> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: J.D. Giorgis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Verzonden: Geen
> Aan: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Onderwerp: Kyoto Really is Dead
> Here is an *opinion* piece from this week's Economist.
Ah yes, The Economist. The Voice Of Corporate America.
It doesn't surprise me that they write stuff like "Negotiators say they
saved the Kyoto pact this week in Bonn. They didn't really", and "only an
idiot couldn't see the flaws in it".
It would, after all, be bad for their sales figures if they would tell their
audience "hey, this is a good idea; you'll make less profit next quarter,
but the environment will benefit from it".
The Economist really has no other choice than to be like their audience, and
value the Sacred Quarterly Profits over anything else. Heaven forbid they'd
say something else...
> George Bush, the Toxic Texan, had all but killed the treaty by
> declaring it "fatally flawed". So when world environment ministers
> descended on Bonn to try to salvage the pact, its prospects appeared
> bleak. Yet somehow these heroes screwed their courage to the sticking
> place and refused to fail. They bargained and worked into the wee
> hours-all to save the endangered planet.
At least *they* TRIED to find a way to save the planet. Which is more than
can be said of the US, the country that is more interested in selfishly
protecting its own economy, than it is interested in saving the planet.
Can't blame them, really -- there are, after all, no short term profits to
be reaped from it. :-(
> Jan Pronk, the Dutchman who presided over the meeting, at one point
> locked negotiators in until they reached a compromise
Ah yes, our beloved Jan Pronk. Did you see the news footage from the end of
the meeting? When he walked onto the stage, he got a STANDING OVATION from
everyone. Everyone except the US negotiators, that is.
Obviously, everyone (again, except the US) thought he had done a great job,
making the meeting a successful one.
<The Economist mode>
That wasn't the reason! He got a standing ovation because he had done such a
great job making the US look stupid again!>
</The Economist mode>
> In a rhetorical question directed at America, Olivier Deleuze, the EU's
> chief negotiator, added sneeringly, "Does this protocol look fatally
> flawed?"
>
> Yes, actually, it still does-and only an idiot could fail to notice the
> flaw in question.
IMHO, the only idiot in this whole affair is the US. They made themselves
into outcasts by their standard practice of "these are our demands, and if
you don't give us everything we want, we will not sign the treaty".
It's about time the US gives its diplomats the revised edition of "The Art
Of Negotiating". You know, the one in which negotiating is described as "you
give some, you take some". The version currently in use by US diplomats
still says "diplomacy: make your demands, and if not all of them are met,
walk away and complain that the other guys only want to make you look
stupid".
> The Kyoto framework still fails to offer America anything approaching
> a sensible balance of cost and benefit.
Never heard of the concept "long-term thinking", it seems...
> This does not mean that Bonn achieved nothing. Europe conceded a far
> more flexible interpretation of Kyoto than expected;
Thereby showing that Europe possesses a trait unfamiliar to the US: the
trait of flexibility. This as opposed to the US which still supports the
rigid "if we don't get everything we want, we will not cooperate" doctrine.
> and it scored a delicious public-relations goal against Mr Bush.
Ah, so *that* is where John gets those ridiculous ideas that the rest of the
world is conspiring to make the US look stupid, and even seems to have made
that their only goal -- he copies them straight from the pages of The
Economist.
> But turn to hard-headed economics and you see what the price of that
> goal may be.
In the spirit of true capitalism, The Economist fails to see there is more
to this world then hard-headed economics.
> Bonn has not changed America's position one jot.
Of course it hasn't. The US is only interested in protecting the profits of
its industries; to change America's position, the rest of the world would
have to promise to pay billions (if not trillions) of dollars to US
industries in compensation for lost profits.
> Climate change, as a problem that knows no political borders, demands
> a global solution. Bonn leaves out the world's biggest emitter.
But only because the world's biggest emitter CHOOSE to walk out. Nobody
chased the US out of the room; the US is more than welcome to return to the
negotiating table -- all we ask is that you learn the definition of
"compromise" first.
> Yet the pact will impose costs on Europe's industries that will not be
> faced by their American (and maybe Japanese) rivals. Will they tolerate
> this?
Don't worry, we'll make the US pay. We'll just have to put extra import
tariffs on goods from the US, and charge extra for anything the US wants to
buy from Europe's industries.
> Many European businesses, including even BP (which spares no effort to
> cultivate a green image), were suddenly complaining that it would
> impose unfair costs on them.
And why is this unfair? It is unfair because the US, one of the world's
biggest polluters, doesn't want to pay for cleaning up the mess they made.
No, instead they say "we have the right to pollute all we want, and someone
else should pay for the clean-up job".
And then they are surprised when the rest of the world doesn't agree with
that...
Jeroen
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