Copenhagen deal: "meaningful" or "abject failure?"

[katkat]

Source: Global Post

"This is not a perfect agreement, it will not solve the climate threat," admitted Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, speaking for the 27-nation bloc. "It's a start that needs to be developed near the start of next year."... However said the deal was a major step. "For the first time in history all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change," Obama said.

Environmental campaigners however erupted with anger, claiming the summit billed as the best last chance to head off the catastrophic impact of global warming had been wasted. Demonstrators outside the conference center carried placards with the words "climate shame" written across a photo of Obama...

"World leaders had a once-in-a-generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change. In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through," he added as Obama and other leaders left the summit ahead of a final debate on the deal....

After hours of deadlock, Obama announced a breakthrough after he huddled with the leaders of Brazil, India, China and South Africa. He then persuaded European Union nations to go along with the deal, even if they were unhappy at its lack of ambition. French officials said the choice was either to accept the deal or walk away from Copenhagen with no agreement and bad blood between leading world powers.

Read more: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/global-green/091218/copenhagen-obama-deal

[EFerrari]

1. Copenfailure. Very sad.

[IndianaGreen]

2. A tragic failure that calls for a change in tactics

The people demonstrating in the streets got it right.

[WriteDown]

7. Depends

I wouldn't recommend people take to the streets in Tienenman Square(sp?)?

On iPhone.

[timo]

3. :(

"non-binding" = FAIL

[Double T]

4. Copenhagen deal is analogous to toilet paper.

...and YOU know what YOU can do with it.

[winyanstaz]

5. I want to know what was agreed to..exactly and by who.

What is this deal? Was anything signed at all? Is it the groundwork for the One World Government like some claim? I will have to wait until I see more facts to make up my mind about this.
Right now all I see are a few reports that nothing much happened....

[clear eye]

20. See The Guardian story (Link>>)

Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure

The UN climate summit reached a weak outline of a global agreement in Copenhagen tonight, falling far short of what Britain and many poor countries were seeking and leaving months of tough negotiations to come.

After eight draft texts and all-day talks between 115 world leaders, it was left to Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, to broker a political agreement. The so-called Copenhagen accord "recognises" the scientific case for keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C but does not contain commitments to emissions reductions to achieve that goal.

American officials spun the deal as a "meaningful agreement", but even Obama said: "This progress is not enough."

"We have come a long way, but we have much further to go," he added.

[winyanstaz]

23. thanks for the link :)

I read that one but I also saw one about some Lord Christopher Monckton saying the foundation for a One World Government had been successfully put in place. So what's that about?


Here are a whole bunch of links you can look at and make up your own mind. :)

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=copenhagen+one+world+government&search_type=&aq=0&oq=Copenhagen%2C+One+

[DissedByBush]

6. Of course the extortion was going to fail

Brazil, China and India were going to walk unless they got special treatment.

For example, China doesn't want to have to stop building two coal power plants a week.

[Mithreal]

8. .

[TacticalPeek]

9. Don't worry - they'll fix it in conference.

Humbug.

[Mithreal]

10. A good sign? Would like to hear more about that meeting.

"A final incident reportedly took place Friday evening, when Chinese, Indian and Brazilian leaders were in a private meeting and Obama barged in, declaring that he didn’t want them negotiating in secret. The South African representative also joined these talks, which led to the agreement on a draft “accord” to be submitted to the whole conference for ratification."

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/cope-d19.shtml

[cedric]

11. Total cop out

The US should find a President who can face up to the realities of the world.

This is a step backwards!

[FrenchieCat]

12. Sorry, but this President doesn't walk on water, forwards or backwards.....

To blame all of the problems of the world is irresponsible,
and all too easy.

I'm getting tired of this man being responsible for the fucking entire world after just 11 months on the job. Those bigass problems were here long before he got there, and they will not be solved in one meeting.

Those who seems to want to think so, like you, are ridiculous.

This reminds me of a quote I recently read....

"Anyone who is “betrayed by their naiveté” should feel doubly ridiculous for thinking the change they voted for would come overnight. Status quo is not “kicked out of the door” like a weak, stray cat. Status quo has to be rallied against, systems have to be put in place to combat it, people have to put in work. Status quo will remain the “status quo” if people are too lazy to stick around for the entire fight."

[katkat]

16. Frenchie

I'm waiting to see "your" Prez doing some of that instead of just the left. I'm saying your, because he sure isn't standing up for my values.

Some of us remember Presidents with spines when it came to domestic issues, FDR, Kennedy, LBJ, assuming that's his problem and it's not just that he was lying from the beginning.

