UN Climate Change Conference Ends in Disaster

The verdict on the recent United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, was virtually unanimous: it was a disaster.

From environmental groups to influential capitalist media to heads of state, the outcome of the conference was criticized as a “shame” and a “farce.” Participants and protesters alike condemned the so-called “Copenhagen Accord” as too little, too late.

Indeed, for most of the two weeks that the conference was in session, very little was actually agreed to by the 193 countries present. It was not until a closed-door meeting of representatives from the U.S., China, India, Brazil and South Africa took place as the conference was concluding that anything of substance was put into written form.

And “substance” is a word used rather loosely here. The agreement of the five countries, announced with great fanfare by President Barack Obama, actually offers no deadlines, no clear goals and no direction.

Instead, it limits itself to wishful thinking ... and just plain wishes. Gone is the 2010 deadline for a binding climate treaty — i.e., the death of the Kyoto Accord — and in its place is hope for “progress” by 2016.

Reduction of carbon dioxide emissions became a central arena in the ongoing conflicts between the Great Power imperialist states and the emerging economies in Africa and Asia, including India and China.

Obama’s representatives demanded massive verifiable reductions in CO2 emissions from these economies, but only offered up a paltry 17-percent reduction (less than 4 percent, based on the levels set in Kyoto) for the U.S. In effect, Obama was demanding that the newly industrializing countries pay for the climate change caused by the Great Powers.

Such demands resulted in more than one walkout by African and Asian delegates.

The European Union offered to increase its reduction levels from 20 to 30 percent by 2020, and were willing to cough up billions in Euros to help finance “green” energy initiatives in the industrializing countries.

Those reductions, of course, depend on the U.S. and China agreeing to further reductions, and the billions in investment will pay off in the future through greater profits.

All of this is meant to set a target of limiting global warming to an increase of no more than 2 degrees Centigrade (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050. Scientists and environmentalists have pointed out that even this small rise in global temperature would condemn Africa to becoming one huge desert.

Moreover, since there are no concrete plans to actually do anything to see that this limit is enforced, the talk about “targets” and “limits” is itself wishful thinking and hope.

But more “hope dope” is not the only thing Obama doled out to the Copenhagen delegates. He also did his share of bullying.

Obama used his speech to the conference to scold the participants for not doing what he told them to do. One reporter described Obama as “an impatient professor” chiding his students who “had blown a term paper deadline.” That was the kind report.

If Obama still had diplomatic capital with other world leaders who considered themselves outside the main Great Power cartels, he blew it all in Copenhagen.

Much of the arrogance and hostility, however, was saved for China. Obama directly attacked China, though without mentioning them by name, in his speech.

And the feeling was certainly mutual.

Given all this, perhaps the circumstances that led to the “Copenhagen Accord” were fitting. Originally, the meeting that led to the “Accord” was simply a meeting between  representatives of China, India and Brazil.

But Obama literally crashed the meeting, barging in the room, media conveniently in tow, declaring that he didn’t want them meeting in secret. After dragging in the representative from South Africa and haranguing the others in the room, the draft “Accord” was put together and submitted.

In the run-up to this conference, the liberals and Obama supporters dubbed the event “Hopenhagen.” They held parties and rallies to celebrate the globalized “hope.” In the end, though, “Hopenhagen” became “Nopenhagen,” as nothing was adopted, nothing was accomplished and nothing was done to stem the growing problem of climate change and global warming.