Dec
Eyewitness: How China sabotaged climate talks and embarrassed Obama
The Guardian UK is running a story by environmental activist Mark Lynas who was present at the final Copenhagen climate talks and says China intentionaly sabotaged the deal and ensured Barack Obama and the west would shoulder the blame.
Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.
China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was “the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility”, said Christian Aid. “Rich countries have bullied developing nations,” fumed Friends of the Earth International.
All very predictable, but the complete opposite of the truth.
Our American dope was duped again. Obama is right about one thing: world leaders do love him, but only because he’s so easy to push around.
Full story: guardian.co.uk | Discuss: here
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China, India, and others would be fools beyond measure to follow the West over yet another self-constructed cliff. Having just watched us push ourselves into financial insolvency with a passion they rightly smell a declining oxidental rat at the heart of AGW. China and most of the so-called developing world is just emerging from the historical (Western) dead end known as Socialism so they are rightly skeptical customers. Good post with building traffic. kudos to you.
What the heck is this presumption that the world’s ‘poor’ are our respnosibility. Economic wealth is a result of the economic system people choose. If they don’t want to be poor, choose capitalism. You can’t complain your car is not running when you don’t have an engine in it.