And it's really offensive to say that those of us who worked our butts off and scraped up donations we could ill afford for his campaign are "lazy". By the way, when was the last time people who worked to get a candidate elected then had to "fight" to hold him to principles he abandoned?

[CJCRANE]

19. You changed the subject. This thread is about global deals.

Obama isn't President of the World. There are 6.7 billion people on this planet who have their own leaders and interests.

[pampango]

21. There was no way for Obama to force an agreement if others didn't go along. He wanted a "real deal"

more than most, but he had two problems.

One was that you can reach a deal all by yourself. The other is that 40 republicans in the Senate would kill a "real deal" (since a treaty requires a 2/3 vote) in a heart beat.

[panzerfaust]

13. "Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure"

is how the Guardian succinctly, correctly, put it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/18/copenhagen-deal

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. Failure, largely due to the US and its utter spinelessness in setting a meaningful carbon target

way to go, America...so much for 'global leadership', eh?

[panzerfaust]

15. Even better:

... At the end it was no longer about saving the biosphere: it was just a matter of saving face. As the talks melted down, everything that might have made a new treaty worthwhile was scratched out. Any deal would do, as long as the negotiators could pretend they have achieved something. A clearer and less destructive treaty than the text that emerged would be a sheaf of blank paper, which every negotiating party solemnly sits down to sign ...

...This has not happened by accident: it is the result of a systematic campaign of sabotage by certain states, driven and promoted by the energy industries...In all cases immediate self-interest has trumped the long-term welfare of humankind. Corporate profits and political expediency have proved more urgent considerations than either the natural world or human civilisation. Our political systems are incapable of discharging the main function of government: to protect us from each other...

...Goodbye Africa, goodbye south Asia; goodbye glaciers and sea ice, coral reefs and rainforest. It was nice knowing you. Not that we really cared. The governments which moved so swiftly to save the banks have bickered and filibustered while the biosphere burns.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/18/copenhagen-negotiators-bicker-filibuster-biosphere

[placton]

17. If Obama says it, I don't believe it.

He is, after all, the voice of corporate America

[robcon]

18. I choose to call it abject failure

A target (2 degree C) is not a plan. Setting a strategy to get there, and what happens if temperatures rise, are just the very basics in an "agreement" that would be worth the name.

[pampango]

22. It's not meaningful. The other question is whether it is better than no deal, which was the

alternative, at least at the end. We obviously can't force China, India, Brazil or anyone else to agree to what we want. The world isn't that simple anymore.

Could we have convinced them by proposing that we take the lead in emissions reductions? Maybe? Probably? Who knows. Getting a major US emissions reduction treaty through the Senate that's 40% obstructionist republican would be an interesting political exercise at best. :) We might have ended up with a great treaty that the Senate refused to ratify. Where would that leave us?

One could argue that no deal would scare enough people to motivate a "real deal" somewhere down the line. Or that complete failure would be a victory for climate change deniers which would sink any prospect for change for many years as each country knew that the rest of the world had no say in how much they pollute.

[Igel]

24. Pointless question.

Failure? What's the definition?

Not what's "a definition." I want *the* definition, the one that China, the US, Russia, GreenPeace, etc., etc. had all settled on. Not just yours, not just mine. I want "the" definition, the default definition that every holds to be true in the lack of any restrictions or caveats. Got one? I don't.

Meaningful to whom, and what is the purpose that person has in mind?

Not whether it's "meaningful" in some ethereal, gnomic sense--unless, of course, the have available what the default meaning is that's accepted by everybody, perhaps derived from "the" definition of success. But who said it was meaningful, and what meaning or purpose did it help fulfill? Context, please, helping us fill in what the subjects are for nouns that have subjects.

Otherwise you're asking questions that only you know the meaning of; everybody else will plug in their meanings, and that yields a different question. As with a lot of politics and diplomacy, what you wind up talking about are big undefinable fluffies that have no actual concrete implementation. We think that all the talking is doing--while the implementation is all that really matters. We do it with "the" public option (while there are still numerous things called "the" public option, and much of the public can't define it). A lot of speech is intended to prevent communication. And often we confuse speech acts with real acts--so while we're trying to say treat the future consequences of this deal as things past, we confuse budget projection with actual losses or surpluses, we confuse what a bill's projected to do with what the bill will do. God's saying "Let there be light" may have produced light (let me finish the comparison), but when we say "Let there be light" all we produce is fleeting sound.

Sorry, cranky today. (even more annoying rant deleted.)