Posted on 12/02/2007 2:18:35 PM PST by ricks_place
BALI, Indonesia - World powers meeting at a UN climate change conference in Indonesia this week won't be able to craft a meaningful plan to address global warming without co-operation from the United States, the top emitter of greenhouse gases, the UN's climate chief said Sunday.
The United States refused to sign the last major international treaty on reducing greenhouse gases, undermining its effectiveness.
Delegates from 190 countries will gather on the resort island of Bali on Monday for one of the largest global warming conferences ever, bringing together about 10,000 people including Hollywood luminaries, former vice-president Al Gore, fishermen and drought-stricken farmers for two weeks of marathon discussions.
World leaders will attempt to launch negotiations that could lead to a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Among the most contentious issues will be whether emission cuts should be mandatory or voluntary and how to help the world's poorest countries adapt to a warmer climate.
Yvo de Boer, general secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said the role of the United States "would be critical" in the discussions and that delegates must come up with a roadmap that's embraced by Washington.
"To design a long-term response to climate change that does not include the world's largest emitter and the world's largest economy just would not make any sense," he told reporters.
The United States, which along with Australia refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, said ahead of the Bali talks that it was eager to launch negotiations, but has been among industrialized countries leading a campaign against mandatory emission cuts.
But now the United States finds itself isolated at the conference, given that Australian Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd, whose party swept to power in general elections just one week ago, immediately put signing the Kyoto pact at the top of his international agenda.
President Bush, trying to fend off charges that America is not doing enough, said this week that a final Energy Department report showed American emissions of carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, declined by 1.5 per cent last year while the U.S. economy grew.
"Energy security and climate change are two of the important challenges of our time. The United States takes these challenges seriously," he said.
The meeting on Bali comes after a Nobel Prize-winning UN network of scientists issued a report concluding the level of carbon and other heat-trapping "greenhouse gas" emissions must be stabilized by 2015 and decline from there to stave off the worst effects of climate change.
The solutions are within reach, they said, from investing in renewable energy to improving energy efficiency. Without action, temperatures will rise, resulting in droughts, severe weather, dying species and other consequences, they said.
"It is already affecting the livelihoods of people we work with," said Dr. Charles Ehrhart, Climate Change Co-ordinator for CARE International, citing concerns over food security and access to water. "It is contributing to tensions within and between communities."
The 1997 Kyoto pact required 36 industrial countries to reduce carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gasses but it set relatively low emissions reduction targets: about a five per cent required drop in the levels recorded in 1990 by 2012.
A new agreement must be concluded within two years to ensure a smooth, uninterrupted transition.
De Boer said countries need to act now but acknowledged that anyone who expects the Bali meeting to result in specific targets or long-term solutions "will leave disappointed."
Industrialized countries, which have pumped the lion's share of greenhouses gases into the atmosphere to date, should take the lead in reducing emissions, he said. Developing countries like China, the world's second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, may not be required to cut their emissions immediately but should commit slowing the growth of carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gases.
At best, analysts believe, Bali could lead to an agreement in about two years time with the United States under a new administration, the Europeans and other industrial nations committing to deepening blanket emissions cuts. And they say major developing countries could agree to enshrine some national policies - China's auto emission standards, for example, or energy-efficiency targets for power plants - as international obligations.
That ignores the fact that global warmings is bull, especially that it is man made.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
They want our money and they want to screw our economy. P!ss on ‘em!
UN says USA must be part of climate change agreement....
F...the UN!!!!!
~~ AGW ping~~
PhotoShopped pictures of polar bears drowning and elephants mummified in Africa; the list is nearly endless. One scientist has linked more than 600 bogus science websites to the topic global warming. Almost all are alarmist, if not just plain dishonest...
for example, last night on the TV 'news' in Oz we were treated to another nightly 'global-warming' lecture - not a single day passes without one. The 'effects' were illustrated by a number of dead donkeys lying in the sand GUESS WHERE? On the outskirts of a camp in DARFUR!
'Get me an image of some dead animals, quick! We can't keep using those polar bears on icebergs, the viewers need something new to jolt them - and never mind the context...'
Yep. Even the genocide in Darfur is useful to push the global warming b*llsh*t.
That they want to zap the US and give China a pass just goes to show that all this economic mumbo jumbo is pointed squarely at the US economy.
Screw em.
Pigs
Yet they will not let us develop the resources of outer space.
In Oz the Left is using CUBA as a shining example of a self-sustaining economy and praising their recycling methods...a recent ‘documentary’ showed PEDAL POWER as an alternative transportation method (husband pedalling, rikshaw fashion -wife and children sitting in a contraption fastened to the rear wheel) Recycling plastic bags - washing them, hanging them out to dry on the balcony and taking them to market to sell!
Life in Cuba must be the ultimate utopia...
If the US is such a big part of the problem, how is it that we are breathing clean air everywhere while the air in Bejing is toxic?
There was a time when I rode the bicycle to work year round, and as far as I know I was the only bicycle out in the winter. But, car drivers got progressively worse and I gave up and got the Chevy just to even the odds. I do not hang plastic bags out the windows to dry and at 55 mph they would not hold up well anyway.
The U.N. can stick Kyoto up their keyhole.
This turkey is still cooking and many cannot wait to taste it. The public seems about to swallow a bitter tasting bird. This bird will bring Marxist control over most industries, a huge transfer of wealth from the developed to undeveloped world, a depressed world economy, and certainly no impact on the climate.
and in other news: The U.S. to the U.N. “Go F**k Yourself!”
Madness is contagious.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
Charles Mackay, author of the great 1841 classic “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”
Fred Thompson has this one figured out also:
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=NTQzYWY1MGM5NTkyZTM2YWVlMDMzMDlhMzQwNThhNDU=
We need Fred!
China pollutes atleast as much or slightly more than the US.
We have a population of 300 million, China, some 1.4 Billion.
If we ran things like China does today, we would all be chocking to death on the fumes.
SOme of the worst pollution is in Communist or former Communist areas. Poland and Russia come to mind.
WHen I was in the Komi Republic (1000km North of Moscow) - I had a hard time getting my head around how dirty everything was - trash in the streets (mounds and mounds) broken bottles on playgrounds, etc, etc.
I guess the Lady Bird Brainwashing of the 60s did some good here....
The Canadian Press ^ | November 30, 2007 | Michael Oliveira
Posted on 11/30/2007 1:55:35 PM PST by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
thanks for the graphic backhoe!
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