Climate talks

Could it be worse than Copenhagen? Very possibly, says the UK Telegraph, under the headline ‘Global warming summit heads for failure amid snub by world leaders’:

World leaders have snubbed the next round of international climate change negotiations in Mexico next month amid fears the talks will collapse.

The last United Nations summit on global warming in Copenhagen, at the end of last year, ended in failure and recrimination. More than 100 heads of state turned up hoping to be part of a deal that would “save the world” [ha, ha, my aching sides], but failed to get any legal agreement to stop rising temperatures [or should we say, more accurately: “to redistribute global wealth by forcing developed countries to shut down their economies and pay climate debt to the developing world in order to cut emissions of carbon dioxide which might, but probably won’t, stop rising temperatures, which are in all likelihood part of the planet’s natural climate cycles…”].

This year, they are declining even to attend, instead sending environment ministers and playing down the talks as much as possible.

The process is dogged by a disagreement over the best way to limit the growth in greenhouse gases, which are blamed by scientists for rising temperatures. Environmentalists believe the best approach is a binding treaty that will force all countries to cut carbon emissions. But at the last major meeting before the Cancun summit, held in China last week, delegates were still in dispute.

So, Julia and Greg, just explain to me again why Australia is rushing headlong into a unilateral price on carbon when the rest of the world has no intention of following suit. I’d love to hear the answers.

Read it here.