I don’t know how many of you have been following Ronald Bailey’s wonderful posts about the Copenhagen Climate Conference ( Pt1, Pt2, and Pt3) over at reason.com, but he’s been doing an awesome job.  I’ve really enjoyed reading his coverage, and I just finished reading his latest installment (Pt3.) last night.

 

In his second installment (Pt2), he describes the scene thusly:

China’s fierce defense of the Kyoto Protocol arises from the fact that that treaty imposed no greenhouse gas reductions on the country. China strenuously objects to U.S. insistence that economically emerging countries be obliged to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases. China is particularly invested in keeping the Kyoto terms alive since it now emits more greenhouse gases annually than the United States. “From our point of view, you can’t even begin to have an environmentally sound agreement without the adequate, significant participation of China,” insisted U.S. Ambassador Stern. And he’s right. There is no chance that the Senate will ratify a climate agreement that doesn’t include China.

His third article had this to say about the continuing conflict between the US and China:

…  He’s right. Following in the footsteps of their Bush administration predecessors, negotiators for the Obama administration are insisting that big emerging economies must take on some verifiable obligations with regard to their greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, if countries like China don’t make some international commitments to controlling their emissions, then neither will the United States. Now COP-15 conferees are waiting to see if either country will blink in the next 24 hours.

Now, the question is this:

Why would China blink?  They know a couple of things:

1) They’re sitting pretty right now, and have every reason to maintain the status quo, and

2) They see the troubles Obama and the Democrats are having here in the States.  They know that there isn’t a snowball’s chance in Hades that these people can scrape together the 66 Senate votes required to adopt this foreign treaty.  Thus, if they sign on, they’ll be the only ones signing on, because the US Senate won’t ratify this thing.

My opinion:  The rioting protesters outside the Conference are correct, and there is no way anything binding comes out of this Conference.

Hooray!

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