Year 2, Month 8, Day 20: Nothing To See Here. Move Along, Folks.

The August 3 Chicago Tribune reports on low expectations for the upcoming Durban conference:

WELLINGTON, Aug 2 (Reuters) – Major climate talks in South Africa at year-end will be unlikely to strike agreement on a new pact, but will be important in determining the shape of
long-term efforts to tackle climate change, a senior U.N. climate official said on Tuesday.

The future of the Kyoto Protocol, the existing U.N. plan which obliges about 40 industrialised nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions until 2012, is widely seen as under threat. Japan, Canada and Russia have said they will not extend it, while the United States never signed up to it.

La de da de da de da de da….

Sent August 3:

How low our hopes have fallen! The international community is still meeting in Durban to address the complexities of climate change — and while nobody expects anything to actually, you know, happen, the good news is that representatives of the world’s nations will all be there mouthing platitudes at one another. Given that the overwhelming consensus of the scientists who actually know what’s going on with the planet’s climate is that runaway climate change poses a civilizational threat to our species, this diplomatic dithering is a pathetic substitute for the concerted worldwide action that is necessary. Eventually, of course, we’ll learn that they’ve agreed to a template for developing a process to organize a protocol for establishing a framework for beginning negotiations on the elements that need to be included in a new emissions treaty to replace the Kyoto Agreement. And that will be our good news for the day.

Warren Senders