Posted on 12/13/2007 10:16:18 AM PST by yoe
NUSA DUA, Indonesia - Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore blamed the Bush administration as the main obstacle to progress in international efforts to fight global warming, but he urged delegates at the United Nations to work around his country in the hope that a new government would be more willing to cooperate.
"I am not an official of the United States and I am not bound by the diplomatic niceties," Gore said in an hour-long speech on Thursday evening. "So I am going to speak an inconvenient truth. My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali."
Gore was invited to speak to delegates in recognition of his Nobel Peace Prize, shared with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for promoting awareness about global warming.
Drawing applause from a full crowd of delegates, Gore noted that the U.S. was not the only obstacle to launching negotiations for a new climate change agreement, but other countries as well.
But he urged the rest of the countries to move forward without the U.S., if necessary, knowing that the Bush administration would soon be replaced following the next American election.
He also used an analogy from Canada's national sport, noting that former hockey legend Bobby Hull used to say he was successful because he wouldn't pass the puck to where players were, but rather to where they were going to be.
Countries are seeking a mandate at Bali to negotiate a new agreement that must be finalized by 2009 so that it can come into force after the end of the first commitment period of binding targets under the Kyoto Protocol in 2012.
But the current U.S. administration along with Canada and some other countries, have been blocking language that sets a range of binding targets to recognize scientific evidence that humans need to achieve dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent dangerous changes to the climate.
The Harper government has insisted it would block an international agreement if it does not include binding targets for major polluting countries such as the U.S., China and India.
Gore compared the climate crisis to the Second World War several times during his speech. He also suggested that those who are skeptical about warnings from leading scientists are no different than those who ignored the growing danger of fascism in Germany.
mdesouzacanwest.com
Al Gore is an inconvenient idiot!
China and India and the USSR agreed to what types of reductions ?
Any ?
Another achievement of the Bush administration.
“I am not an official of the United States and I am not bound by the diplomatic niceties,”
Probably explains why he and his Klintoon friend trashed the Whitehouse and environs on the way out the door! Pretty much once White trash always White trash...
will someone please stick a fork in him.
All of this Bravo Sierra has but one real goal in mind, to thrwart, blunt, and set back the United States of America so that our own interests and capabilities are weakened to the point that other nations (particularly China) can emerge as rivals and, ultimately, stronger nations.
IMHO, Gore and his ilk are enemies to this nation and all it stands for, and that is apart from their being liars, swindlers, scoundrels, hypocrits and power hungry yellow dog mongrels.
“”My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali.””
Translate Gore-speak “progress:”
Progress=International Carbon Credit Trading Regime
For those of you that will take that literally...its a saying we use here.
"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
Just watched a couple of interesting You Tube videos - One with John Stossel talking about Gore & and another billed as a debate with Al Gore (in absentia...) One interesting point made was that he has the science backwards (surprised?)
CO2 LAGS behind temperature by about 800 years when the Ice Cores are examined - He implies it is the other way around...LIAR!
EU gives U.S. ultimatum on climate
BALI, Indonesia (AP) — Former Vice President Al Gore said Thursday the United States is “principally responsible” for blocking progress at U.N. climate conference.
Al Gore: “My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali.”
“My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali,” he said. The United States has opposed including in a final conference document a suggestion that industrialized countries reduce emissions by between 25 percent and 40 percent by 2020.
European nations will boycott U.S.-led climate talks next month unless Washington accepts a range of numbers for negotiating deep reductions of global-warming emissions, Germany’s environment minister said Thursday.
“No result in Bali means no Major Economies Meeting,” said Sigmar Gabriel, a top EU environment official, referring to a series of separate climate talks initiated by President Bush in September.
The U.S. invited 16 other “major economies” to discuss a possible program of nationally determined, voluntary cutbacks in greenhouse gas emissions, as opposed to the binding targets favored by the EU and others now meeting in Bali.
