The Climate Charade
THE CLIMATE CHARADE....Apparently nobody outside the U.S. was fooled for a minute by George Bush's "climate summit." The Guardian reports:
European ministers, diplomats and officials attending the Washington conference were scathing, particularly in private, over Mr Bush's failure once again to commit to binding action on climate change.Of course, there was an easier way to tell that nobody in the White House was taking this thing seriously: it was named the "Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change." When it's a real initiative they take the time to come up with a snappy name and a nifty acronym. This time, they didn't bother.....The conference, attended by more than 20 countries, including China, India, Britain, France and Germany, broke up with the US isolated, according to non-Americans attending. One of those present said even China and India, two of the biggest polluters, accepted that the voluntary approach proposed by the US was untenable and favoured binding measures, even though they disagreed with the Europeans over how this would be achieved.
A senior European diplomat attending the conference, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the meeting confirmed European suspicions that it had been intended by Mr Bush as a spoiler for a major UN conference on climate change in Bali in December.
"It was a total charade and has been exposed as a charade," the diplomat said. "I have never heard a more humiliating speech by a major leader. He [Mr Bush] was trying to present himself as a leader while showing no sign of leadership. It was a total failure."