Hot Air in Bali

They're wrapping up the global warming conference in Bali, attended by 10,000 delegates from around the world, and lo and behold, they've determined that the most serious issue of our time (indeed, of all time) can be negotiated for the next two years.

At a news conference, Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations climate-change agency that sponsored the talks, who on Thursday raised serious concerns about the slow pace of the talks, said that countries were “on the brink of agreement.”

“It’s not actually all that much that is outstanding,” he said. “People are working very hard to resolve outstanding issues.”

An agreement in Bali offers the possibility that the world will spend the next two years negotiating a treaty that limits greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately slows the warming of the planet. Yet the difficultly of simply agreeing to these negotiations portends an acrimonious two years once they begin.

The differences in philosophy at the meeting were striking and fundamental. European Union negotiators said they favored specific government-imposed caps on emissions and wanted industrial countries to lead the way. The United States favors relying on the market — higher oil, natural gas and coal prices will drive consumers away from fossil fuels, their delegates said — as well as technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Developing countries, a vaguely defined group that includes such members as diverse as China and Costa Rica, refer to the historical responsibility of countries that became rich with the convenience of burning coal and oil for energy — a luxury developing countries may not afforded.

If this is such a pressing issue, why give two years? Wasn't Al Gore warning that without immediate action, all hell would break loose? Polar ice caps would melt? Sea levels rise and flooding and all manner of natural phenomenon would be unleashed?

They've punted the issue, and like the Annapolis summit on the Arab-Israeli conflict, they're agreeing to continue talking. For two more years.

Big deal.

The real story isn't that they're going to continue talking, but what they're looking to do - they want to impose taxes on everyone who emits or purchases items that emit. In other words, the UN is looking to tax the bejeebus out of the West, and in particular the US. That's money that is going to come out of our pockets, and right into the pockets of the UN, which should raise all manner of red flags, but so far hasn't.

China and other third world countries want to stick it to the US, even as their own emissions choke the rest of the world in toxic gases (and I'm not talking about COx, but rather acid rain and other pollutants from coal fired factories, power plants, and millions of kitchens that rely on coal or charcoal for heating and cooking).

The US wants to apply a market based approach. The US has seen its emissions drop, despite the fact that the US rejected the Kyoto Protocols under President Clinton in the 1990s. Europe, which adopted the protocols, has failed to meet its targets.