U.S. Environmental Stance Draws Heat

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051130/ap_on_re_ca/canada_climate_change

U.S. comments that it would resist any binding commitment to curb global warming by capping industrial emissions infuriated environmentalists, who accused Washington of trying to derail the U.N. Climate Change Conference.

"When you walk around the conference hall here, delegates are saying there are lots of issues on the agenda, but there's only one real problem, and that's the United States," said Bill Hare of Greenpeace International.

More than 8,000 environmentalists, scientists and government officials were attending the 10-day conference in Montreal. Some 120 environment ministers and other government leaders were expected to arrive next week for the final negotiations.

The conference is the first meeting of the 140 countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol since the agreement was adopted in 1997. It is aimed at setting agreements on emissions cuts planned after




Harlan Watson, senior climate negotiator for the U.S. State Department, speaks to reporters at a press conference during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal, Nov. 29, 2005. (AP PHOTO/CP/Ryan Remiorz)

own rep at the first meeting. The Pugs in Congress stopped Clinton in his tracks and now Bubblehead is trying to wreck the whole conference. Since we are not signers, we should have no imput.

look what has happened to this country. :(

by accepting the same standards that the EU has accepted for carbon emissions...

China doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of complying, nor do they intend to comply.

but China has 5k years of cyclical history. Further, they have a widespread appreciation of how China is threatened, historically.

They have seen their air quality degrade right before their eyes (a friend of mine just got back from a 3 month tour and all his pictures showed awful air quality) and they have experienced natural disaster in human memory that outstrips the scale of anything America has experienced.

They may currently have a stupid, monologic government, but the Chinese as a whole are smarter than that, I suspect. They understand that they are massively energy inefficient and need to be concerned about their environment.

Overall, I think they, far more than the former Soviet Union, understand what happens when you destroy your resources.