Subject To Approval

Things are not going well at the Climate Summit in Copenhagen. And not just for those left out in the cold by UN incompetence.

World leaders will not agree on the emissions cuts recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and are likely instead to commit to reviewing them in 2015 or 2016.

The delay will anger developing countries who, scientists say, will face the worst effects of climate change despite having contributed relatively little of the man-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

A draft text published by the UN says that there should be a review in 2016, which could result in an “update of the long-term global goal for emissions reductions as well as of the adequacy of commitments and actions”.

Of course this has gotten the usual suspects (kleptocracies) up in arms as the swag they had hoped for will probably not materialize.

The kleptocracies want CO2 cuts from between 25% and 40% by 2020. The best offer so far is 18%. So what is the US offering?

President Obama has offered to cut US emissions by 4 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, subject to approval by the US Congress.

Which so far he has not got. Nor is he likely to get.

And Tony Blair (former Prime Minister of Great Britain says:

Mr Blair said that, while the scientific evidence of man-made global warming was very strong, it was much less clear how quickly temperatures would rise.

“When you come to very precise dates, percentages and so on [. . .] then the figures are somewhat more fudgeable.

Considering the considerable fudging that has already taken place in the numbers you have to wonder how Mr. Blair can be so certain of the science. He suggest that because of the uncertainty of the science more fudging is in order.

I guess that would be called political science.