The European Union’s demand for a road map leading to the next legally-binding global warming treaty raises a hurdle that may snarl negotiations at the United Nations climate conference this week. The 27-nation bloc said it accounts for about 11 percent of global emissions and that it can’t act alone on emissions blamed for damaging the environment. --Alex Morales,
Bloomberg, 28 November 2011
The 2008 Brussels summit symbolizes a turning point. The watered-down climate deal epitomizes the onset of a cooling period in Europe's hitherto overheated climate debate. It may lead eventually to the complete abandonment of the unilateral climate agenda that has shaped Europe's green philosophy for nearly 20 years. -- Benny Peiser,
The Wall Street Journal, 16 December 2008
Canada will announce next month that it will formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, CTV News has learned. The developments come as Environment Minister Peter Kent prepares for a climate conference in Durban, South Africa that opens on Monday. Kent said in the House of Commons on Nov. 22 he won't sign a document at the Durban conference that extends the Kyoto targets. "Canada goes to Durban with a number of countries sharing the same objective, and that is to put Kyoto behind us," Kent said. --
CTV News, 27 November 2011
The politics of the UN climate process are undergoing something of a fundamental transformation. Increasingly, countries are dividing into one group that wants a new global treaty as soon as possible - the EU plus lots of developing countries - and another that prefers a delay and perhaps something less rigorous than a full treaty. The UK and others argue that the Durban summit should agree to begin work on a new global agreement immediately, to have it in place by 2015, and operating by 2020 at the very latest. The US, Russia and Japan were already arguing for a longer timeframe. But BBC News has learned that at the MEF meeting, Brazil and India took the same position. Brazil wants the period 2012-15 to be a "reflection phase", while India suggested it should be a "technical/scientific period". -- Richard Black,
BBC News, 28 November 2011
Behind closed doors, these strategic delaying tactics are not altogether unwelcome by many if not most of the key non-EU nations. What is altogether new at this year’s climate summit is that even climate alarmism appears to have received a dose of cold water. The latest scientific research findings are certainly facilitating a growing number of climate delayers who are promoting an international wait-and-see strategy, a new diplomatic approach that is becoming increasingly fashionable among advocates of climate Realpolitik. -- Benny Peiser,
Financial Post, 26 November 2011
To grasp the almost suicidal state of unreality our Government has been driven into by the obsession with global warming, it is necessary to put together the two sides to an overall picture – each vividly highlighted by events of recent days. On one hand there is the utterly lamentable state of the science which underpins it all, illuminated yet again by “Climategate 2.0”, the latest release of emails between the leading scientists who for years have been at the heart of the warming scare. On the other hand, we see the damage done by the political consequences of this scare, which will directly impinge, in various ways, on all our lives. The scare over man-made global warming is not only the scientific scandal of our generation, but a suicidal flight from reality. --Christopher Booker,
The Sunday Telegraph, 27 November 2011
