Monday - September 24, 2007

Global Warming and China and the U.N. and Idiocy

Britain's Environment Secretary, at the U.N. pointed asked the U.S. to accept "binding reduction targets" to combat global warming. Yet in the same breath, he refused to ask China to accept binding emissions targets.

So he wants the U.S. to ruin its economy, but he refuses to ask the world's soon to be largest polluter, China, to do the same? (See this story). 

That is simply insane! There was a reason the Clinton administration rejected Kyoto and it was because countries like India and China were given a free pass.

Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, told the meeting at United Nations headquarters that “the greatest challenge we have ever faced as human beings” required action from every developed nation.

“That means all of us, including the largest economy in the world, the United States, taking on binding reduction targets,” he said. “It is inconceivable that dangerous climate change can be avoided without this happening.”

Mr Benn’s decision to single out the US during a visit to New York will be regarded in Washington as particularly provocative.

President Bush skipped most of the UN meeting yesterday and was planning to attend only a working dinner last night. He has called his own two-day meeting of 15 major economies in Washington later in the week.

Although he has abandoned his previous scepticism about man-made climate change and promises to negotiate a “long-term global goal” for cutting emissions, Mr Bush still envisages countries entering framework agreements voluntarily.

“It’s our philosophy that each nation has the sovereign capacity to decide for itself what its own portfolio of policies should be,” said James Connaughton, the President’s chief environmental adviser. The White House remains hostile to international measures such as a cap-and-trade system on emissions, which might increase electricity bills for ordinary Americans, with Mr Connaughton questioning whether a “woman on fixed income in Ohio should pay for carbon dioxide reductions in the oil sector”.

European diplomatic sources are complaining privately that Mr Bush’s agenda is too limited and threatens to undermine their attempt for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which was never ratified by the US. Some say that they are already looking “beyond Bush” towards the 2008 presidential elections.

Elizabeth Bast, spokeswoman for Friends of the Earth, said: “The US must join the rest of the world in tackling climate change within the United Nations framework, instead of promoting purely voluntary measures that will not achieve necessary emissions reductions.” 

Author: Satanic Source
Technorati Tags: global warming
Technorati Cosmos:
Technorati Watchlist:
Add this entry to: