Here is the “Reaction of UN climate chief Yvode Boer to 5 Heiligendamm statement 8 June 2007.”

People who should know inform me that the administration quietly worked with this guy first, promising to go through the UNFCCC to get his blessing. As such, we see that the UNFCCC hereby adopts the Bush approach, not the other way around. Will the administration be able to keep it that way?

Their problem is being all hot and bothered that some formal agreement be struck at or by the 2008 COP. Will they stick to principle and walk if the EU gets too cute — like Gore’s team had the grace to do at The Hague in November 2000, COP-6? — or insist on “something” for the legacy.

That is, this will be a test of wills between the EU and U.S., again, but with the U.S. facing internal political pressures it hasn’t in a while (“legacy time”). The EU will push for post-2012 continuance of their beloved, disastrously ineffective, and costly rationing approach. For others. Japan and Canada remain key but their performance makes clear they aren’t about to continue this mess; more important is Central Europe. Brussels can’t bully the rest of the world if their team can’t be bought off. So, watch Warsaw and Prague between now and December. The way these folks have been acting lately, I expect them to, at minimum, hold out for a deal under which they’ve (again) got no actual reduction obligations, and probably a few other baubles, related or not, as well. But even now the Czech government speaks of the cost Kyoto, as implemented by Brussels, is imposing on their economy.

So, when the EU tries this stunt a year or so on, insisting that the world accept their rationing approach, after all we agreed to do this this through UNFCCC etc., Bush presumably responds “I hear you, you really want to do that. We have this other framework we are working on and it seems that you are the only one(s) — some of you anyway — desiring to pursue the rationing path. That fits in with our ‘do your own thing’ framework that the rest of us are pursuing. Bon chance.”

I hope I’m around on this issue when the time comes for Europe to finally look around and realize that no one can’t tell how they’ve been left alone holding an embarrassing bag, one which they’ve desperately scared their populations into believing is necessary…and working, of course. One constant doubtless will remain that they will continue to not emphasize how they aren’t really doing what their press releases say they’re doing.

Having reduced themselves collectively to a skeletal defense force, Europe will now be forced to simply be reduced to pushing trade wars. Again, however, their relatively worse performance on CO2 leaves them a tad light in the “clean hands” department, and even subject to being the recipient of such a WTO complaint.

Interesting times, a Chinese might say.