Obama calls for climate deal, meets with Chinese premier

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/18/AR2009121800637.html

Obama calls for climate deal, meets with Chinese premier

By Juliet Eilperin, Anthony Faiola and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 18, 2009; 10:16 AM

COPENHAGEN -- President Obama told leaders of 193 nations here Friday that their collective will to address global warming "hangs in the balance" and urged both developed and developing countries to forge a climate change agreement he acknowledged would require compromise from all sides.

After addressing the morning plenary session on the last day of the 12-day summit, Obama met for nearly an hour with Premier Wen Jiabao of China, the nation that other leaders have said poses the greatest challenge in forging a global pact. China has strongly resisted proposals for independent monitoring of each county's claimed emissions cuts, but the United States has said such scrutiny is integral to a meaningful deal.

A White House official called the discussion between Obama and Wen "constructive" and said that the two men touched on the monitoring issue, as well as how to elicit commitments from all key countries to cut emissions and how to establish financing from richer nations to help poorer ones cope with global warming.

"They took a step forward and made progress," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters. The official said Obama and Wen then instructed their negotiating teams to continue talking after the session, "to see if an agreement can be reached."

…

[endless october]

1. China builds a new coal plant every week.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/15/china-coal-industry-mongolia-shaanxi

if you think they are going to tear those down, you are mistaken.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. And we’ve already built ours

Are we tearing those down?

[endless october]

3. if we choose to replace them with nuclear or another viable alternative, yes.

if not, no.

making our electricity more expensive through artificial means while China cheats, however, is a losing proposition for the US citizen and worker.

i'm for building new infrastructure, and a lot of it. i'm completely against a global cap and trade scheme that will send our remaining manufacturing jobs out faster than NAFTA.

we need to come up with a real solution. that solution is ending interventionism and using the money for a public works program to build non-CO2 producing infrastructure on the scale of the interstate highway program.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. I didn’t ask if we would do it in the future…

You’re complaining about what China is doing now.

OK, so what are we doing now?

[endless october]

5. we're making token gestures.

that doesn't make cap and trade anything more than another costly token gesture.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. OK, so if China makes token gestures we’re even

Us complaining about China without showing any real commitment ourselves is hypocrisy (pure and simple.)

[joshcryer]

8. No, I don't feel that China "must" reduce if we reduce, we just need to reduce at the ports.

And at the power stations. China will have to do so, likewise, since we are their biggest importer. It's actually our fault we don't act, we're far more complicit, since they are a developing nation and we are feeding their addiction on coal and oil.

[joshcryer]

7. Our emissions are on the decline. Not nearly enough, mind you.