Copenhagen conference on the brink of collapse

[defendandprotect]

Copenhagen conference on the brink of collapse as world leaders arrive at talksOfficials from the three main blocs say they have given up on reaching an agreement

Talks to save the planet from catastrophic climate change were on the brink of collapse this morning as officials from the three main blocs – rich countries, major developing economies, and small island states – said they had given up on getting a substantive deal.


Even as 115 world leaders began arriving to put their personal imprint on a deal, the summit hosts were admitting they had failed to broker an agreement.


The chaotic end game to the negotiations could mean that world leaders only have time to hastily paper over a face-saving agreement.


In a story headlined Denmark gives up, the influential Berlingske newspaper quoted a senior source in the host delegation, saying the failure was a monumental disappointment to the Danes.


"During the whole process, the problem is that this is a huge puzzle where all the pieces had to fall in place at the same time. But to do that, the countries had to make a serious effort and they have been unwilling to do so," the source was quoted as saying.


However, Denmark could try to revive the process by formally introducing a version of a negotiating draft from last week and imposing it on the summit. However, the draft – the Danish text leaked to the Guardian last week – has infuriated developing countries, and its re-entry could trigger chaos.


Other countries were also working to resuscitate the talks. A UK official said: "We are not giving up. The irony is that on substance we have had considerable movement in the last few days. For the talks to be in this state simply over matters of procedure rather than substance is immensely disappointing."



http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/17/copenhagen-talks-brink-collapse

[Buzz Clik]

1. Can't wait for the DU Chicken Littles to find a way to blame Obama for this.

:popcorn:

[defendandprotect]

3. Let me be the first . . . Obama should tell public we can no longer burn fossil fuels . . .

Though we've known that for at least three decades or more -- !!!

So -- now anyone on DU who dissents with Obama policy is "Chicken Little" . . . ???

Is that the Chicken Little of "the sky is falling"???

Do you think Global Warming is a "hoax" . . . ???

[kestrel91316]

2. Whether or not there is a Copenhagen agreement, every individual

needs to take personal responsibility for their own environmental impact and work to decrease it. The powers that be can't stop us.

I still haven't replaced my car.

[defendandprotect]

4. Excellent point . . . and we need more discussions about stuff like that --IMO ...

[galileoreloaded]

5. Just because we have climbed higher up Maslow's pyramid than other nation-states

doesn't mean what is important to us is what is important to all.

American exceptionalism works both ways you know.

There are places in the third-world and in this country where the economics (the holistic definition) don't support ideas that bear little immediate impact or the bare efficiency that relative poverty require. In innumerable places and pockets around the globe charcoal for heat and cooking is the main GDP contributor for entire regions and countries. So people break into conservation areas to cut down wood.

The choice, as these folks see it, is daily survival, or, daily survival. Just because our basic needs have been met nationally via abundant natural resources and the corresponding global hegemony that their extraction eventually brought, doesn't mean the rest of the world does.

I completely buy into Climate Change, I just don't think current policies define or will ever succeed in affecting even one iota of change globally. Whats worse is my fear that despots and regimes will use climate issues to enact population controls and resource allocation guidelines under the guise of mitigation.

The REAL money, as always, is providing the blue jeans to the miners.