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Apparently Bush has noticed the heat. Myself, I think the heat George is feeling is due to his pants being on fire.
We have only sketchy details, but apparently he has signed up China, India, Australia, and South Korea, to DEVELOP new technology to reduce EMISSIONS, rather than reducing PRODUCTION. In other words, all the disassembly aside, this is co-opting....we will burn all the fossil fuels we can get our hands on. This "technology" is yet to be developed, possibly pie-in-the-sky stuff that Bush can't pronounce, let alone understand...
CANBERRA (Reuters) - The United States, the world's top polluter, is set to unveil a five-nation pact to combat global warming by developing energy technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions, officials said on Wednesday.
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China and India, whose burgeoning economies comprise a third of humanity, as well as Australia and South Korea are part of the agreement to tackle climate change beyond the U.N.'s Kyoto protocol.
The United States and Australia are the only developed nations outside Kyoto, which demands cuts in greenhouse emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Both say Kyoto is flawed because it omits developing states.
Details of the pact were unclear but it appears to echo recent comments by U.S. President George W. Bush who advocates the use of technology to curb growth in greenhouse gas emissions rather than setting Kyoto-style caps on emissions.
The bad news: even in Australia, there are signs that this is gonna be a stinker:
The opposition Labour Party called on the government to immediately ratify the Kyoto pact. Its leader, Kim Beazley, dismissed the new agreement, saying: “It is nothing. It’s spin.”
Greenpeace, which blockaded an Australian coal port yesterday to protest Australia’s reliance on fossil fuels, agreed the Kyoto Protocol was the best option.
“Environment minister Ian Campbell concedes a comprehensive agreement involving all major emitters is needed,” Greenpeace energy campaigner Catherine Fitzpatrick said in a statement.
“Skulking around making secretive, selective deals will not accomplish this. Signing up to the Kyoto Protocol will,” she added.
Another source suggests that some emerging Aussie technology may be central to the plan, and that reducing emissions may not be a very big part of it.
Australia will later this year host the first meeting of government representatives from these countries to negotiate the details of the agreement, which is seen by the Howard Government as an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol.
However, opposition parties and green groups said the deal was nothing more than a cover for the Government's reluctance to cut greenhouse gas pollution and ignores existing renewable energy markets.
Critics also pointed out that Australia and the US - which have refused to ratify the internationally supported Kyoto Protocol to cut emissions - were doing far less than major developing countries to address their own greenhouse pollution.
The agreement's aim was for the development of commercially viable technologies by 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol comes into effect, Government sources said.
Technological solutions include the filtering of emissions and the burial of carbon dioxide produced by coal-fired power stations. Export and technology sharing partnerships would also be set up. Although Australia is a leader in many of these technologies, at this stage none is commercially viable.
This source is even more frank about the motives:
Greens senator Bob Brown said the deal was just a way of protecting the coal industry at the expense of renewable energy sources.
"The secret pact's five member countries include four of the world's biggest coal producers - China, the US, India and Australia," he said. "This is all about taxpayers' money being diverted from developing clean, renewable technologies to try to make burning coal less dirty."
There is still gonna be a lot of heat in the kitchen, Prez, and this aint gonna help ya with Fitz.