China will not make a binding commitment to reduce carbon emissions, putting in jeopardy the prospects for a global pact on climate change.
Officials from Beijing told a UN conference in Bonn yesterday that China would increase its emissions to develop its economy rather than sign up to mandatory cuts.
The refusal is a setback for President Obama’s efforts to drum up support for an agreement at Copenhagen in December on a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. As argument erupted between rich and poor nations at the Bonn talks, Yvo de Boer, the UN climate change chief, said that a worldwide pact to prevent global warming was “physically impossible”.
Hopes that Copenhagen might deliver tougher carbon reduction targets were dashed further when Japan failed to make a significant commitment to reduce emissions. Taro Aso, the Japanese Prime Minister, said on Wednesday that Japan would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15 per cent by 2020 from levels in 2005. The Japanese commitment is a mere 2 per cent improvement on its commitment under Kyoto.
[More]
Someone has finally seen the light, to bad it was not a major democracy.
And this is a surprise? You’d think that Mo Strong would be chatting up his Comrades in China to make them see the light…..except the fact is, China does see the light and hasn’t swallowed the koolaid. But it is the Mo Strong/China alliance that set up the koolaid stand in the first place so they know what’s in it. That’s why they won’t drink it.
Any emissions program has to be agreed to by India and China, two of the largest polluters. Otherwise, the program is useless.
The program is useless in any event. It would accomplish nothing.
The Chinese knows a scam and they are not buying into Global Warming. They have a written history of at least 5 thousand years. I’ll bet my chopsticks that there is an extensive history of climate change in their records over millennia. Where’s David Suzuki – Elizabeth May - Stephen Dion when you need them. Maurice Strong chooses to live in China but appears to have no influence. Hope the particulates are tasty this summer in Beijing. Smog is not Global Warming.
I have no idea whether cutting emissions will change the global temperature, but I do know that breathing in smog is toxic to humans. Pollution kills more people in Toronto than guns do, and any reduction in emissions would be welcome. This goes beyond partisanship to common sense.
The story is about cutting CO2 emissions….not the same as smog. CO2 is not pollution.
Obama’s Environment agency has just recently ruled CO2 is a pollutant. This being done to put in place regulations to cut CO2 emissions to satisfy the green crowd. It doesn’t matter that facts dictate otherwise. Toxic pollution should and must be reduced. That is the health hazard, not CO2.
I am laughing. I can hardly wait for a “Greenie” to run up to Obama and spray him with Raid because he’s breathing out CO2. This situation is going from the sublime to the ridiculous.
This has been ridiculous since day one, people are finialy waking up to the stupidity.
Cynapse, i totally agree with you.
Smog (pollutants) should be the focus, and it defies all logic why we dont concentrate on that instead of this global warming cultism.
Lee:
Smog doesn’t seem to have the left wing sex appeal of global warming, probably because we appear to be surviving it and because smog now is nowhere near as bad as, say, England circa the industrial revolution. Hence, lower chance of money-making cap & trade schemes, which I am starting to believe is more important to the politicians than cleaning the air or playing with naturally oscillating temperatures.
As I recall, the Harper government tried to address Canada’s smog problems when they introduced their Clean Air Act in 2006. However, the opposition parties, including the Liberals who had done nothing to implement Kyoto or clean up the air quality during their previous 13 years in power, voted it down because it wasn’t Kyoto Protocol compliant. The left is only ever interested in combating air pollution if it will help them to gain or hold either power or taxation, while destroying our economies.
Cynpse:
Yep, we have a carbon tax here in B.C. which came into effect last July.
My hydro bill went from about 50.00 to over 80.00. I cant cut my usage. Its not that high to begin with.
Gasoline went up 2.4 cents per liter last July, and is scheduled to rise again this July.
All of this does nothing for any cause we might imagine.
Im wrong, it does add to the Government coffers.
If the Government had backbone, they would just raise taxes to cover whatever they are covering now, and not pretend they are doing something for some “green” effort.
Cynapse says “Smog doesn’t seem to have the left wing sex appeal of global warming, probably because we appear to be surviving it and because smog now is nowhere near as bad as, say, England circa the industrial revolution.”
No….it doesn’t have the same left wing “sex appeal” simply because it is more difficult to tax. Far better to tax carbon which is, after all, the building block of life. A socialists wet tax dream. Who would have ever believed that the world socialists would be able to tax thin air?
Lee – Mr. Campbell must pay for his eyes in the headlights moment – the great descending of the Olympians – they are to honor B.C with their presence for a few weeks in 2010….B.C. must be prepared to honor their greatness (I am not an Olympic fan). Years ago, when Calgary hosted the winter Olympics , I was one of the thousands of eager willing volunteers. It was fun to volunteer, in Alberta, back in Ralph Kline days. We could smoke and use our own ideas to get things done. I used to do a lot of volunteer work until the outfits asking for my free time demanded that I work with and FOR government employees getting paid to ‘volunteer’ (the Arctic Games in Whitehorse, Yukon – two years ago, come to mind). When the Legion banned smoking I quit and now do my own volunteer work ; I help war vets and our soldiers on my own. The Olympics will cost B.C. taxpayers a lot of money and you won’t have the enthusiasm Calgary had – the first and only city to ever make money hosting the Olympics…and now you know the reason why….
IMO, Campbell should have been forced to resign when he got the Drinking and driving charge in Hawaii. His ‘carbon tax’ was an insult to B.C. voters who wanted SOME sanity in government. Campbell’s acceptance by B.C, people sends a strong message to sane people – think about it – I cannot smoke in my car for PC reasons BUT Premier Campbell can get drunk and drive his car and the ‘officials’ let him keep his job as the Anti Carbon King of B.C. (it’s that carbon in the tobacco that kills people who get even a whiff of smoke!!) – the treasured drug consumers get their fixes on the Anti Carbon King’s people’s dime. Defies all rationality, IMO.