Chaos in Copenhagen

It appears the most excitement that will come out of the Copenhagen conference will be the protests.In fact,the conference can be summed up by this interview in which Not Evil Just Wrong Filmmaker Phelim McAleer was pelted with food.








In fact, the basic problem can be summed up this way. Everyone wants to reduce carbon emissions but no one wants to pay to do it. So, the developing nations want the developed nations to pay for it, and...well you get the idea.



If you think that it's tough to get several hundred legislators, all with their own agendas, to get together, try and get seventy seven nations, all with their own agendas, to get together. China is balking.

Meanwhile, China, the biggest developing country in the world, argues that it still lags behind more than 100 countries in terms of GDP per capita, and therefore, it flatly refuses to be held internationally accountable for its emission reduction plans. China has planned to reduce CO2 emission intensity per unit of GDP by 40 to 45 percent in 2020 from 2005.

We are of the opinion that the Copenhagen talks should produce an agreement that would strengthen what was achieved in Kyoto. After all, the Kyoto Protocol is the only legally binding instrument available so far to force developed countries to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Canada is balking.

Canada has "significant problems" with a draft climate agreement designed to usher the second, more intense phase in talks here next week, Ottawa's chief negotiator says.

As politicians began arriving in the Danish capital Friday for the second week of talks, Michael Martin said his first read of a proposed deal – one that is vague in some important places and completely silent in others – is that it is unlikely to wash with his Conservative political masters

So, now, Secretary Clinton is pledging money we don't have.

With time running out on the stalled Copenhagen climate negotiations, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave new hope that an agreement might still be reached when she announced Thursday that the United States would help raise $100 billion a year by 2020 to enable poor nations to combat climate change.

Since it will be borrowed from China, I wonder what the Chinese think of this pronouncement. President Obama is hours away from taking off for Copenhagen and he'll land into a sea of chaos. In fact, Copenhagen looks much like his health care proposal so he should be very comfortable in that environment.