Posted on 11/29/2005 12:24:05 PM PST by ZGuy
The United States ruled out making extra pledges to fight global warming beyond 2012 on Tuesday, angering environmentalists who accused Washington of blocking a 189-nation conference in Canada.
Chief U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson also strongly defended President George W. Bush's environmental record, saying emissions by the world's biggest polluter had fallen more in 2000-2003 than in the European Union.
Up to 10,000 delegates are meeting in Montreal, Canada, from November 28-December 9 to discuss new ways to fight a build-up of gases released mainly from burning fossil fuels in factories, power plants and cars.
"The United States is opposed to any such discussions," Watson told a news conference of Canadian proposals to launch talks under the U.N.'s climate convention about new actions to combat global warming beyond 2012.
Environmentalists accused Washington of doing too little to fight a rise in temperatures from human activities that could lead to more storms, expanding deserts and worse floods, and could raise sea levels by up to three feet (one meter) by 2100.
Bill Hare, climate policy director of Greenpeace, called the United States the "fly in the ointment" at the conference. "The failure of the United States to be willing to discuss future action here is the real issue," he said, predicting Washington will only join a global pact after Bush leaves office.
KYOTO PROTOCOL
Bush pulled out in 2001 of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, under which about 40 industrial nations have to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 1008-12.
At Montreal, Kyoto backers plan to launch talks, likely to last several years, on new commitments beyond 2012. Bush branded Kyoto too costly and said it wrongly excluded poor countries.
Many also hope to start wider parallel talks among all countries, including the United States and developing nations such as China and India, on new ways to fight climate change.
"We hope to start a dialogue" among all 189 nations, said Sarah Hendry, head of the British delegation which holds the rotating EU presidency. She said that new tougher measures were urgently needed to combat rising temperatures.
And British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a speech earlier on Tuesday that he believed that all major economies would sign up for a binding accord to succeed Kyoto.
But Watson reiterated that Washington had no plans to adopt Kyoto-style caps on emissions and rejected environmentalists' predictions that the U.S. was dooming the conference to failure.
"I don't know why it's doomed," he said. "There's more than one way to approach climate change.
"Look at the data -- the United States has done better in the first three years of the Bush administration in addressing greenhouse gas emissions than the EU ... the UK, France, Germany.
"I can go down the laundry list for you. I reject the premise that a Kyoto-like agreement is necessary to address the issue," he said of emissions between 2000-03. Washington is investing heavily in new technology like hydrogen.
Still, U.N. data show the United States is doing worse than all the nations named by Watson in the longer term. U.S. emissions were 13.3 percent above 1990 levels in 2003 -- while the EU average in the same period was a fall of 1.4 percent.
Outside the conference, activists dressed as trees, insects and birds marched to call for the protection of rainforests.
"It would be nice if the U.S. would step up and start to take some action," said Ben Matchstick, a U.S. organizer dressed as a bird.
Recommended reading: http://www.crichton-official.com/fear/
10,000 delegates. How insane is that?
"10,000 delegates are meeting in Montreal, Canada, from November 28-December 9 to discuss new ways to fight a build-up of gases released mainly from burning fossil fuels in factories, power plants and cars.
"The United States is opposed to any such discussions," Watson told a news conference of Canadian proposals to launch talks under the U.N.'s climate convention about new actions to combat global warming beyond 2012."
F them, stupid asses! Note that China which is fast preparing to overtake us and is a HUGE polluter, is doing diddly squat. Developing country my ear, they are manufacturing everything we use. Bird brains dressed as birds.
Tell me about it...and our "investigative news" won't do a single report on where any of the 10,000 got their funding to travel to Canada, either.
Correction: The Kyoto Protocol was overwhelmingly rejected by the United States Senate. I can't remember the exact vote but 98-0 comes to mind.
China outpollutes the rest of the world, combined. To get statistics to say otherwise, the watermelons (green on the outside, communist red on the inside) omit underground coal fire pollution.
http://www.geotimes.org/oct02/geophen.html 
Underground coal fires called a 'catastrophe'
Saturday, February 15, 2003
By Michael Woods , Post-Gazette National Bureau
DENVER -- ... a more common coal mine disaster is getting little attention, scientists said yesterday. It's the fire below.
Underground coal fires are relentlessly incinerating millions of tons of coal around the world.
The blazes spew out huge amounts of air pollutants, force residents to flee their homes, send toxic runoff flowing into waterways, and leave the land above as scarred as a battlefield.
"A global environmental catastrophe" is how geologist Glenn B. Stracher described the situation.
Stracher, of East Georgia College in Swainsboro, organized an international symposium on the topic at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"This symposium is dedicated to disclosing the severity of the coal fires problem," Stracher said, noting that some of the fires have been burning for centuries with few people aware of the problem.
Concern and action is needed, he said, because of the environmental impact -- especially of mega-fires burning in India, China and elsewhere in Asia. One coal fire in northern China, for instance, is burning over an area more than 3,000 miles wide and almost 450 miles long.
"The direct and indirect economic losses from coal fires are huge," said Paul M. van Dijk, a Dutch scientist who is tracking the Chinese blazes via satellite.
He estimated that the Chinese fires alone consume 120 million tons of coal annually. That's almost as much as the annual coal production in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois combined.
The Chinese fires also make a big, hidden contribution to global warming through the greenhouse effect, scientists said. Each year they release 360 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as much as all the cars and light trucks in the United States.
Soot from the fires in China, India and other Asian countries are a source of the "Asian Brown Haze." It's a 2-mile thick cloud of soot, acid droplets and other material that sometimes stretches across South Asia from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka.
The cloud causes acid rain that damages crops, cuts sunlight reaching the ground by 10 to 15 percent, and has been implicated in thousands of annual lung disease deaths.
Mine fires are frustratingly difficult and costly to extinguish, panelists said.
Weapons range from backfilling mine shafts to cutting off the oxygen supply with a new foam-like grout that's squirted into mine shafts like shaving cream and then expands to sniff out the fire.
Most are simply left alone to burn until they eventually exhaust their fuel supply.
Michael Woods can be reached at mwoods@nationalpress.com
Too bad not a one of these 10,000 delegates can actually prove the theory of "global warming."
Anakin: "Leaders should get together, decide what is in the best interest of all the people and then do it."
Padme: "That's what we do. The problem is people don't always agree."
Anakin: "Then they should be made too."
What a bald faced lie.
The Senate during the second term of Clinton voted 97-0 against the treaty so Clinton never even formally submitted it to a vote. No treaty was established to pull out of
It's STILL Bush's fault.
Is there an echo in here?
" Clinton signing it does obligate the U.S. to these panty waists."
Sorry!
Should read: "does NOT obligtate"
Hello hello hello
Yeah! I think so!
:0)
CO2 is not a pollutant. It is fundamental to plant life.
"Chief U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson also strongly defended President George W. Bush's environmental record, saying emissions by the world's biggest polluter had fallen more in 2000-2003 than in the European Union."
A palpable lie. There is no way that Harlan Watson called the US "the world's biggest polluter".
These losers are just getting together for free meals and a hope of scamming additional grants and othe funds.
Beats working.
I have no interest in researching it, but have these morons ever been right? Even once?
Sure, I'm going to believe them this time and stay awake night chewing my nails...
Uh huh.
Somebody forgot to tell the world's smartest man and first black president that his signature doesn't mean squat when it comes to treaties.
As mentioned not nearly enough, the Senate, which had sole Constitutional power to approve treaties, voted "no" 98-zip.
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