New Republic Lists 3 Ways Things Could Go Wrong at Copenhagen; ClimateGate Skipped

December 4th, 2009 10:34 AM

If I were to ask you to list just one way in which things could go wrong at the Copenhagen climate conference, the answer that would leap to the front for most of you would be "ClimateGate." Yet The New Republic lists three things that could mess up the talks at Copenhagen and guess what? ClimateGate appears in none of the answers.

Here is The New Republic ignoring the gigantic elephant in the room in Three Ways The Copenhagen Talks Could Succeed (Or Go Bust). Writer Jesse Zwick starts out by admitting that there is really no chance a climate treaty will come out of the Copenhagen conference:

Given that there's virtually no chance a finished climate treaty will come out of the upcoming talks in Copenhagen, one might be forgiven for asking what, exactly, the world's diplomats are actually going to do these next two weeks in Denmark. Already, further talks are scheduled for next year—including yet another big climate summit in Mexico City in 2010. But with only so many negotiating sessions to go around, most climate-policy experts agree that tangible progress needs to be made at Copenhagen if there's to be a chance of a new global treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which will expire in 2012.

Jesse, one might be forgiven for asking why you wrote an article on the subject of how things could go wrong at Copenhagen without once mentioning the scandal that dare not speak its name.

I asked Jake Schmidt, the director of international climate policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, to get a better sense of what the big goals are for Copenhagen—and the obstacles to getting them accomplished. Basically, there are three major areas where countries need to strike rough agreements in order for the summit to be considered a success:

Obstacles such as ClimateGa... Oops! Sorry for bringing up that scandal that must be ignored at all costs.

Commitments on reducing emissions:

...What could go wrong? Some wealthy countries, notably Canada and Russia, are still balking at putting forward proposals to cut emissions. And it's still an open question whether others, like the United States and Australia, will be able to follow through on their pledges by passing domestic legislation. What's more, newly industrialized nations like Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar represent a growing chunk of global emissions but have yet to signal any commitment to make their own cuts. (OPEC, not surprisingly, has been fighting from the start to torpedo a global deal.)

Actually the Australian parliament just recently shot down a global warming bill and a certain scandal which I shall not name is given as a big factor for the defeat.

Standards for verifying those cuts:

...What could go wrong? China and India's recent pledges to slow their rates of emissions growth may have signaled that they're willing to make an effort, but developing countries have generally argued that they don't want to be bound to these promises—nor allow international scrutiny on whether they're meeting their targets. Excuses include appeals to national sovereignty and hurt feelings over broken funding promises from rich countries, but either way, progress has to be made on this issue in a way that will help everyone save face but still satisfy those skeptical that countries like China and India will actually follow through.

And what about those skeptical of the entire global warming hoax which was recently revealed by you know what?

Financing emissions cuts in poor countries:

What could go wrong? Developing nations are immensely skeptical about pledges made by wealthier nations when it comes to climate change. And not without reason: Since the first framework convention on global warming in 1992, industrialized countries have made—and then broken—a variety of promises to help poorer nations mitigate and adapt to a warmer planet. To make matters worse, the E.U. has jeopardized negotiations with its current proposal to come up with money for climate aid by taking it out of its current aid budget. Finding a sustainable source of long-term funding won't be easy.

Finding a sustainable source of funding will become next to impossible in the wake of certain e-mails and raw data dump revelations exposing the global warming fraud.

In any event, this article from The New Republic gives us a foretaste on how the mainstream media will be covering the upcoming Copenhagen conference. Much talk about the make believe global warming "problems" but no mention of a certain scandal that completely undermines the very reason for that Copenhagen meeting.

Will Brian Williams earn a Five Guys burger (with fries) the first time he mentions (if ever) ClimateGate when covering the Copenhagen conference?