U.S. Climate Talks Short On Solutions

Negotiators Struggle To Find Compromise Between Economic and Environmental Goals

(AP)  President Bush's climate meeting opened Thursday with its main problem on full display: The biggest polluters - industrialized and developing nations alike - say their economies are more important than global warming.

Not for the richest nations, retort Europeans, the United Nations and some developing nations.

The U.S. talks, following on the heels of the United Nations' climate gathering Monday, is an attempt to influence what happens after 2012, when the U.N.-brokered Kyoto Protocol mandating greenhouse gas cuts by industrial nations expires. The emphasis, as with much of Bush's climate approach, emphasizes the sharing of green technology.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for a solution "that does not starve economies of the energy they need to grow and that does not widen the already significant income gap between developed and developing nations."

But she left it to nations to set their own goals and priorities.

"Let me emphasize that this is not a one-size-fits-all effort," Rice said at the start of a two-day climate meeting called by Bush. "Though united by common goals and collective responsibilities, all nations should tackle climate change in the ways that they deem best."

Rice also called for nations to "cut the Gordian Knot of fossil fuels, carbon emissions, and economic activity."

Though the White House-led meeting includes Britain, France, Germany and other nations in the Kyoto accord, many European officials expressed concern that Bush's meeting would sidetrack the U.N. negotiations that have been the main forum for addressing global warming.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in an interview on German radio Thursday that he was not overly concerned about the Bush administration's attitude toward the global talks.

"We all know that they will be out of office in a few months," he said on NDR Info radio.

The U.S. talks proposed new "processes" and work teams for negotiating solutions. Despite the emphasis on bureaucracy, James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council of Environmental Quality, told participants: "This has to be about more than presentations."

Yvo de Boer, the top U.N. climate official, told the 16 nations participating in the White House-led meeting that "this relatively small group of countries holds a key to tackling a big part of the problem" but that their response can succeed only by "going well beyond present efforts," especially among rich, industrialized nations.

While the U.N. supports mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases by rich nations, Bush's rejection of the treaty stands: The U.S. won't do more than slow its growth rate of emissions, and whatever requirements the world agrees upon should extend equally to fast-developing nations like China and India.

Developing nations such as China, Mexico and Indonesia say reducing poverty must be their main priority, but that they also can reduce emissions carbon dioxide and other warming gases, for example by targeting some parts of their economies for cuts or by planting trees and cutting down fewer forest lands.

They argue that rich nations should make greater use of Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism, which lets them meet their carbon cuts by paying for projects in poorer countries.

"Poverty is still No. 1," Emil Salim, an economist and member of the Indonesian president's council of advisers, told The Associated Press.

"It is correct that for the developed countries, climate change is more important," said Salim, a former Indonesian minister for population and environment. "But for the developing nations, the key notion is how to get poverty reduction and search for a pattern of development that is different than the developed nations."

As they consider ways to curb greenhouse gases, developing nations expressed a preference for U.N.-sponsored talks to decide on a post-2012 strategy and said they did not want to give up ground toward industrializing - and meeting basic human needs.

Bush's meeting has competed for attention with the climate change summit held Monday in New York City, at which U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned 80 world leaders that "the time for doubt has passed" and urged fast action to save future generations from potentially ruinous effects of global warming.

About 70 demonstrators from Greenpeace and other environmental groups gathered Thursday outside the State Department, where dozens were arrested for refusing to leave the premise after two hours of protest. The activists labeled the conference a fraud for not encouraging mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases.

"I'm here to protest the fact that we are having a climate conference when we should have been signing the Kyoto agreement," said Lauren Siegel, 23, from New York, N.Y., as she was loaded into a police van. "This is a diversion," she said of the conference.

[boldwin223]

"Now if you really wanna save the planet, have
all the women move to the eastern hemisphere,
and all the men move to the western hemisphere,
and have the human race die out, slowly but
surely. and then the pristine environment shall
return. tall trees reaching to the sun for warmth,
and light. and all the animals will soon be so
numerous again, etc. etc."

And God saw it was good and he made man for the clay and called him John and made woman form a rib of John and call her "Hay You".

[octavianfdlr]

"U.S. Climate Talks Short On Solutions" (headline)

"The emphasis, as with much of Bush''s climate approach, emphasizes the sharing of green technology."

"While the U.N. supports mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases by rich nations..."

Fascinating! The US emphasizes making it possible to solve the alleged problem, but the UN merely demands that a few nations do it, whether they can or not. CBS chooses to describe the US approach as "short on solutions."

