I’m not one for delivering bad news here on the blog. I think it’s counterproductive. But I’m also not one for pretending to be happy when I’m not. And tonight, I’m not.
It’s American behavior at the UN conference on climate change that’s getting me down. It looks like fairly certain that the governments around the world, by insistence of the United States, are going to leave without agreeing any specific emissions reduction targets.
According to a New York Times article entitled “Bitter Divisions at Climate Talks”:
The goal of the Bali meeting, which is being attended by delegates from 190 countries and which is scheduled to end Friday, is to reach agreement on a plan for a future deal to reduce greenhouse gases…
…“The best we hoped for was that the U.S. would not hobble the rest of the world from moving forward,” said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit American organization. “Our delegation here from the States has not been able to meet that low level of expectation.”
The only good news, as far as I can tell, is that the people of the United States are represented, as the Times points out, not only by our intransigent government negotiators but also by American activists who have swarmed to Bali, including former Democratic Vice President Al Gore and Republican New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg:
In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Bloomberg criticized both the Bush administration and Congress for not being aggressive enough in addressing global warming.
“There’s a belief that the United States should not do anything until all the other governments are willing to go along and do it at the same time [meaning India and China],” Mr. Bloomberg said. “We should be doing this regardless of whether the world is following or not.”
PS On a lighter note, here is a nifty new meta-blog that collects all the eco-news and light-living blog posts in one place. Totally worth checking out. Thanks Megan from Fix!