Europeans angry after Bush climate speech 'charade'

[EV_Ares]

· US isolated as China and India refuse to back policy
· President claims he can lead world on emissions

Ewen MacAskill in Washington The Guardian Saturday September 29 2007
George Bush was castigated by European diplomats and found himself isolated yesterday after a special conference on climate change ended without any progress. European ministers, diplomats and officials attending the Washington conference were scathing, particularly in private, over Mr Bush's failure once again to commit to binding action on climate change.

Although the US and Britain have been at odds over the environment since the early days of the Bush administration, the gap has never been as wide as yesterday.

Britain and almost all other European countries, including Germany and France, want mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse emissions. Mr Bush, while talking yesterday about a "new approach" and "a historic undertaking", remains totally opposed.

The conference, attended by more than 20 countries, including China, India, Britain, France and Germany, broke up with the US isolated, according to non-Americans attending. One of those present said even China and India, two of the biggest polluters, accepted that the voluntary approach proposed by the US was untenable and favoured binding measures, even though they disagreed with the Europeans over how this would be achieved.

A senior European diplomat attending the conference, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the meeting confirmed European suspicions that it had been intended by Mr Bush as a spoiler for a major UN conference on climate change in Bali in December.

"It was a total charade and has been exposed as a charade," the diplomat said. "I have never heard a more humiliating speech by a major leader. He was trying to present himself as a leader while showing no sign of leadership. It was a total failure."

(rest of article @ link): http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/sep/29/usnews.climatechange

[luckyleftyme2]

1. SO WHAT

SO WHAT TO HELL IS NEW;HE PROVES EVERYDAY HE DOESN'T HAVE A CLUE!

[malaise]

2. That was Bush's version of

Comedy Central. What a fugging fraud.

[spanone]

3. the world still hasn't discovered he's full of shit.....wake up

[ThomWV]

4. Oh, they have 'discovered' it alright, its just that now they are saying so.

And that is the big news here - that on this point as well as others the world is now casting diplomacy aside and calling him exactly what he is - a failure on the stage of world leaders.