Try this to get someone to fly:
1) The UN approach: Strip the subject naked, demand that he fly, and beat him until he does.
2) The US approach: Give the subject plans and materials to build an airplane, and tell him why he wants to fly.

But, you say, the subject in (2) may decide not to fly! Yes, he might. But the subject in (1) will not fly, despite what he decides. The UN approach is not and can never be a solution. The UN approach is nothing more than bullying.

(The preceding message was NOT paid for by the "Bush in 2008 Campaign Committee." Bush cannot run in 2008, so there cannot be such a Committee.)

[ramos937]

President Bush is desperately trying to leave some sort of legacy other than Iraq to be remembered by. Unfortunately, the war has so poisoned our relations with other countries that really he cannot be really effective. I saw Rice trying to deliver her speech and she looked hopelessly out of her depth. She read her speech with little or no feelings. The best that can be said is that everybody is just going through the motions until the new President takes office.

[tnt1954]

now if you really wanna save the planet, have
all the women move to the eastern hemisphere,
and all the men move to the western hemisphere,
and have the human race die out, slowly but
surely. and then the pristine environment shall
return. tall trees reaching to the sun for warmth,
and light. and all the animals will soon be so
numerous again, etc. etc.

[muzzlebush]

The real story here is the fact that this is an administration that, up until recently, denied the existence of global warming. There are, obviously, still some in their camp who have not caught up to the latest flip flop in an attempt to keep their legacy from being one of greed, war, and corruption.
Too little, too late.
I feel bad for Condi. She actually had some credibility 7 years ago. It''s a shame for her to have flushed her place in history because the current resident of the White House prizes loyalty above all things including the rule of law and the greater good.

[lars008-2009]

Challenge to Scientific Consensus on Global Warming: Analysis Finds Hundreds of Scientists Have Published Evidence Countering Man-Made Global Warming Fears
A new analysis of peer-reviewed literature reveals that more than 500 scientists have published evidence refuting at least one element of current man-made global warming scares. More than 300 of the scientists found evidence that 1) a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen global warmings similar to ours since the last Ice Age and/or that 2) our Modern Warming is linked strongly to variations in the sun''s irradiance. "This data and the list of scientists make a mockery of recent claims that a scientific consensus blames humans as the primary cause of global temperature increases since 1850," said Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dennis Avery.
Other researchers found evidence that 3) sea levels are failing to rise importantly; 4) that our storms and droughts are becoming fewer and milder with this warming as they did during previous global warmings; 5) that human deaths will be reduced with warming because cold kills twice as many people as heat; and 6) that corals, trees, birds, mammals, and butterflies are adapting well to the routine reality of changing climate.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,176495.shtml

[lars008-2009]

Breaking: Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory

SURVEY: LESS THAN HALF OF ALL PUBLISHED SCIENTISTS ENDORSE GLOBAL WARMING THEORY; COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY OF PUBLISHED CLIMATE RESEARCH REVEALS CHANGING VIEWPOINTS
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=b35c36a3-802a-23ad-46ec-6880767e7966

[larrs08]

When the oil companies hire "scientists" to refute global warming I believe them. Because I know that they would never do anything to harm the environment and the future of our children for profits sake.

[afmca]

Of course the US sponsored climate talks are short on solutions. This was a shameless con from the beginning .. another one of Bush''s pretend solutions. It plays to his ignorant base, businesses leaders get to laugh about something at their next White House visit, and the environment continues to degrade. Bush is a eco-criminal and, if this climate trend is not reversed, history will view him to be a mass murderer. Quite a legacy you got going there, King George the Younger!

[jowand]

I guess the time had passed to doubt that CFCs were creating the ozone hole, too, huh?

Hey, you really want to fix "Global Warming"? Use common sense... the most developed and growing countries are doing most of the so called "harm", while all of the poor countries "suffer" and can''''t be blamed for GW. So let''''s start preventing all these countries from developing, and keep everyone poor! For our kids'''' sake!
-----------------------

Posted by s1ckd09 at 08:42 PM : Sep 27, 2007

Global warming isn''t an event created by human activity no matter how much Al Gore talks it up; it''s making a ton of money for Gore though.
Methane is a far worse agent contributing to global warming than CO2, go look it up how much more methane there is than CO2 in the atmosphere. The man made global warming crowd are using bad science, flawed sampling analysis and anecdotal eveidence, to push their agenda and have hooked a lot of well meaning people into this fiasco. We''re not go to stop global warming anny more than we can stop the sun coming up each day.