Accept it, Carbon Reduction is a Lost Cause: 2

Monday 7th December 2009:   "Copenhagen summit urged to take climate change action".

Yvo de Boer there tells us encouragingly that an unprecendented number of new countries are pitching in with positive action  -  like South Africa:  they've promised to  "reduce the rate of growth of carbon emissions by a third in the next decade".    

Did you you spot that ?   "reduce the rate of growth of  ... carbon emissions  ... by a third...".     Oh goody - so instead of their emissions increasing steeply as industry develops, they'll only now grow two-thirds as steeply.    Excellent.   Lots more toxic smog,  just two-thirds of the amount of extra smog toxic per annum, that was previously contemplated.  

It's this kind of double-talk  -  like China's new reductions in "carbon intensity"  -  i.e. increasing carbon emissions annually, but at a rate a bit less than industrial output grows   -  that devalues this whole enterprise.  

It's clear - and it's absolutely no surprise at all  -  that given every chance to look "green" while sidestepping the real, difficult action needed to actually reduce emissions from current or even 1990 levels,  every slippery politician on the planet will take the easy route.   From here on, expect to hear about a lot of  "...reduced rates [of growth].. of emissions.."  and "reduced carbon intensities".   All the way to the cosmic ashcan.  

Kyoto was meant to be committment to hard reductions targeted up to 2012.   The Americans trashed that by turning their back on it.   Now here they are again stitching up a deal to point onward to .... where ? 2020 ?   No doubt at that stage more brows will be furrowed, and more earnest calls to action made - in a scheme probably then targeting 2050. 

Obama has found a new way to insult the process, much more elegant in form that George Bush's  "we will do nothing that will damage the American economy".  He's going to pop in to Copenhagen...   but just for one day.   Then a little light shopping for gifts and off back home.     How more completely could he damage this event except by staying away altogether. 

Perhaps the subject will begin being taken seriously when Obama's and Hu Jin Tao's ankles start getting wet.