Alto Voltage
Surprising nobody, the Bush climate plan is all talk, no substance, and only meant to be a soundbite for replay on the news, not meant to be any sort of policy change.
President Bush’s climate-change speech was apparently meant for “domestic consumption.” Just as well—because if Mr. Bush was hoping to tender an olive branch to other countries, they’ve promptly snapped it in half.
Representatives from the U.S. and 15 other big countries—representing 80% of global greenhouse-gas emissions—are meeting in Paris for the third “major economies meeting.” It’s a parallel process to Kyoto, Bali, Bangkok and all the other exotic locations on the global climate tour, meant to find ways for the biggest emitters to curb their carbon enthusiasm.
[From Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : The French Disconnection: Bush Plan Fizzles at Paris Climate Talks]
President Bush’s speech dominated chatter on the first day of the meeting—and not in a good way. The German environment minister spoke of U.S. “losership, not leadership,” and called the speech “neanderthal.” South African delegates balked at President Bush’s idea that developing countries pick up their share of the clean-up bill for “what the U.S. and other highly industrialized countries have caused over the past 150 years.” Even China–which appears to have already surpassed the U.S. as the world’s biggest emitter—took umbrage at the suggestion that adding a new coal-fired plant every week may not be a good idea, and attacked America’s higher per-capita emissions of greenhouse gases.
Losership not leadership, that could stand for the entire Bush Presidency.
