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The state of ClimateGate today, Dec 18 2009. [krakatoa] »
December 18, 2009
"Unprecedented:" Breakthrough Claimed; Non-Binding "Accord" Reached at Cophenhagen
"Unprecedented," Obama says of himself. Gee, didn't see that one coming.
President Barack Obama announced Friday a "meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough" on a global effort to curb climate change. But Obama said, "It is going to be very hard, and it's going to take some time" to get to a legally binding treaty.
An accord which is non-binding is also known as "dudes blowing smoke up each other's asses," and also, sometimes, "not an accord," but that doesn't mean this is harmless.
There is no binding part of this deal. That's why China, India, etc., have agreed to it. It doesn't require them to do anything.
Instead, it asks countries that are stupid enough to slit their economic throats to do so, so that India and China and so on can reap the rewards.
Guess which country is foremost among those currently headed by a man stupid enough to do this?
A senior administration official, speaking to ABC News, heralded what he called a "significant breakthrough" at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this afternoon.
The president faces pressure to salvage an agreement on climate change.
President Barack Obama, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South African President Jacob Zuma have agreed to a political "accord" that the official said will "provide the foundation for an eventual legally binding treaty."
In the accord, the official said, "nations will list their actions and stand behind them."
World leaders were looking to President Obama to help break a deadlock at the climate conference in Copenhagen, but prospects had looked bleak as White House officials indicated that Chinese officials were refusing to budge on their refusal to allow a transparent verification system, a stance that would have made a deal difficult to achieve.
Now, Obama will take this meaningless piece of paper and claim that by signing his name to it the US is morally obligated to live up its commitments (commitments we haven't actually made, given that there is no treaty, and further, given the Constitution is rather specific on the point of what makes a binding treaty, and it's not just Captain Wonderful's scribbling) and will pressure the Congress -- and crucially, the EPA -- into shooting more bullets into an already bleeding-out economy.
And oh yeah -- as a coblogger noted today, he's also promising a mere $33 billion of your money every year to pay undeveloped countries to plant tries and develop solar power and a bunch of other things they won't do anyway. Since, in case Obama hasn't noticed (and I guess he hasn't), undeveloped countries already take money meant for food and medicine and spend them mostly on tanks and guns and buying off tribes to keep their ruling class in power, and the rest of the money goes into their own stock of CDs and T-bills and, of course, hookers.
[Update PA]
It appears the "warmist in chief" will be greeted with around a foot of global warming as he returns from Bizarrohagen. Scheduled to return tonight, its looking ugly for the east coast, and D.C.is predicted to get a foot or more of paralyzing global warming over the next 36 hours. God just emailed me to say: "I just love tweaking pinheads like this".