Cooling Down the Climate Zealots

The world can breathe a sigh of relief. Unnecessary economic destruction at the hands of climate zealots is likely to be averted at least another year. An international treaty to combat global warming almost certainly won't be reached this year, despite U.N. and climate change extremists' insistence that agreement on worldwide greenhouse gas emission limits must be reached at December's 190-nation climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark.

As proposed, the treaty would impose economy-crippling emission caps worldwide, and require billions in wealth transfers from developed nations like the United States to developing nations like China. The problem is, the world isn't going along with the plan. Neither is the climate cooperating.

"For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures," conceded BBC climate correspondent Paul Hudson.

Meanwhile, China and India, accounting for nearly a third of the world's population, have signed a deal saying they won't go along with a treaty that forces them to impose greenhouse gas emission limits, reported Investor's Business Daily. Other developing nations, including Mexico, Brazil and South Africa, also are likely to reject such a proposal.

Despite the fading likelihood of a legally binding treaty in Copenhagen, European heads of state are readying proposals for rich countries to "hand over around (100 billion Euros) a year to nations such as India and Vietnam by 2020 to help them cope with the impact of global warming...Such a move would leave the U.S.

with a bill running to tens of billions a year, unlikely to go down well in Washington," reported the U.K. Guardian.

That cost is likely to accelerate domestic U.S. opposition. Already, proposals to cap the nation's emissions are projected by the Heritage Foundation to make the U.S. $9.4 trillion poorer from 2012-2035. The cap-and-trade emission legislation pending in Congress would "ruin the U.S. economy and it wouldn't save the climate either" unless other nations enact similar measures, warned Dr. Steve Running, a co-author of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which calls for worldwide emission curbs.

In Great Britain, a proposed 80-percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 "could not possibly be achieved without shutting down almost the whole of our industrialized economy," wrote Christopher Booker in the U.K. Telegraph. Even the government concedes the annual 18 billion British pound price tag (about $29 billion) would "be twice the value of its supposed benefits."

The we-must-do-something-about-global-warming crowd is being reduced to much noise and fury, signifying not much. "Time is running out," implored Yvo de Boer, secretary-general of the U.N. climate change secretariat, urging that at least nations reach a political statement of principled agreement. "We do not have another year to sit on our hands. This deal must be done in Copenhagen."

It's fitting that 2009's hyped global warming campaign end with a gush of political hot air, rather than substance.

REPRINTED FROM THE KINSTON FREE PRESS.

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