US Climate Negotiator Puzzled By Hostility At Buenos Aires Conference

[hatrack]

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"Observers here say the U.S. is increasingly being shut out as the rest of the world adopts global mechanisms by which each country will meet its targeted reductions, including one that allows companies to trade reductions in carbon emissions in a kind of global pollution market. The U.S., which accounts for about a third of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, pulled out of the agreement in 2001. U.S. officials last week acknowledged a global rise in temperatures caused by human activity but said the increase had not yet reached the "dangerous" levels that required drastic action.

They reiterated that the Bush administration would not push for U.S. ratification of the accord. "The Kyoto Protocol was a political agreement," said Harlan L. Watson, President Bush's senior climate negotiator and head of the U.S. delegation to the conference. "It was not based on science." Watson, a physicist, is playing the role of spoilsport at the conference, enduring the private criticism of fellow delegates and the thinly veiled hostility of environmentalists who have come to the conference in large numbers as observers.

"I'm not sure why we are considered the 'bad boys,' " Watson said at a news conference last week. "We believe we match or exceed what any other country in the world is doing to address the issue." Watson and other U.S. officials here point out that the Bush administration has set aside billions to fund climate research and weather-monitoring programs around the world. In 2002, Bush committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 18% by 2012 but linked those reductions to growth in gross domestic product. However, U.S. officials at the conference said emissions would probably be 15% above 1990 levels, far higher than mandated in the Kyoto pact.

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At another session, Watson took questions from environmentalists and acknowledged the scientific consensus on global warming: that the global temperature had risen 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit in the last century and that the increase was linked to human activity."

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-climate12dec12,1,591285.story?coll=la-news-a_section

[rodeodance]

1. puzzled!! take your head of the sand!!!!

Of course the WH has its own "science" reports!!--which is probablly all he reads!!!! Good Grief!!!!

[acmavm]

2. Puzzled my butt. They know exactly why other countries are hostile

in regard to our position on global warning. They're just making excuses while their cronies rake in the bucks. As long as the worst polluters don't have to do what it takes to cut emissions, the bush* administration doesn't give a fat rat's ass what other countries think.

Note: If this guy is so intellectually challenged that he is really 'puzzled' then he's too damn stupid to be in the position he's in. Incompetence and criminal behavior really pay off nowdays.