All That Glitters Is Not Goal

U.S. blocking agreement on emissions goal at Bali conference

Posted at 6:42 AM on 12 Dec 2007

Defying all predictions, the United States delegation at the United Nations climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, appears to have successfully blocked agreement on specific emissions-reduction targets so far. Europe and many developing nations have called for cuts of 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020 to avoid the effects of catastrophic warming, but in the face of U.S. opposition to anything meaningful, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today that setting specific targets now "may be too ambitious." The lead U.S. negotiator implied that targets, if they were allowed, might lead to -- gasp! -- actual cuts. "The reality in this business is that once numbers appear in the text, it prejudges the outcome and will tend to drive the negotiations in one direction." And we can't have that. However, U.S. state and local leaders began arriving at the Bali conference this weekend to give the world another glimpse of U.S. attitudes toward emissions cuts. Al "Nobel Laureate" Gore is also expected to make an appearance.

sources: Associated Press, Associated Press

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Comments: (5 comments)

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Are any of us surprised???

This just drives home the absolute necessity of working to deliver the mother of all ass whippings to the Republicans in 2008. If they get back in in 2008, then the eco-fatalists will be right. We are done for.

Randy Cunningham

Randy Cunningham

by randino at 7:34 AM on 12 Dec 2007

What a shame

Proud to be an American? I'm embarrassed to be an American.

NoPunProductions.com ~ AmericaTheGreen.org

by Greta at 8:29 AM on 12 Dec 2007

Bali

In 2002 I - and so many other Cassandras - warned that an invasion of Iraq, if not widely approved intenationally, would prove a worldwide disaster for the US and the West. At the same time I opined that GW Bush's denial of climate change could prove even more disastrous for humanity than the worldwide calamity likely to follow such unauthorised invasion of Iraq.

I beg Americans to remember their immense privilege of having a vote - whereas the rest of us, whose future depends on the US presidency, have none.

Please use this precious right and vote! If just a handful more of you lucky voters had bothered to do so, Al Gore would be president today.

If I may express an opinion - many of us disfranchised in Europe see the dream ticket as GORE + OBAMA

You drafted Eisenhower - can't you draft Gore? He may still be sulking in his tent but - unlike 2004 - he hasn't said "no"! He said in Oslo that his political obituary had been premature.

JP Global (ends all e-mails)

by dipconsult at 12:12 PM on 12 Dec 2007

Predictable, woefully inadequate, jaded..........

............unconscionable leadership whose failure to respond ably to the requirements of practical reality could have profound implications for the future of our children, biodiversity and the environment, Earth as a fit place for human habitation, and life as we know it.

All this done by a single generation of elders....... and for what: for the sake of more money, money, money, money and more power and many privileges to conspicuously consume Earth's limited resources now, come what may.

Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/

by stevenearlsalmony at 12:13 PM on 12 Dec 2007

"Money, money, money, money"

And the answer to that is, use your own money!

As soon as the candidate list for 2008 becomes solidfied, start giving money to the green ones. Give within your own state, or wherever you think it will do good. E.g., Inhofe's up for re-election; I don't know who's running against him, but whoever they are, they're getting money from me.

If you want to start now, give to the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund ( www.lcv.org ); they figure out who the most anti-environmental people in Congress are, and attack them. If you're interested in weakening the Republicans as much as possible, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ( www.dscc.org ) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ( www.dccc.org ) are always taking donations. Or, if you're just interested in helping move people to action... I know this cool little environmental rag called Grist!

Dipconsultant, if you want to influence American politics, this is your answer. I'm not sure about the legalities of a candidate accepting money from outside the U.S., but there are all kinds of non-candidate organizations that will be working to elect a pro-environment U.S. government, who will be happy to use your money. Seriously, as an American who neglected to vote in 2000 and has spent the last seven years repenting, I'm asking you to help us out here!

by Pathos at 6:43 PM on 12 Dec 2007

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