Copenhagen: the aftermath

The aftermath

The general reaction has been “a lot of hot air”, which just about sums it up:

GLOBAL leaders went to Copenhagen to save the world but used the final hours to desperately try and save face.

A “frustrated” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last night joined US President Barack Obama in putting the most positive spin on the outcome of the conference, but the final “deal” was condemned across the political spectrum.

Poor countries and green groups were outraged by the three-page “political statement” brokered by Mr Obama – and four other national leaders – in the dying hours.

Mr Obama called the outline of the agreement – yet to be endorsed by most other countries last night – a “meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough”, but admitted “this progress is not enough”. (source)

Rightly, Tony Abbott lays into Kevin Rudd’s self-serving agenda on the ETS:

The Opposition Leader, who argues Australia should delay a domestic carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) until a substantive agreement has been struck at a global level, said: ”Copenhagen, it seems, has been a very Kevin Rudd kind of agreement. There’s been a lot of words but not many deeds come out of it.”

Mr Abbott said the draft accord was more ”good intentions”, but said it was better than no agreement at all on climate change.

He said Mr Rudd had been wrong to rush the Government’s climate change policy through Parliament. It was shot down in the Senate.

”I hope that he’ll now entirely reconsider his climate change policy,” he said.

Mr Abbott attacked Mr Rudd’s belief he may have been able to influence the outcome of an agreement struck at Copenhagen. ”I think that it was always a great conceit to think that Australia could save the world on its own,’‘ he said.

”The Australian voice should be heard in the world but I think it’s wrong for people like Mr Rudd to imagine that they can be much more than the mouse that roared.” (source)

And the Greens, clearly deranged, want Australia to commit to even deeper cuts, despite Copenhagen achieving nothing on a global scale:

The Greens have demanded that Kevin Rudd commits Australia to a 40 per cent cut in emissions by 2020 despite the failure of the Copenhagen summit to set emissions targets.

A deal struck by world leaders at the climate change summit in Copenhagen includes a global warming limit of two degrees well short of demands from island nations.

Greens leader Bob Brown says the emissions trading bills rejected by the Senate earlier this year allow warming of four degrees. [Actually, Bob, they allow whatever warming or cooling the planet feels like, because nothing Australia does will make any difference to the climate – Ed]

Senator Brown says Mr Rudd should now negotiate with the Greens so his Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is reset to keep warming at no more than 1.5 degrees. (source)

Australia’s 1.5% of global emissions determines the fate of the planet. Truly insane! Just think what a 40% emissions cut by 2020 would do to – it would be the end of our economy – oh, hang on, that’s what the Greens want, isn’t it?

At least Piers Ackerman delivers some climate sense:

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who sought to attain some semblance of world statesmanship as a “friend of the chair” appointed by host, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, again demonstrated his lack of diplomatic negotiating skills as conferees failed to agree to a meaningful conclusion.

Fortunately, Rudd’s attempts to scare Australians into supporting an untested emissions trading system in advance of the failed conference were derailed by a new and reinvigorated Opposition, under Tony Abbott, at the eleventh hour.

Had Malcolm Turnbull’s plan to go along with the Labor Party succeeded, Australia would now be suffering under a new tax scheme that would have ensured the collapse of industries fundamental to the economy.

The collapse at Copenhagen into a weak, almost meaningless morass of platitudes and “legally non-binding” (how’s that for humbug?) agreement with no firm limits on emissions provided real-time proof of the inability of the United Nations to organise, let alone operate, anything.That Australia sent more than 100 people to Copenhagen to participate in this gabfest only to return with a piece of paper that reads like a drunk’s New Year’s resolution is an absolute disgrace. What’s more, the whole show will be repeated in Bonn in six months in another exercise of futility, fatuity and duplicity. (source)

Phew, sanity at last.