earlier in the week, U.S. delegation chief Paula Dobriansky said the Americans "believe firmly that negotiations will not reap progress, as indicated, because there are differing perspectives."
Instead, the U.S. delegation said it favors voluntary efforts and bilateral and regional arrangements to tackle climate change. It repeatedly pointed to U.S. government spending on research and development of energy-saving technologies as a demonstration of U.S. efforts on climate.
In a news conference after his speech, Clinton suggested the Europeans and others not try to force Kyoto-style "targets" on Washington, but look for agreement on specific energy-saving projects.
"If we just keep working with the administration, we'll find some specific things we can do that are consistent with the targets," he said, but "without embracing the targets."
see # 28, they ain't done yet!
They'll do it if Hillary asks them to.
bttt
Enjoy watching cockroaches scatter in the light.
That's it. We're screwed. They've got... The Acronym.
Going by the quotations of the speech in Montre'al, Clinton turns logic on its head. Not the first time that's happened. I guess he sees no advantage in posing as a moderate anymore. But I don't see how acting like a "respectable" Howard Dean is going to help advance his status or "Project Hillary".
I prefer it when they're lethargic. Easier to kill them.
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