JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA- A decade has passed since the first Earth Summit in Rio, and yet the ground-breaking plan agreed to there has yet to be ratified by many industrialized nations, most conspicuously the United States. Organizers of the second summit wanted to make it clear that the accords reached in Johannesburg would have teeth even without American involvement. "Can you not tell how serious we are about enforcing the Kyoto agreement by the very serious tone of my voice?" barked U.N. under-secretary Nitin Desai. "We have put on an elaborate musical number for crying out loud!"
Indeed, World Summit delegates believe that show tunes have the power to draw disparate nations together, forge alliances between industry and environmentalists, and thereby save the planet. The opening ceremony's show-stopper, "Emission Targets A-Go-Go," had a visible effect on the delegates. The bit at the end where a giant Mother Earth puppet places an enormous brick in her over-sized toilet with "U.S.A" printed on it [subsequently crapping three dozen white doves] drew thunderous applause.
American non-participation has become a mainstay of such events, something many diplomats have come to rely upon. If, God forbid, the United States ever agreed to Kyoto, European leaders would have to face the very real possibility of having to "put up or shut up" on the issue. Sources present at the negotiations say that it was this very aspect of irrelevance that allowed the protocol to pass in the first place.
"You Americans are so incredibly arrogant with your ubiquitous junk culture and your unilateralist agenda," slurred an unidentified inebriated French delegate. "We are working hard to craft meaningless, unenforceable rules and you provincial rubes refuse to play along. That simply isn't fair."
Later in the evening, when the same delegate was asked to repeat his statement before a group of Americans, he claimed to have forgotten exactly what he had said.
When asked to comment on the situation, Drew Curtis of Fark.com had this to say: "Lol. France surrenders. Lol"
Bush says that he didn't mean to offend anyone by rejecting the Kyoto protocol out of hand. "From what I was told, the Kyoto protocol was just a suggestion, kinda like the metric system."
In his speech on Tuesday morning, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan emphasized the UN's renewed commitment to carving out lasting solutions to many of the world's problems. "We don't just want a one-time lip service photo opportunity," said Annan. "We're searching for a sustainable lip service photo opportunity."
With all that the conference expects to accomplish, these international representatives clearly have a lot of hard work ahead of them. However, the delegates do seem to be having their share of fun, playing all kinds of games and wacky inside jokes. One popular gag, sources say, has been to work the word 'apartheid' into speeches as many times as possible.
South African President Thabo [no relation to fitness guru Billy Blanks] Mbeki used the phrase no less than 37 times during his 50-minute keynote address on Monday. Afterward, he accepted the free beer owed him for winning the bet and, clearly proud of the record he had set, exclaimed, "beat that, mother-bitches!"
Already fissures have appeared in the conference's foundations. American President George W. Bush has openly discussed becoming more involved, thus ruining the excuse many European leaders have for playing along with the Kyoto accords. Under-Secretary Desai still holds out hope.
"In ten years, I think people will be able to look back at the agreements made here this week and see how utterly meaningless they turned out to be," said Desai, a small tear forming in the corner of his right eye. "Then we will know that all of this hard work and sacrifice was really worth it."