Paul Greenberg :


Oh, Yes, Copenhagen - Townhall.com


The other day a friend asked us if I'd written about the Copenhagen
conference on climate change, carbon control, environmental technology,
the ecological future of Spaceship Earth, cabbages and kings, and the
101 other Very Important Things covered by that huge, long-awaited and now
suddenly fizzled international gabfest.


No, I hadn't written about it. Maybe because it ended not with a bang
but with a whimper heard 'round the world: a flurry of non-binding
agreements, aka vague misunderstandings. It was the biggest anticlimax since
Geraldo the Great Rivera opened Al Capone's vault to find little more than
dust.


Any actual policies to come out of Copenhagen promise to be as empty.


To sum up the essential deal made at Copenhagen: The developed world
sort of promises to give the undeveloped one $30 billion over the next three
years -- plus $100 billion a year after 2020 -- in exchange for its
separate but equally nebulous promise not to develop too quickly. As
with Obamacare, the theoretical benefits are to come first, then the real
pain by some always-delayable deadline. It's more convenient that way. Just
charge it to some future generation.


Besides the cocksure confidence the delegates displayed in man's ability
to reset the world's thermostat, this kind of deal-making in which no
one takes the deal made very seriously was the one consistent thread in the
tangled web woven at Copenhagen.


There is consolation to be taken in the grand fizzle at Copenhagen. For
there is something worse than the conference's failure. And that would
have been its success at slowing the world's economic recovery and so
dooming still more in the Third World to the bitter fruits of abject
poverty: more malnutrition, more disease, and more chaos and instability
in general.


Doing nothing has certain advantages over doing the wrong thing,
especially on a grand and confusing scale. Besides, the failure of this
lavish conference means the delegates can now anticipate many more
equally elaborate confabs around the world on the public's tab, complete with
equally hyped media coverage and just as inconsequential results. Nice
work -- or play -- if you can get it.


Maybe I hadn't written anything of substance about the grand conference
at Copenhagen because it proved so insubstantial. My long established
policy is, when I have nothing to say about a subject, I try not to say it.


Maybe because I've read too many editorials over the years that, having
nothing to say, make the grave mistake of saying it. At length. It doesn't
exactly make for fascinating reading.


There were doubtless plenty of agreements made at Copenhagen but the
major ones were non-binding. Those are the kind of deals that delegates
embrace enthusiastically in their speeches but take care not to sign lest
their countries be held to their word. They're the kind of oral agreements
that the irrepressible Sam Goldwyn, Hollywood mogul and Mr. Malaprop himself,
once described as not worth the paper they're written on. Or rather not
written on.


Almost coincident with the grand conference at Copenhagen a treasure
trove of leaked documents appeared out of the very center of global alarmism
over climate change, the Climatic Research Unit of East Anglia
University at Norwich, England, which is "widely recognized as one of the
world's leading institutions concerned with the study of natural and
anthropogenic climate change," according to its Web site. These days it's
widely recognized as a center for the suppression of any and all dissenting
views about the causes of global warming. If this is science, what would dogma
be?


Conspiracies to suppress scientific dissent scarcely ended with
Galileo's trial, but at least the church eventually repented and begged
pardon.


There is little if any sign that the wannabe Al Gores at East Anglia,
more politicians than scientists, have been chastened by what's come to be
known as Climategate. Instead, they have adopted a variation of the Dan
Rather defense: falsified maybe but accurate.


Barack Obama's appearance at the last minute was the final, flashy touch
at Copenhagen as he made much ado about much of nothing. The president
hasn't demonstrated his diplomatic finesse so convincingly since he went
to the same city not long ago to not get the Olympics for Chicago. Which
may have been a blessing in disguise, too. (The traffic in the Loop is
already bad enough.)


Naturally the president and his handlers came back from Copenhagen
declaring a great victory -- Carbon Control in our Time! But surely even
they didn't believe it. Certainly the Europeans didn't. As soon as the
Grand Conference concluded, the market for carbon-control permits on the
European continent dropped dramatically, as if investors were confirming
that the countries represented at Copenhagen weren't serious about
controlling carbon emissions. No poll is more reliable than the market,
where people put their money where their opinions are. It's a great test
of sincerity.


The final accord at Copenhagen didn't specify, not in writing, how much
big countries like the United States and mainland China are now supposed
to reduce their carbon emissions. Nor did the conference decide
precisely how much all the other countries were going to sacrifice in order to
clean up the world's climate. Just about the only thing the delegates could
agree on was to jet off to the next world climate-change conference,
which is already scheduled for Mexico City, the one sure effect of which will
be to add still more carbon to the Earth's atmosphere.



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*Durango b301 #PE*