{"id":218897,"date":"2009-12-25T15:24:15","date_gmt":"2009-12-25T20:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.openthefuture.com,2009:\/\/1.9196"},"modified":"2010-01-31T17:12:20","modified_gmt":"2010-01-31T22:12:20","slug":"cold-war-over-warming-already-underway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/218897","title":{"rendered":"Cold War Over Warming Already Underway?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/environment\/2009\/dec\/22\/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas\">Seems like it.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Mark Lynas, who worked with the Maldives group at COP15, was literally in the room when the final negotiations took place, and wrote about it for <em>The Guardian<\/em>. The key section:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China&#8217;s representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. &#8220;Why can&#8217;t we even mention our own targets?&#8221; demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia&#8217;s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil&#8217;s representative too pointed out the illogicality of China&#8217;s position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why &#8211; because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord&#8217;s lack of ambition.<\/p>\n<p>China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak &#8220;as soon as possible&#8221;. The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks popping in every corner of the world.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;] With the deal gutted, the heads of state session concluded with a final battle as the Chinese delegate insisted on removing the 1.5C target so beloved of the small island states and low-lying nations who have most to lose from rising seas. President Nasheed of the Maldives, supported by Brown, fought valiantly to save this crucial number. &#8220;How can you ask my country to go extinct?&#8221; demanded Nasheed. The Chinese delegate feigned great offence &#8211; and the number stayed, but surrounded by language which makes it all but meaningless. The deed was done.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.openthefuture.com\/2009\/12\/a_cold_war_over_warming.html\">I figured something like this would happen<\/a>. I just didn&#8217;t expect the signs to show up so quickly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seems like it. Mark Lynas, who worked with the Maldives group at COP15, was literally in the room when the final negotiations took place, and wrote about it for The Guardian. The key section: To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China&#8217;s representative who insisted that industrialised [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}