CHINA CALLS DOHA ‘DEAD DEAL’

Doha delivers 'dead' deal on climate change

OP Rana, 2012 December 7, (China Daily)

“Doha was not supposed to throw up any surprises, and it didn't. The Kyoto Protocol, for all practical purposes, is dead…[T]he UN climate change conference in Doha has given it an unceremonious burial before it could fulfill most of its promises…[The climate talks] may have extended a plan to combat global warming until 2020. But in reality the deal will not be able to slow rising temperatures or prevent floods, droughts, heat wves or rising sea levels.

“The extended Kyoto Protocol is expected to compel about 35 industrialized nations to reduce GHG emissions. But the 15-year-old protocol has been weakened by the withdrawal of Russia, Japan, and Canada. The fact that the US never ratified the protocol means its remaining backers, led by the European Union and Australia, now account for only 15 percent of world's GHG emissions…”

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“The developed world (perhaps with the exception of the EU) had always been reluctant toaccept binding emission cuts, but until now it at least appeared to take measures to fight climate change and help poorer countries do the same. But Doha, for all its drawbacks, has helped pull the veil of pretensions off…There never was any doubt about the intentions of the US… There are too many powerful forces at play behind the scenes…in all the countries that have embraced the free market economy…

“…Profit is the language that the market understands, and market is the philosophy that most governments today follow…It is this philosophy, seeped in profit and endless greed, which has prevented the developed countries to provide the promised $100 billion to the poorest countries to adapt to and fight climate change. The ‘new deal’ struck in Doha indicates only $10 billion of the climate fund would be available every year, which is only half of what the developed countries had promised to give between 2013 and 2015…making what the conference organizers call a ‘Doha Climate Gateway’ nothing but a dead end as far as the future of the world as we know it is concerned…”

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