The whole event reads like high farce from the perspective of someone like myself who doesn’t believe in AGW. But even if you did believe in man’s significant contribution to climate change, you’d have to wonder if a bad batch of acid got fed into the refreshments at Copenhagen.
From “Climate talks teetering” in today’s Age we have this:
“More than 90 small island states and least developed countries, mostly from Africa, publicly backed Tuvalu’s stance that a pact that limits global warming to 1.5 degrees was non-negotiable.”
Tuvalu – a tiny island nation with the most to lose from global warming – is holding a non-negotiable position of limiting temp rises to 1.5 degrees C over pre-industrial temps. If China and the US don’t come on board to this (even Europe only favors a limit of 2 degrees C) then its possible no agreement will be reached.
Wtf?
Tuvalu’s government obviously believes in AGW and they are prepared to have no agreement rather than accept a .5 degree rise over what they want. Surely .5 outside of what you want is better than nothing if it means a possibility that your nation wont slip beneath the surface of the ocean.
You can just see the Chinese quake in the face of Tuvalu playing hardball:
Chinese: “If we go to 1.5 degrees it will cripple our economy and cause hardship for our 1.3 billion citizens.”
UN: “But if you don’t, Tuvalu will disappear into the ocean.”
Chinese: “Tuvalu? Where’s that?”
UN: “It’s a tiny pacific nation with a population of twelve thousand.”
Chinese: “Well, that’s too fucking bad for Tuvalu then isn’t it?”
Someone needs to tell Tuvalu’s Chief Negotiator that China loses double their population every year from coal mining accidents alone.