Wheels Coming Off the Enviro-Left’s Climate Bandwagon?

Posted November 28th, 2008 at 9.51am in Energy and Environment.

Sen. John Kerry at Democratic National Convention (Photo by Paul J. Richards/Newscom)

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) is heading to Poznan, Poland, next week to take part in the U.N. climate talks being held there. Kerry will serve as one of several congressional emissaries who have been charged with reporting back to President-elect Barack Obama.

But just as Kerry tells Grist magazine that he hopes the talks will lay tracks for the much heralded Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen next December (where the successor to Kyoto is expected to be hammered out), the wheels appear to be coming off of the European Union’s own climate package.

Lord Nicholas Stern, a British economist and leading climate change spokesperson, told the New York Times that he hopes Europe isn’t, “going flaky.” The NYT had reported earlier that a bloc of Eastern European nations, led by Poland and Italy, was rebelling against commitments made in a climate and energy package negotiated just last year. Stern also, however, told the Wall Street Journal he remains hopeful that good things will come out of the meetings in Poznan.

Meanwhile, the rebellion against more stringent climate goals by several E.U. member states comes at just the wrong time for those on the American enviro-left.

As the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry is positioned to help navigate any future international climate change treaty through the Senate. Of course, he and others (including Obama) are surely hoping to point to continuing progress in the E.U. as evidence that the United States, too, should charge ahead on tackling climate change, hard economic times be damned.

Will a bloc of European countries increasingly concerned about damaging their economies dig in their heels, and weaken the E.U.’s hand in the climate talks? Or will the promise of tough new emissions reduction targets in the U.S. be enough to sway any skeptics?

Keep your browser pointed to this blog, as I hope to report live from the climate talks next week, if I can obtain a press pass.

Mr. Bell is a U.S. Fulbright Fellow to Austria, and MPA student at Seattle University.

Author: Patrick Bell
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8 Comments

November 28, 2008 Ali A. Akbar, Savannah, Georgia writes:

Patrick, keep us in the loop. They’ll try and sneak this one by us.

November 29, 2008 Poco Marajeta writes:

What makes a bigger Carbon Foot Print offset, Kerrys big mouth or his Trans Atlantic Flight? Gotta be a even drawl there I think.

December 1, 2008 Delfin J Beltran MD writes:

The entire arguement that carbon dioxide is a significant cause of “global warming’ is completly without valid, provable basis. The arguement is specious, prejudical and morally corrupt. This valid concept renders all secondary arguement, pro or con without the bounds of reason. The continued propagation of flagrant falsehoods designed to promote the importance of the perpetrators is not worthy of exposure or arguement not directed at the core dishonesty of continued existance of the prevarication.

December 1, 2008 Duane Phinney Pensacola FL writes:

This has nothing to do with global warming, it’s all about money.
No one has to cut back on anything, just pay for the credits, like Al Gore and produce all the CO2 you want.

December 1, 2008 Bob R writes:

As a geologist with considerable knowledge of past climates, I could not believe any rational, supposedly smart person could take the Kyoto Protocols seriously. About a thousand climate scientists enjoying large research grants have been trying to make a model that would predict future climates. The objective of this research is to place the blame on human additions of CO2 as the cause of Global Warming. Ridiculous claims of dangerous warming has been made of our present level of CO2 in our atmosphere (390 ppm). An insignificant fraction of 1% is touted as a cause for alarm! Peer revied scientific studies have shown conclusively that in past climates, where known amounts of more than 10 times the present
CO2 content of our air, has been detrimental to life on this planet. The false claim that all scientists agree that 390 ppm is very bad has been “blown out of the water” by a petition to congress in May of ‘08. This petition, signed by over 31,000 US scientists, says that C02 is not
a problem. (See )

December 1, 2008 Bob R writes:

I stand by my claims above. I have been researching paleoclimates ever since the Kyoto Protocols of over 10 years ago. I have read the review paper summarizing the results of 132 peer reviewed articles on the subject. “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbpm Dioxide” by Drs. Arthur B. and Noah E. Robinson and Willie Soon of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, devastating to the pseudo-science of Global Warming.

December 1, 2008 Thomas Gray South Carolina, writes:

Bob R,,
Yes but if the government can install a TAX on all emissions the government gets to spend all the money, and if the sheepel keep electing these people into office all we can do is try to keep the TRUTH on the front burner. try not to get discouraged, Tom.

December 3, 2008 Ken A. writes:

Question: Can the use of CNG in large vehicles help and is it a feasible alternative? I hear, yes, but I’m seeing the interest wane.

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