Tuesday, December 06, 2005

COP-11 Global Warming Conference Report: Pew Center Admits Kyoto is Dead... Sort of

The National Center's three-man crew at the U.N.'s COP-11 global warming conference in Montreal, has blackberried in a blog report:

The Pew Center on Climate Change held a briefing today on their "Climate Dialogue at Pocantico" that seems to confirm what critics of the Kyoto treaty have been saying for a long time... The Kyoto Treaty is dead.

The Dialogue was started by the Pew Center some 18 months ago to bring together "a select group of policymakers and stakeholders from around the world" to explore options for advancing the international climate change effort.

In what is sure to be a jolt to staunch advocates of the Kyoto Protocol, the Dialogue has called for a parallel process outside the Framework Convention on Climate Change process. What's more, it found that "To achieve broad, participation, a framework for multilateral climate action must... be flexible enough to accommodate different types of national strategies by allowing different types of commitments. It must enable each country to choose a pathway that best aligns the global interest in climate change with its own evolving national interests."

It is an admission -- albeit indirectly -- that the Kyoto strategy of strict emissions targets has ended in failure.

The briefing was also notable for a question posed to the Pew Center's president, Eileen Claussen. She was asked which is the most plausible reason why the Bush administration has rejected Kyoto:

1) It is captive to the carbon lobby (oil, gas, coal);
2) Americans' natural resistance to being told what to do;
3) The Administration's belief that the science isn't settled on global warming, or
4) The economic costs of Kyoto.

Clausen asserted that it couldn't be concerns about the science because virtually everyone agrees that global warming poses a serious global threat.

Jim Greene, a staffer with Senator Joe Biden (D-DE), seconded this, saying only "flat Earthers" debate the point.

Here's a question: If Kyoto backers are so certain they are right on the science, why do they so often resort to ad hominem attacks on the skeptics?

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 6:42 PM