Americablog: Bush Climate Change Conference A Complete Failure

[Hissyspit]

http://www.americablog.com/2007/10/bush-climate-change-conference-complete.html

Bush climate change conference a complete failure
by Chris in Paris · 10/02/2007 11:26:00 PM ET

You know things are bad when you can't even find one other country to say anything good about your big event. Besides Bush's "new approach" which is really the "old approach" that the GOP has talked about for years despite having been rejected by just about everyone outside of the GOP, he failed miserably again in finding anyone to support his half baked climate change plan. When you can't even get China and India to join in, you know you have problems.

The conference, attended by more than 20 countries, including China, India, Britain, France and Germany, broke up with the US isolated, according to non-Americans attending. One of those present said even China and India, two of the biggest polluters, accepted that the voluntary approach proposed by the US was untenable and favoured binding measures, even though they disagreed with the Europeans over how this would be achieved.

A senior European diplomat attending the conference, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the meeting confirmed European suspicions that it had been intended by Mr Bush as a spoiler for a major UN conference on climate change in Bali in December.

"It was a total charade and has been exposed as a charade," the diplomat said. "I have never heard a more humiliating speech by a major leader. He was trying to present himself as a leader while showing no sign of leadership. It was a total failure."

John Ashton, Britain's special envoy on climate change, who attended the conference, said: "It is striking here how isolated the US has become on this issue. There is no support among the industrialised countries for the proposition that we should proceed on the basis of voluntary commitments.

Just like Iraq. Just like Katrina. Just like the economy. You name it, everything Bush and the GOP has tried to tackle has become a disaster.

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. He has been a failure at everything he's undertaken (or, been given)

his whole life - why anyone would ever expect a different outcome is beyond me.

Don't forget - the definition of insanity is going the same thing over and over and expecting different results. We've had 7 straight years of failure....so can expect the remainder of his so called misadministration to be just a continuation of the same laughable, pathetic "efforts" (after all, it IS hard werk...)

[dysfunctional press]

2. an example of why voluntary measures don't work-

here in illinois, it is illegal for a car dealer to be open on sunday.

guess who pushed for this law...?

car dealers.

they wanted to be able to giver their sales people a day off- but if some dealerships were open, the others felt that they HAD to as well, or be at a competitive disadvantage. so they pushed for the state legislature to mandate by law one day a week when NO car dealerships were open.

why they chose sunday, instead of say, monday or tuesday is beyond me- most people with "regular" jobs really only have weekends to car shop. that law cut their available shopping time in half.

likewise- as long as one company doesn't "voluntarily" cut emissions, the others won't either.