Durban Climate Conference: The Dream Fades

Things don’t look promising for the perennial climate confab which convenes in Durban, South Africa today. There is little chance of extending the expiring 1997 Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Kyoto has turned into a giant international scam that has already wasted hundreds of billions, with little to show for it; in fact, the increase in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases has been accelerating. What brings nearly 200 delegations together is a dream—the forlorn hope that developed nations who have ratified the Protocol will come up with a $100-billion-per-year aid program. This is supposed to allow developing nations to adapt to the putative climate disasters that the IPCC, the U.N.’s climate-science panel, has been predicting for more than 20 years. The U.S., which never ratified Kyoto, is expected to supply the lion’s share of this subsidy. Fat chance; just look at the polls and listen to the statements from leading Republican presidential candidates who denounce these disaster predictions as “hoax” and “poppycock.” But the 10,000 or so Durban attendees—official delegates, U.N. and government officials, journalists, NGO types, and other hangers-on—will have a grand old time: two weeks of feasting, partying, living it up in luxury hotels, and greeting old friends at this 17th reunion—all at someone else’s expense. Statesmen will arrive on the last day to sign important-sounding communiqués and quickly depart before having to explain just how they will “save the climate” and humanity...more