From Politico:
Negotiators from about 190 countries reached a modest set of agreements early Saturday in Cancun on how to tackle global warming but punted some of the most controversial questions for a later date.
A year after U.N.-led talks all but collapsed in Copenhagen, delegates from countries large and small signed off on a package of low-hanging fruit that includes establishing a program to keep tropical rainforests standing, sharing low-carbon energy technologies and preparing a $100 billion fund to help the world’s most vulnerable cope with a changing climate.
“What we have now is a text that, while not perfect, is certainly a good basis for moving forward,” Todd Stern, the top U.S. climate official, said during the all-night bargaining session that culminated in approval of what’s known as the Cancun Agreement.Stern’s reluctant endorsement was echoed over and over into the early morning hours as diplomats scarred by the chaos in Copenhagen accepted a deal that fails to ratchet down greenhouse gas emissions anywhere close to scientific recommendations.
It also fails to establish a firm date for negotiators to reach a conclusion on a new climate treaty.
Diplomats struggled over the last two weeks at the Mexican resort town on some of those key questions and had essentially reached a standoff, forcing them to pick around the edges at ideas like technology, trees and adaptation, all of which could garner sufficient consensus.
The Cancun Agreement, for example, puts off until next year’s meeting in Durban, South Africa, or 2012, the debate over whether to extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Russia, Canada and Japan insisted throughout the Cancun negotiations that they wouldn’t agree to a new set of commitments under Kyoto until the world’s three biggest polluters – China, India and the United States – accepted a role in the mandatory system too.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46269.html#ixzz17psQflAU
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Looks rather chilly for a tropical Cancun beach. 😉
We are NOT polluters, not on carbon dioxide anyway–that is good for living things.
‘….and preparing a $100 billion fund to help the world’s most vulnerable cope with a changing climate.’
Is this some sort of wealth redistribution from the western nations to 2rd, 3rd and 4th world countries?
Is it in the form of a Treaty, which would have to be ratified by the US Senate?
Lord Monckkton reported:
Monckton’s words in full as reported at SPPI (see below).
‘…The UN wants nothing less than 1.5% of our GDP.
That’s $212 billion from the USA every year ($2700 per family of 4).
That’s $32 billion from the UK every year ($2000 per family of 4).
That’s $13 billion from Australia every year ($2400 per family of 4).
Figures calculated from the CIA world Factbook
The Secretariat will have the power not merely to invite nation states to perform their obligations under the climate-change Convention, but to compel them to do so. Nation states are to be ordered to collect, compile and submit vast quantities of information, in a manner and form to be specified by the secretariat and its growing army of subsidiary bodies….’
THAT would be serious – more than ‘low hanging fruit’ – if this $100 Billion is just the usual ‘camel’s nose under the tent’ approach of the world government types.
What a messed up young lady at the end there. Social Justice is all she really wants even though she really doesnt know what that means.
Hint:Russia, Japan and Canada want out of Kyoto. Russia is “Carbon credits ‘R’ us”as is Japan and Canada. If they can’t sell the thin air and it can’t be converted to money,it ain’t going to happen. I suspect there will be even less enthusiasm next year
Maybe the hold it in Durban in July-hehehe…
The Ostriches sticking their heads in the sand is a fitting metaphor because much like catastrophic AGW, it is a myth. What they do do is lay on the ground and blend in with environment and it seems to be pretty successful. Pretty close to the “Do Nothing” option. A much better action than anything the alarmists are proposing.
The reality is that we don’t need a ‘climate treaty’ to control emissions even if we believe in Global Warming.
Steam Coal on Global markets is now at the $120/tonne range which yields a fuel cost of $50-$60/MW for coal. Coal is no longer cost competitive with Nuclear or Hydro.
The wording in the Cancun document about ‘technology transfer’ is just diplo-speak for Gen IV nuclear technology without having to contribute any funds to the GenIV nuclear research currently being funded by the US,Canada,South Korea,Japan and the EU.
Because I don’t believe I could say it any differently, I’ll repeat what I opined over at the Air Vent…
Having been spellbound by prayer to the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui, filled to the gills with exotic foods, exhausted by the extravagant parties, and intoxicated with strong drink, how could they resist signing what their gracious UN party planners placed before them? With all the back patting and high five’ing over (not to mention barfing up last night’s hors d’oeuvres and mezcal), they must now go home and sell their deed to their respective governments and people. At this juncture, the party is over literally and figuratively. With the U.S. 112′th congress promising to cut the government budget, place on hold the sending of climate related funding to foreign governments, disbanding of congressional climate change committees, and the EPA starting to receive the jaundiced eye, this pig ain’t going to fly, no way, no how. They knew it when they signed. It’s another empty face saving press endearing farce these Corinthians have become so well known for.
