President Barack Obama spoke on the last day of climate talks at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. The President called on all major economies to put forward decisive national actions that will reduce their emissions and turn the corner on climate change.
Excerpt From NYT’s ClimateWire, By DARREN SAMUELSOHN AND LISA FRIEDMAN
Obama Tries to Rally U.N. Climate Conference, but Deadlock Persists
Behind the scenes, dozens of presidents and prime ministers worked on a three-page document that they hope will become the lone outcome of the two-week negotiations here.
But the blame game is also under way with more than 115 heads of state in Copenhagen — many with years of work and their prestige on the line — struggling to bridge a divide between the world’s rich and poor nations. Several major industrialized countries pointed the finger at China for balking at demands to ensure their emission commitments would be open for public scrutiny.
A hush fell over the entire Bella Center during Obama’s eight-minute speech (pdf). He took on climate skeptics with his opening words and then made an all-out push for a collective agreement.
“While the reality of climate change is not in doubt, I have to be honest, as the world watches us today, I think our ability to take collective action is in doubt right now and it hangs in the balance,” he said. “I believe we can act boldly, and decisively, in the face of a common threat. That is why I have come here today. Not to talk, but to act.”
But with nearly 200 countries handing the negotiations over to their heads of state after two brutal weeks of gridlock, those talks have yet to bear any fruit.
China’s leader ignores compromise meeting
Obama and 19 other world leaders, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, met for about 90 minutes in the Bella Center trying to find a compromise.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao boycotted the meeting and instead sent his vice foreign minister, He Yafei. In remarks to reporters, Sarkozy noted the protocol breach and said an agreement remained out of reach because of Beijing’s resistance to emissions monitoring.
Read the rest of the story at the New York Times: Obama Tries to Rally U.N. Climate Conference, but Deadlock Persists
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Sheesh, its even worse for the status of the US presidency. From the Guardian:
5.30pm:
Obama is due to met Wen for a second time, according to the China Daily.
The White House has confirmed that Obama was attempting to meet Wen in his hotel at around 6.15pm local time to discuss issues of verification, according to Allegra Stratton in Copenhagen.
The civilized world owes that leaker a big time vote of thanks.
Leaked Copenhagen Final Statement.
I would not sign it either.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/12/leaked-copenhagen-final-statement.html#more
Leaked Copenhagen final Statement
I would not sign it either.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/12/leaked-copenhagen-final-statement.html#more
Out of interest, can anyone recommend a source for what is actually going on at COP 15? What is in the pie?
I mean, they didn’t just all turn up for the free lunch and the fine weather. Or did everyone just come along to try their luck and see what they can win?
I’m not trying to be cynical, I’d genuinely like to know.
(What I am cynical about is how the BBC sends their “Science Editor” to report from COP 15, as if COP 15 was a science seminar? I’m tired of this “you have to listen to me because its science” political ploy. I’m so sick of it that it almost makes me wish people would go back to the old old authority, “you have to listen to me because God says so”.)
As an earlier poster noted, no teleprompter = flat speech. There could be a number of reasons for this:
1) With Copenhagen falling apart, the speech may have been prepared on the fly and so he wasn’t so familiar with the speech or hadn’t had an opportunity to practice it. Or,
2) He really needs some type of audio-visual support such as a teleprompter so that he can read directly without “taking his eye off the crowd”. Being flanked by teleprompters helps – it’s why they’re so popular. Or,
3) He was really p.o.’d by the Chinese and felt he had to provide a stern warning rather than the uplifting scripted sermon he wanted to provide. Or,
4) There was no content about how the Won would somehow save the world by bringing everyone together. Or,
5) He was confused that there weren’t at least 28 “I’s” or “me’s” in the speech.
I think it was a little of all of the above.
FWIW, on twitter (#climate) this was posted as the draft document being considered right now in last-minute haggling. I cannot confirm the truth of this at all — caveat emptor.
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/copenhagen2009/climate_friday_draft.pdf
Jack Webb Schools Obama on Democracy
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRYAqekvj4I&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
oops… I should have read Ron de Haan’s link — apologies for the dupe.
Obama is fast becoming a failure on every conceivable level. How appropriate that he would display this, yet again, at a failed conference sponsored by an organization that has come to epitomize fraud and failure.
@ur momisugly H.R. (07:49:36) :
From the Obama speech:
“[…] I have to be honest, […]”
(Gasp! LOL! Snort! LOL! Choke! LOL!)
