Sunday, December 20, 2009

The Climate Summit

This "deal" is a disappointment and a major failure if there happen to be future generations of humans. I attribute this mainly to the current economic problems: no one wants to pay more than a nominal price to solve this right now.
 
As to the Chinese, they have good reasons to play hardball on this. They are relatively poor still, and have done relatively little to contribute to the underlying problem, even though they are now the largest annual contributors to it. On the other hand, in 2010 they will snatch from us our lead in wind power generation, currently the most viable alternative energy. Also, they are making a huge effort to become the world leader in solar energy. Thus, for reasons of pride and economic competitiveness, they are engaging on the climate change issue on their own terms just as we are. They despise international coercion about as much as we do since they consider themselves the other superpower.

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