Gore's Global Warming Debacle

Al Gore is involved in a global warming bruhaha.

In his speech, Gore told the conference: "These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr. [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years."

However, the climatologist whose work Gore was relying upon dropped the former vice president in the water with an icy blast.

"It's unclear to me how this figure was arrived at," Dr. Maslowski said. "I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this."

Meanwhile, there was a dispute between developing and developed nations yesterday that caused the contingent of developing nations to leave the conference.

On Monday, the talks were temporarily suspended after a delegation representing developing nations withdrew their co-operation.

Following the action by the African group, supported by the wider G77-China bloc of developing nations, some sessions ran long into the night as negotiators tried to make up lost time.

The Danish conference hosts had been accused of trying to sideline negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol by packaging discussion of outstanding difficult issues from across the various strands into a single informal session.

Developing countries are adamant that developed nations still inside the protocol - all except the US - must commit to further emission cuts under its aegis.

So, so far the conference has been full of drama and of little consequence. No agreements are on the horizon. In fact, if nothing else, both the agreement and the science itself have both been turned mor murky since the beginning of the conference. That's after climategate. So, with Obama on his way in the next couple days, things look very murky and no agreement seems imminent.