.
.
Anybody else besides me cleaning coffee off their computer monitor?
It’s not my coffee, H.R.
It’s my breakfast.
And that includes my hypertension medication that I’ve required as of late, because of that man standing at the podium.
WHAT AN EMPTY SPEECH, CLIMTEGATE, THE ONLY CLEAR OF ALL THIS DAYS, CLIAMTE CHANGE BY HUMAN EMISIONS IS A FRAUD, AND WE GONNA EXPOSE IT
BIG HUG FROM ARGENTINA
SORRY ABOUT MY ENGLISH, WISH U UNDERSTAND
Looks like nobody else noticed what I noticed about that speech.
By my count, the claim “AGW is real, and a huge threat” was implicitly included in the third, fouth, fifth, six, seventh, eighth, and ninth sentences. In many of those sentences, it was the ONLY thing being said.
Why, do you suppose, did the US President feel the need to assert the “reality” of the AGW threat SEVEN TIMES IN A ROW – and right at the very beginning?
In my experience, the people who feel they need to reassert something multiple times in a row are the people who are trying to convince other people of something in complete defiance of a reality that is staring those people right in the face. It shows profound insecurity about the message.
Why is Obama so insecure, all of a sudden? I suspect that those SEVEN TIMES are the result of ClimateGate. Apparently, there’s real fear among these guys that ClimateGate will precipitate the unraveling of the whole scam. Even Obama is squirming. Take heart from this speech, my friends!
Am I right? … Or am I right?
Australian Journo Marian Wilkinson insists on pessimism (whilst accepting uncritically anything world leaders say) in the SMH:
And so on and so on.
Very flat. Bobble head without the teleprompter. Read sentence, look up left and say, read sentence, look up right and say. Also glad to hear we have $100 billion to give away.
Cathy,
We all now that when someone says things like ‘to be honest’ and ‘I have to be honest’ they are lying through their teeth.
When I read this: “Behind the scenes, dozens of presidents and prime ministers worked on a three-page document that they hope will become the lone outcome of the two-week negotiations here”. I got confused on how agreements work between countries.
Seems like a commitment or “agreement” which involves funding, such as the $100 Billion fund Ms. Hillary Clinton wants… um…doesn’t funding get approved and allocated by Congress, not the President? So, if this three page document, whatever it says, is supposed to be some proclamation…and even if the leaders sign it, it is basically worthless. My wife works for a local city government. They make proclamations all the time. They put them in nice glass frames and the mayor shakes the hand of the recipient and everyone smiles. They are worth less than the paper they are printed on, but they make everyone feel good.
Group-think. Gotta love it.
So Obama aligns himself with Robert Mugabe and Hugo Chavez and opens the door to the US Treasury for them — was that unexpected? Out of character?
So Billary carried the keys for him — anyone surprised?
The gap between the “leaders” of the world and the rest of humanity is growing larger. If any climate change is occurring, it’s in the political climate, which is emitting a foul stench and it ain’t CO2.
I came to Copenhagen for
cool aid for my countrymen. Financial aid
All we got was Koolaid from Brother Obama
( we are also worried about not so cool aids from the sistas at the hotel)
OMG the page has turned now its OBummer’s Fault
The warmists keep saying how mentioning the political leanings of many of those in Hypenhagen is a bad thing.
But is honesty ever a bad thing?
I am encouraged that Obama took precious speaking time to assure everyone that AGW was real. It means the warmists are getting worried about the loss of support for their position. If AGW was indeed proven and had a true consensus, the certainty of the warmist position would have been assumed and gone unmentioned. Me thinks he doth protest too much sort of thing.
Copenhagen should give new meaning to the phrase:
“Party until the cows come home”.
FredG (07:33:25) :
“I was wondering where the $1 Trillion (100 billion/year x 10) they promised to developing countries was going to come from?”
I think we’re supposed to borrow it from China, then pay them interest on the money while giving some of it back to them. Or something like that. No wonder they are balking. They already own a lot of bad debt.
Robert M. (07:49:36) :
LOL! “Turnabout is fair play” – after all.
Perhaps the politicians can raise the bulk of this money from the likes of Mr Gore and all those rich Hollywood stars and other well to do folk who are always so eager to preach to the rest of us. After all, if climate change is such a desperate issue as they constantly imply, then surely these people would find the route to the moral superiority they crave by simply giving away all of their obscenely acquired wealth.