It’s unclear which draft number Lumumba Di-Aping was referring to, but we are now apparently up to at least draft number five. The text, by all reports, started out weak and has been weakened further. The level of ambition for Copenhagen was low at the beginning of the 12 day conference and has steadily fallen, dropping precipitously over the last 24 hours.
Obama is now speaking to the press before his departure, having announced that a final agreement will be reached. The lack of ambition and open-ended implementation schedule reflected in the agreement are embarrassing.
End result? An unambitious agreement, with no implementation schedule, that is not legally binding. In the alternative NGO space here at Klimaforum, Obama’s press conference has just finished. The room just erupted in boos.
Want a quick explanation of why there is no meaningful deal? How about this, picked up from Fox News:
“I am very skeptical anything here in Copenhagen is good for the average U.S. citizen,” said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Tex. “The process is falling apart.”
Barton said he was especially appalled by the requests for aid from Third World dictators like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who said the U.S. owes the world for having raped the planet.
“I owe Hugo Chavez nothing. Nothing-zip-nada,” said Barton. “The U.S. in the last 50 years has given trillions of dollars to the Third World. But to say they are going to be ravaged by climate change and deserve ‘Greenmail’ strains credibility.”
As long as the United States Congress is dominated by idiots like Barton and Obama caters to them, there will be no meaningful deal.
Repayment for climate debt is not aid. It’s actually the other way around: developing countries have been subsidizing the U.S. taste for overconsumption for decades.
The United States has no legitimate right to occupy roughly one third of the available space for greenhouse gases, and the developing world will never sign any agreement that suggests it does. The alternative is for the rich industrialized countries to repay the developing world for the greenhouse space that they have seized. I expect Joe Barton will never accept that.
If the rest of us would like our children and grandchildren to inherit a world reasonably like our own, we will have to send folks like Joe Barton home and keep them there.
…update… Copenhagen, 1:05am… Additional details are beginning to emerge and it now appears that the “deal” is not really a deal at all. The agreement that has been reached is an agreement between the United States, China, India, South Africa and Brazil. There are 193 countries which must agree. No E.U. countries, no poor African nations, no island states.
What this constitutes is agreement between the economically strong to sell out the weak. It is a death sentence for millions and a completely fraudulent agreement.
There is a significant possibility that there will be no deal at all.
Complaints have already been lodged about the undemocratic fashion in which the deal was reached. If Africa or the small island states lead again, as they have throughout this conference, the deal will be rejected, as it should be.