China, India block UN climate deal

NoharnessDec 15th, 2007 - 10:10:14

Uh-huh. It would seem that the CO2 bug-bear doesn't frighten the Indians and Chinese one bit. I'll give you long odds that the leaderships of India and China see this global warming thing as an attempt to throw water on the fires sustaining their economic engines. The negotiators should have at least worked out a deal wherein China and India agreed to install stack scrubbers on their coal-fired power plants but no, they had to have it all in one shot.

Oh, and we are here witness to how truly stupid the Bush Administration is. The US should never have attended this silly confab. No matter what happened, we were going to be blamed for any and all of its failures. If we are going to be accused and found guilty before there is a trial, we may as well be good and guilty, yes?

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...Dec 15th, 2007 - 12:59:22

At least China will change its attitude more sooner than later.

China sufferes some of the worst effects of enviromental pollution and global warming.

Their so far hyper industrialisation without any environmental concerns made the cancer rates in China rising (especially in cities with heavy industry) and overall health condition of the average chinese living in big cities is dropping dramatically.

The air quality in most of their big cities is so low you can taste the pollution on your tongue while breathing. The water quality is also dropping.

And global warming already caused floods in China that lets events like Katrina look like a children's birthday party.

China surely would like to continue the economic growth at the current speed but sooner or later it will realize that this slowly strangles their own quality of life to death.

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JimDec 15th, 2007 - 13:48:50

After the final agreement - I've never seen such a flip-flop in an environmental treaty context ever,' said Greenpeace's Bill Hare. 'It clearly indicates the U.S. is unable to face the changing reality of climate change internationally.'

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tonny from belgiumDec 15th, 2007 - 13:58:47

Meanwhile a newly released study from the International Red Cross estimated the number of natural catastrophes had risen with 20 percent in 2006 ,mostly due global warming .20 percent is a lot in one year,of course this tendency has to be evaluated over a longer time period .However it is already clear that failure to address the problems will raise the cost dramatically .China finds itself in a weak position as it's economy is directed to the world market.It would be sufficient for it's trade partners to impound all importations from China with a carbon tax to bring China to the negotiation table again .If not these revenues could be put to good use in working out measures to reduce carbon emissions .
What I find particularly revolting is the mask put on by countries like Indonesia,insisting on saving the rainforest,being at the same moment the biggest deforestation culprit .Can you imagine the jungle disappearing in a time frame of 15 years on one of the ibggest islands in the world ?This is precisely what is happening in Kalimantan where the jungle is logged to be replaced by palm oil plantations on a gigantic scale .Big companies simply evict the local population,steal the land and destroy everything on their path on a scale that is simply apocalyptic .Done by the same country that hosts the Bali conference .For some environmentalism is simply a jacket donned when convenient .Meanwhile the time to act is running out fast.We have at best ten years left to start taking action on a big scale .

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There is no such thing as man made global warming.Dec 15th, 2007 - 14:19:24

China and India aren't going to destroy their economies over some feel good european nonsense.

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