Todayโ€™s Greenwire culls the wires to report (password required) that:

At the National Press Club yesterday, Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, expressed doubts the Bush administrationโ€™s [climate change] summit Sept. 27-28 would amount to much within the larger framework of international climate negotiations. โ€œWhat kind of deal are they hoping to set up?โ€ she asked. โ€œBy all appearances, a very weak oneโ€ฆshe complained that Bushโ€™s plan to forge a โ€œlong-term aspirational goalโ€ for reducing heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions would mean little if it leaves out any program to enforce those commitments from the individual countries.โ€

So, Bushโ€™s agreement would be not very much within the larger framework of, well, not very much (Kyoto) โ€” no one new has dared to join the latter after 10 years and 11 negotiationsโ€ฆoh, sorry, forgot that Belarus was bribed in a couple of years back with a promise that Europe would buy their 60 million tons springing from an economic collapse, and theyโ€™ll surely need every ton of it โ€” and it would be a weak agreement put to shame by comparison with an unenforceable, not complied with, non-emission-reducing powerhouse of a pact (again, Kyoto).

Oh, and by Bushโ€™s agreement only targeting the top 15 emitters it covers โ€œa small subset of countriesโ€, not like the 34 that Kyoto boasts of covering; you know, Iceland, Belgium, Slovenia and Slovakia. At this point I begin looking around to see if Alan Funtโ€™s camera is trained on me as I read.

Meanwhile, the EU issuing a position paper โ€” theyโ€™re quite good at that โ€” is treated respectfully. Maybe Bush should issue a position paper to show heโ€™s serious.