Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 03/08/2010 10:50:04 PM PST by bruinbirdman
The world will almost certainly fail to draw up a new treaty on climate change this year, the minister in charge of last year’s Copenhagen summit has admitted, delivering a heavy blow to the barely flickering hopes for a swift global settlement.
Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister who masterminded the summit of world leaders on global warming last year and is now the European commissioner for climate change, told the Financial Times negotiations were not progressing fast enough for a treaty to be signed soon.
She also gave warning that pushing too hard for a treaty this year could be counterproductive.
“To get every detail set in the next nine months looks very difficult,” she said. “Europe would love that to happen, and I would love that to happen ... but my feeling is that it is going to be very difficult to get a treaty.”
Her pessimism echoed that of the outgoing United Nations climate change chief, Yvo de Boer. He told the FT as he resigned last month after four years of seeking an agreement that he could not see a treaty being signed this year.
The admission also comes against the backdrop of a resurgence of climate change scepticism, fuelled by a series of mistakes made by scientists that have encouraged many politicians to oppose emissions regulation.
Governments had been hoping to forge a final treaty at a global conference this December in Mexico, after failing to do so in Copenhagen.
However, Ms Hedegaard said this was more likely to happen at a follow-up meeting next year in South Africa.
That would still allow governments to meet their self-imposed deadline of forging a new agreement before the end of 2012, when the current provisions of the world’s only existing treaty on greenhouse gas emissions, the 1997 Kyoto protocol, expire.
Ms Hedegaard robustly defended the Copenhagen summit, which attracted loud criticism, especially for the chaotic way in which it finished.
She said that calling world leaders to the long-running negotiations had ensured rapid progress towards the end, when for the first time developed and developing countries mutually agreed limits on their emissions.
But she said there would not be another Copenhagen-style summit. “You can do such a thing one time,” she said.
The price of failure, if diplomats attempted to force an agreement this year, was too high, Ms Hedegaard said.
“People would say let’s skip that idea, let’s skip the UN thing,” she said.
She also defended climate scientists, saying the handful of flaws in the 2007 report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the e-mails in which scientists talked of concealing data did not affect the large body of scientific evidence amassed over decades.
The UN climate talks have been going on since 1992, when world governments signed the first legally binding treaty aimed at avoiding dangerous levels of climate change. The Kyoto protocol failed because it did not impose obligations on developing countries and was rejected by the US.
Hmmm...
The depth of my disappointment is unfathomable.
The climate just isn’t right for it.
http://www.boycottamerica.org/kyoto/index.htm
I thought this was all Bush's fault. They have Obama and the rest of the world, and they still can't get it done.
This idiot woman has a masters degree in literature and no education or competence in science whatsoever. Leaving her in charge of this fiasco simply illustrates what a fraudulent enterprise it is. And for her to up and pontificate this way is evidence of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of Old Europe.
These a$$holes deserve what the muzzies have in store for them. They are too stupid to live.
A glimmer of good news amidst a sea of bilge.
“But she said there would not be another Copenhagen-style summit”
Hmmm. I wonder what a “Copenhagen-style summit” actually is. As opposed to say, a Kyoto style summit.
Does that mean they will try to hold the next one in a spot where a once-in-a-century cold spell does not have it’s grips on the hosting city.
Or that the next one will produce a treaty that no important countries sign?
Or maybe the unique panache of the Copenhagenistas was to hold a summit just as the case for man-made global warming was unraveling. That was a sort of nice stylistic twist that let the Gaian Inquisitors play Copernicans to the skeptic’s Galileo.
Hmmm new Climate Trade Treaty pushed out to 2012, US Presidential election year. Obama proves he will push against the will of Americans with Health Care. Obama will sign the treaty if it ever gets to his desk but the Senate will never ratify.
Brilliant!
Using any permutation for 'robust' these days means, "Every word I speak is is a lie, even 'and' and 'the,'" or, "Everything you read on this subject by 'experts' is utter drivel."
“.........a resurgence of climate change scepticism, fuelled by a series of mistakes made by scientists that have encouraged many politicians to oppose emissions regulation.”
A series of mistakes my foot!
Now that's an idea I could support.
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