HOW DOES THE SMARTEST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE MULTIVERSE...:

Climate Pact Falls Short (JEFFREY BALL, STEPHEN POWER and ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON, 12/18/09, WSJ)

One of the toughest issues involved a power struggle between the U.S. and China over how closely developing countries would allow industrialized nations to monitor their compliance with any voluntary emission-reduction pledges they make.

That issue was front and center in the meeting Friday evening among leaders of the U.S., China, India, Brazil and South Africa, said Sergio Serra, Brazil's climate ambassador.

Earlier in the afternoon, President Obama had met with leaders of European and other countries to strategize about "what he was going to go do in making a last run at Premier Wen," according to a senior administration official. "They decided that, if they went to Wen and they couldn't get an agreement," they would still aim for an agreement that would lead countries "to continue to make progress toward something in the future."

Afterward, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to what they thought was a meeting with Mr. Wen, only to discover when they were ushered in that the leaders of India, Brazil and South Africa also were there, the official said.

President Obama and Secretary Clinton suggested in the meeting that the agreement specify countries agree to subject their emission-reduction progress to examination by other countries, said Brazil's Mr. Serra.

...get rolled so often?

MORE:
World leaders try to save face with 11th hour deal - but officials admit it's 'not enough to tackle global warming' (Jason Groves and David Derbyshire, 18th December 2009, Daily Mail)

Climate change talks descended into farce tonight after world leaders claimed they were close to signing a 'meaningful agreement' - but admitted it was not enough to tackle global warming.

After hours of acrimonious talks in Copenhagen, American sources said world leaders had finally agreed a fudged deal in the hope of saving face. [...]

Earlier the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez dubbed the marathon summit 'Nopenhagen'. [...]

There had been hopes that President Barack Obama would rescue the talks with a pledge of higher carbon dioxide cuts in the US when he flew in to the Danish capital yesterday.

But he arrived empty handed and launched a thinly veiled attack on China's refusal to allow international monitoring of its promised future carbon cuts claiming 'without such accountability, any agreement would be empty words on a page'.

He added: 'While the science of climate change is not in doubt, I think our ability to take collective action is in doubt right now, and it hangs in the balance.'

It emerged that China's Premier Wen Jiaboa had not attended any of the leaders' meetings.

Chinese sources said he was very offended by President Obama's speech and found it 'humiliating'.

Great, a meeting where Hugo makes the most sense...

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 18, 2009 10:25 PM