The U.N. climate chief warned Thursday that a deadlock between the United States and the European Union over emissions cuts threatened to derail talks aimed at launching negotiations for a new global warming pact.
“If we don’t get wording on the future, then the whole house of cards falls to pieces,” said Yvo de Boer, as a two-week U.N. climate conference entered the final stretch.
Washington has refused to accept language in a draft document that would allow negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol to consider asking industrialized nations to cut emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020.
The EU favors inclusion of specific targets in the document.
The conference is aimed at kick starting negotiations for a climate accord to succeed Kyoto when it expires in 2012. Watch as de Boer works the rounds at dinner to encourage fruitful talks »
The United States has insisted at the conference it was taking steps to tackle rising temperatures and that many of its actions to promote energy efficiency and switch to cleaner technologies were going unnoticed by the rest of the world.
U.S. delegates on the sidelines of the conference said America had spent more than any other country — $37 billion — since 2001 on climate change-combating activities and was working to boost the use of cleaner technology and help jump-start negotiations for an agreement that will replace the Kyoto protocol in 2012.
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“We are so serious about this that we are pushing to conclude the negotiations within two years, by end of 2009,” said Jim Connaughton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
“We also are serious enough that we are putting a major investment into technologies that we need tomorrow — how to produce power from coal with low emissions, how to power vehicles with low emissions. These are enormous undertakings and we have to be more aggressive with them,” he said.
The U.S. said it didn’t want to prejudge negotiations by agreeing to targets and maintained there are other options to lowering emissions. But most environmentalists listening Wednesday came away unconvinced.
They said the U.S. presentation — which promoted ramping up energy efficiency, nuclear power, renewable energy and biofuels to reduce climate change — failed to include necessary emission reduction targets or discussions on setting a price for carbon dioxide pollution.
They accused the Bush administration of hypocrisy for promoting cleaner energy options while at the same time threatening to veto an energy bill passed by the House of Representatives that includes requirements that electric utilities produce 15 percent of their power from solar, wind and other renewable energy sources.
“The presentation was an impressive display of a variety of important initiatives, but the parts don’t add up to a meaningful whole if there is no leadership,” said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“What the United States desperately needs to do at these talks is make it very clear that we are ready to accept responsibility for our historic and current emissions and then help the rest of the world to the next round of binding commitments.”
Alexander Karsner, the U.S. assistant secretary of energy, said such criticism ignored what the United States is already doing.
For example, U.S. ethanol production has increased by 250 percent since 2000, he said, and new energy capacity coming on line from renewable sources has gone from 2 percent in 2004 to 22 percent in 2006.
The numbers for renewable energy additions were comparable to Germany and Japan, he said, and higher than many other European nations.
“I get a little confused when I hear the United States isn’t doing much. There is an enormous amount going on in the United States,” Karsner said. “Something is going terribly right in the United States with respect to the growth of renewable energy technology. We seek to make it better.” E-mail to a friend
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
It is amazing how easily he will work against his countrys interests for little more than speech money and fawning adoration.
CORRECT HEADLINE:
“Gore Blames U.S. For Blocking World Socialism”
We must embrace Environmentalism, for Socialism to survive- Hans-Jochen Vogel, Chairman of the West German Social Democratic Party-1989
Gorbachev said in 1987 that ENVIRONMENTALISM would be the vehicle for Socialist control of the world.
The traitor should never be allowed to set foot in this country again.
He also used an analogy from Canada's national sport, noting that former hockey legend Bobby Hull used to say he was successful because he wouldn't pass the puck to where players were, but rather to where they were going to be.
Gore's lying.
Bobby Hull never passed the puck.
When ole #9 got the puck and made his run down the Left Wing - with that little hop of his - that was it, lights out for the goalie, the Plexiglas, or any poor soles sitting in the lower seats behind the net. His slapshot was coming at ya at 120mph.
And how the heck did Al Gore ever see the Chicago Blackhawks play??
PT Barnum would have LOVED the Religion of Globo Warmin’....
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