Hope? Not much. Change? More than you bargained for.
As Day 2 of the Copenhagen Climate Summit is wrapping up, we find that the United Nations declares the hacked emails unimportant.
“Nothing that has come out in the public as a result of the recent email hackings has cast doubt on the basic scientific message on climate change and that message is quite clear — that climate change is happening much, much faster than we realized and we human beings are the primary cause,” he said.
In addition to Ban Ki Moon’s declaration, we find there’s a leaked document, called the “Danish text” that is causing an uproar that is rippling through the summit as details show that it puts poorer nations at a disadvantage in the regulation of carbon emissions. (Complete “Danish text” can be found here.)
The United Nations President’s sentiments echoes those of our own President Obama.
From Obama’s press secretary:
The White House is shrugging off the Climate-gate e-mails.“I think there’s no real scientific basis for the dispute of (global warming),” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said this week.
To his science czar:
And Obama’s top science adviser, John Holdren, downplayed the e-mails Friday, telling Congress that the controversy involves a small group of scientists and how they have interpreted and shared global warming data.“It’s important to understand that these kinds of controversies and even accusations of bias and improper manipulation are not all that uncommon in science, in all branches of science,” he said at a congressional hearing.
John Holdren is right about one thing. It’s not uncommon in science to have controversies. However rarely does science describe itself as settled which is a theme that has been repeated over several years. There is no consensus in science. But, when you politicize science you get: Climategate.
And since it is politics the expose of the climate emails and data don’t matter.
Here is what matters to the politicians via the Times UK summary of the “Danish text.”
A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:
• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;
• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called “the most vulnerable”;
• Weaken the UN’s role in handling climate finance;
• Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.
And how do those developing countries feel about it?
Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.
“It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process,” said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.
Should they be upset? Apparently so since it’s “settled.”
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