E.C. Cowan:
“THAT would be serious – more than ‘low hanging fruit’ – if this $100 Billion is just the usual ‘camel’s nose under the tent’ approach of the world government types.”
And that would just be the beachhead. Like Oliver, they would be back asking for more annually and hence committing 3rd world countries to perpetual begging.
These people must not watch the news, climategate blew their hoax out of the water.
They must REALLY like that kool-aid….
Hi I’m from the Sierra youth group and I’m wearing a cool shirt and I’m a complete moron and I talk like a California girl and I think like a California girl.
“Some countries are going to lose their shoreline and their lives”.
There is too much money in the world when these people are paid to talk like that in Cancun. I prefer to pay for my own holidays.
Douglas DC says:
December 11, 2010 at 12:35 pm
“Maybe the hold it in Durban in July…”
I wonder…..what are the chances for a big Gore Effect in Durban, in July?
“Like Oliver, they would be back asking for more annually and hence committing 3rd world countries to perpetual begging.”
Which is presumably the plan. There are few things the Left love more than addicting people to life-long welfare.
“I Fear for My Country!”
These top scientists, with all their computer models and scientific concensus, can’t even pick a meeting place that is experiencing record highs rather than record lows during their conference. And we’re supposed to believe that they can predict what is going to happen in the distant future?
If these people are wrong about global warming, they would have us destroy the world’s greatests economies by drastically limiting energy use to reduce carbon for no good reason. And even if they are right, I would rather have the effects of global warming starve me to death in the future than allow these enviromentalists to kill me now. That’s exactly what will happen to many of us if we allow them to send us back to the stone age in a vain attempt at reducing CO2 to forestall global warming.
Population control is what they’re really after. It’s what the environmentalists have always been after. They’re not willing to wait for global warming to reduce the population because they don’t really believe their own propaganda. Only the useful idiots in hollywood and the media actually believe them. Global warming, climate disruption, global cooling, ddt, china syndrome, endangered species, acid rain, global famine, ad infinitum… are all just means to an end — to limit the population.
Bog standard thinking = BS outcome.
We know its 888p, they know its c777p, we know, ‘they know’.
Reality?………………………..or NO!!!!!!!!
Let’s all, have another jolly!
…I keep seeing references to a “Mexican standoff,” including a quote from former Pres. Bill Clinton. Uh, isn’t that a slightly insulting term to the Mexicans?
Recall Jimmy Carter’s wisecrack about having “Montezuma’s Revenge” during a state visit to Mexico! That raised a fuss!
This decision to punt is not a surprising outcome by any means, climate action will now become a tool of diplomacy & end up in regional trading agreements.
Interesting letter sent to Sec. Clinton by Jim Inhofe etc.:
http://barrasso.senate.gov/public/_files/12_2_10_barrasso_climate_bailout_letter.pdf
Can you spot the typo?
Something the kid from Pennsylvania said struck me: “The young people in schools have caught it from the teachers.” The leftist propaganda in the schools has taken hold.
Here’s the quote from former (errrr, assistant??) Pres. Clinton:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20025374-503544.html
“The numbers will only get worse in January in terms of negotiating,” he said. “And the president — look, if we had 5 percent growth and unemployment was dropping like a rock, maybe you could have the so-called Mexican stand-off and you could say, it will be you not me the voters will hold responsible for raising taxes on middle class people if they all go down next year.”
Another myth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrich
When threatened, Ostriches run away, but they can cause serious injury and death with kicks from their powerful legs.[11] Their legs can only kick forward.[27] Contrary to popular belief, Ostriches do not bury their heads in sand.[28] This myth likely began with Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79), who wrote that Ostriches “imagine, when they have thrust their head and neck into a bush, that the whole of their body is concealed.”[29]
Obviously the results of too much fiesta & tequila & playa . . . combined with the very cold resulted in only low hanging fruit . . . probably from the bottom of the punch bowl.
I liked the next video in the playlist even better, where Rajendra K Pachauri describes the IPCC as a “grass roots effort” (his words, literally), costing not a single penny because scientists devote their time for free.
I guess that’s the kind of statement that goes down well with the McKibben crowd. Not one owner of a brain amongst them.
Heads set in some fantastic cloud formations in the background of that vid 🙂
The thing I find most infuriating is the giveaways to poor countries. We can’t afford this stuff anymore!
There may indeed be lots of future low hanging fruit…REDD+ seems to be an eminently rortable program. I can’t wait for the first scandals (eg. What exactly did you say happened to that forest we were paying for? Eaten by polar bears you say?) to hit the media.
The Green Climate Fund may be likewise cheerfully rortable. I imagine many small countries will be finding sea level rising very very fast around them. Extremely lucratively fast, in fact.