The Economist tried its hardest to put a positive gloss on the Durban Climate Accord, but could do little more than claim success for such dubious achievements as 'the rich and the poor countries agreeing to negotiate a new climate change regime by 2015' and 'breaking the divisive and anachronistic distinction between developed countries and developing ones'.
The negotiators failed to impose a legally binding agreement on participants...a key objective...and so the Economist was left declaring the communique's weasel words: 'a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force' as almost the same thing. But without provisions to enforce penalties, as Canada demonstrated by doing what the UK should have done years ago and pulling out of the Kyoto Process, this is just empty rhetoric.
Nonetheless the Old Guard is starting to shift its position. After paying lip service to several decades of misdirected global diplomacy, the Economist puts it's fingers on one of the problems of climate change diplomacy. [1] Here are the final three paragraphs of the article beneath the sub-heading: 'The rich are different'.
"America has reason to be glad of the outcome [of the Durban Summit]. It has long bewailed the asymmetry between rich and poor that is written into the Kyoto Protocol." [2] The article continues: "Although this was the ostensible reason for the US not ratifying Kyoto, it was apparent in Durban that the American negotiators had little enthusiasm for almost any part of the international process."
And this is the point where the Economist prepares the ground for a policy shift. The article continues: "[America's] objections to some parts of the deal - though roundly denounced - were in fact perfectly reasonable. [3] They are worried, for example, that the proposed global fund will be run by the UN, a recipe in many people's eyes, for inefficiency and sloth." [4]
And then, onward and upward, to the Economist's new policy proposal. "The Americans would like [the Kyoto Protocol] to be controlled by an independent body, in the way the Global Fund to Fight AIDs, Tuberculosis and Malaria is. [5] It's a shame they could not get their way." [6]
And so to the final paragraph, direct from the school yard, lacking only a Greek Chorus with 'Ya Boo Sucks!' and 'My Daddy's bigger than your Daddy!'
"And yet, that the world's most powerful country - whose researchers have made a vast contribution to climate science - was reduced to a bit-part in negotiations over the climate's future was unfortunate, both for the world and for America. Next time the Americans demand China, India or Brazil take bold steps for the global good, on trade or security, that recalcitrance will no doubt be remembered."
What pompous, pretentious piffle! 'Target state achieved!' would be the American (and the Chinese) retort. Just whose face is this sort of paragraph meant to save? The miseducated environmentalists who refuse to listen to their own scientists [7]? Or the global political elite who have suffered so resounding a defeat to their fiendish (but none too cunning) plan to advance their dream of world government...with the Kyoto Protocol as the Trojan Horse?
End Notes
[1] Unfortunately a veil continues to be drawn across the poor quality of the science underlying the Kyoto Process but saving face incrementally is a standard technique for bureaucrats, diplomats and the PR professionals so we will not be too hard on them.
[2] The asymmetry was put in place because there are more poor countries than rich ones...and the definition of rich and poor is whatever the UN and EU bureaucrats pushing for the legally binding treaty wish it to be; further evidence of the tendency towards an anti-democratic sleight of hand within the UN.
[3] Or to put it another way: the family fortunes from oil and energy interests of Gore & Strong & Co. had been rumbled...and perhaps also their private investments in the potentially lucrative global climate exchange business. For further details see The Strange Life of Maurice Strong by William Shepherd.
[4] Sloth? No doubt this read 'corruption' in the first draft of the article.
[5] Perhaps it is fortunate that there is no Bill Gates to throw money (and conditions) at climate change. The idea that hedge funds should get into the public business of climate management after their recent disastrous forays into private debt & credit management is asking for trouble. Sting Jet Derivatives (SJDs)? Poindexter Fukushima Tsunami Indices (PFTIs)?
[6] UN and EU bureaucrats would have been working assiduously behind the scenes to make sure this never happens. Retreat, regroup and fight another day. Climate was never the issue, but an excuse, the means towards quite a different end: the supranational control of climate. Is there no end to this hubris
[7] Peter Taylor, for instance, the author of Chill: a reassessment of global warming theory; (Clairview Books, Forest Row, 2009, £14.99, 400 pages, ISBN 978-1-905570-19-5), has impeccable environmental credentials with an unmatched list of environmental successes over many years. Yet he finds himself blackballed by his former colleagues for insisting on being a scientist first and foremost; and a fervent evangelist for the party line on climate change only when the science supports it...which is not very often (Taylor estimates greenhouse gases at 15% and solar-related effects 85%).
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