Wednesday, December 16, 2009

China Says No Copenhagen Climate Accord

The news service Reuters is reporting that China has told UN climate change delegates that there'll be no deal coming out of the Copenhagen summit. Instead the Chinese have recommended the attending nations issue, "a short political declaration of some sort."

The collapse of COP15 has seemed inevitable since the developing nations and G77 countries turned angry and suspicious of the motives and agenda of the industrialized West. Failure at Copenhagen could leave in its wake a legacy of distrust that would make it much more difficult to get an effective, global agreement in the future.

Opponents of climate change action - the Denialists, the fossil fuel industry and their bought and paid for political helpers - won't pass up the opportunities to build on their perceived success in a Copenhagen failure.

2 comments:

Jingles said...

A deliberate attempt on the part of rich nations including Canada for the Climate Accord to fail...don't you think?

The Mound of Sound said...

There's so much blame to spread around it's really hard to finger a culprit. Harper has played this very smoothly, banking on the summit cratering before he had to open his mouth.

His game is to stall just as long as humanly possible then game whatever emissions reductions he's forced to accept in a way that allows the Tar Sands to dodge the bullet.

We've seen him use this move before, over and over. Why should we be taken by surprise when he does the same thing to derail any meaningful action on climate change?

Stephen Harper doesn't have a lot of tricks but he uses them brilliantly. Between that, rank manipulation, outright lies and a lame opposition he's managed to stay in power an awfully long time and quietly advance his agenda incrementally.