Reports are coming in fast and furious that a decision has been rendered (the choice of verb was purposeful): Dick Cheney is putting an end to climate control policies. Not just in the US, but as far as the UN can reach. And who's really to blame (don't laugh, even if you do remember the South Park movie): Canada. And more precisely, Paul Martin.
The Star reported yesterday that, angered by being called out on the international stage, Dick Cheney had directed the US delegation at the UN Climate Conference in Montreal that no further cooperation of any kind was to take place. The Star rather naively suggests that this dashed hopes that the US could be drawn into future rounds by, oh well, just about the entire world. Fact is, all Cheney has most likely done is found a focus for his spin. Does anyone really believe the US intended to play ball, especially if they didn't supply the umpires, have a team of ringers, a hundred corked bats and a mean spitball thrower? Call me cynical, but I'm not alone.
Extended info and snark on the flip...
MONTREAL (CP) -- With one day of talks to go at the UN climate conference, desperate efforts to draw the United States into the global effort to curb greenhouse emissions appear to have hit a brick wall, and Prime Minister Paul Martin is being blamed.
An official with close contacts in the U.S. delegation said any hopes of drawing Washington into the process were killed when Martin pointed a finger of blame at the United States in a news briefing at the conference.
"That was a big mistake," said the delegate, speaking on condition of anonymity Thursday. He said the U.S. delegation, which is directed from Washington by Vice-President Dick Cheney, was deeply angered by Martin's comments.
Really. Paul Martin, new leader of the free world. When he speaks, the US government springs into action. Although, one suspects there may be (yet another) payment under the table to Halliburton, as this is the kind of press which will probably burnish Martin's image going to the polls, rather than tarnish it. And it puts his Conservative Party opponents in an awkward position: they have to decide whom to be critical of, and when they criticize Martin, they daren't come across as agreeing with Cheney.
But there's no question Cheney's blood pressure has still higher to go:
The White House is likely to be further angered by news that former U.S. president Bill Clinton will address the conference on Friday at the invitation of the City of Montreal.
Clinton was a major supporter of the Kyoto Protocol while president, although his successor George W. Bush pulled out of the accord soon after taking power.
The visit was arranged on the initiative of Elizabeth May, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, who has known Clinton since working on one of his campaigns in the 1970s.
Although Clinton's speech is officially designated as a "side event" to the conference, it is expected to take place in the main conference hall, allowing thousands of delegates from around the world to attend.
Now Clinton is still popular here. In fact, his popularity went up over the Lewinsky issue, since in Canada, gettin' some is not considered a big deal. And certainly not newsworthy--wonder why it is in the US...? <snark> Well, adultery is still frowned on somewhat, and publicly humiliating your family and friends is generally not good. But we tend to blame the GOP for that, not Clinton.
The Guardian jumps in on this with the following observation:
Then as temperatures were plunging outside, phones began ringing with news that the US delegation had destabilised the talks in dramatic fashion. The Canadian hosts were reported to have confirmed that the US had rejected a deal to start talks outside the Kyoto track between developed and developing countries to discuss future action on climate change, even though the already anodyne text sanctioning these talks had just been weakened further, now stating that whatever emerged would be entirely non-binding.
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Rumours have been circulating that any change in the US approach is the result of a direct intervention in the talks by the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, and that this was precisely the result he sought.
But with a day and possibly long night of negotiations still to go, much could yet change. In fact it could be that this apparent US tactic backfires, provoking other countries to move ahead without the US and agree a unified and probably more effective set of talks under the Kyoto protocol involving both industrialised and developing countries.
I suspect they're right. The US likes to "play along" at being an international citizen, but the PNACs have ensured that most people of "heft" and "gravitas" (and I don't mean intellectual weight) in the administration see the world as interlopers in Planet USA. How could they possibly agree to anything they didn't propose, draw up and dictate down to everyone else?
And don't think that's just snark. We love our many American friends and colleagues. We love American history. We love the Constitution and what it used to stand for. But we have no use for your government, and are starting to wonder whether blogging is the only kind of revolution likely to take place. 'Cause frankly, it's not enough.
Want to know how many people here see things? Look at Linwood Barclay's piece a few days ago in the Star, biggest circulation paper in the country (and admittedly more left of centre than the Globe and Mail):
How could it be that President George W. Bush, whose country has been plagued by murderously hot summers, melting glaciers up in Alaska, and catastrophic hurricanes in the gulf states, is not the slightest bit interested in tackling the problem of climate change?
This past week, in Montreal, there were delegates from all over the world, meeting and discussing ways to stop global warming, or at the very least, slowing the pace at which it is getting worse. And which country wasn't interested in putting in its two cents' worth of unleaded to find solutions? The United States.
For some time now, I've been puzzling over this one, this lack of interest on Bush's part, and for awhile there I had it narrowed down to four things:
a) He's not all that bright.
b) Whenever climate change comes up during the President's Daily Brief, it's at the same time Dick Cheney does his Colin Powell impression ("Oh, gee, we better be careful!"), at which point everyone clutches their sides and falls over laughing.
c) When people talk to him about this problem, all Bush hears is: "They hate freedom, they hate freedom, they hate freedom."
d) All of the above.
And then I thought maybe Halliburton's got all these massive climate change machines coming down the pipe, at $100 billion a crack, and when we really need them, Cheney can broker a deal.
But that's just being cynical, and I'd hate to give the impression that I'm cynical where the Bush administration is concerned.
Now the politics of the paper aside, it says something that outright cynicism, disgust and ridicule are the order of the day in describing Bush, Cheney and the cronies.
How long will we have to wait before America hops back on the enlightened civilization bandwagon? And, as an aside, why is Joe Lieberman still in the Democratic party? I'd want to distance myself a little from the jokers in D.C.
And while all this is going on, lil bird has a recommended diary on some of what's really at stake.