Today’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 administration’s [climate change] summit Sept. 27-28 would amount to much within the larger framework of international climate negotiations.
“What kind of deal are they hoping to set up?” she asked. “By all appearances, a very weak one…she complained that Bush’s plan to forge a “long-term aspirational goal” for reducing heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions would mean little if it leaves out any program to enforce those commitments from the individual countries.”
So, Bush’s agreement would be not very much within the larger framework of, well, not very much (Kyoto) — no one new has dared to join the latter after 10 years and 11 negotiations…oh, 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 they’ll surely need every ton of it — 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 Bush’s agreement only targeting the top 15 emitters it covers “a small subset of countries”, 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 Funt’s camera is trained on me as I read.
Meanwhile, the EU issuing a position paper — they’re quite good at that — is treated respectfully. Maybe Bush should issue a position paper to show he’s serious.