So the Climate Conference in Durban ended, and it could only be described as an Epic Fail. The Sociopathy of politicians from powerful countries is becoming more and more obvious, when you look at how many people do want something done, and have spoken loudly and clearly as to WHY something needs to be done. Here’s a small sample:
Abigain Borah from the Youth Climate Delegation
Anjali Appadurai also from the Youth Climate Delegation
Karl Hood Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States
Claudia Salerno from Venezuela
And here’s a wrapup of that clusterfuck: U.S. Delay on Climate Pact Spurs Backlash From the EU to Barbados
To sum it all up: we’re fucked unless every US politician over 30 drops dead tomorrow or China and the US get wiped off the surface of the planet in the near future
Or shorter still: we’re definitely fucked.
That’s what everyone expected from the beginning. I wonder how many of the negotiators were there to do something rather than just to hang out together and visit South Africa.
My hope is on the spread of energy-saving technologies (like LEDs) and renewable energies. Governments defending their national interests against each other are only capable of going anywhere when they’re scared shitless, as the recent EU summit shows: it’s either “baby steps towards fiscal union and fuck you, Cameron” or imminent economic collapse, so the former happened.
Maybe rating agencies are better scaremongers than climatologists. If so, there’s hope that the climatologists could somehow learn from the rating agencies or somehow acquire similar nebulous amounts of nebulous power or whatever. If not, a climate summit with actual results will only happen shortly before the evacuation of Bangladesh.
Correction: sometime around the last minute, everyone at the conference (anyway including the US, the EU, China and IIRC India) agreed to negotiate a binding treaty till 2015 and implement it till 2020. Oh, and, the Kyoto Protocol will be continued till that happens. Pathetic as it is, that’s way more progress than I expected.
Funnily, the next climate summit will be held in Qatar, the country with the highest per-capita CO2 emissions.
Oh, and, Nick Clegg has jumped on the “fuck you, Cameron” bandwagon. Was quite a sight to see. :-) Unfortunately, the majority of Britons is with Cameron so far.