A forked tongue speaks in Bali
The Bali conference on climate change has begun; its goal is to establish a framework for negotiating a treaty which will pick up the slack when the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012. The US delegation and the White House have been making public pronouncements lately which seem to support the Bali initiative:
[The leader of the US delegation in Bali, Harlan] Watson said Monday that the US would openly discuss the possibility of a new international emissions reduction treaty, but that any binding commitments would need to cover those major developing economies as well. Leaders in China and India have said in the past that it is unfair to impose emissions restrictions on their rapidly growing economies as they attempt to lift hundreds of millions of their citizens out of poverty.
The US is certainly sounding the right notes; the US doesn't want to become any more of a pariah nation than it already is, and with the EU proposing a global cut in CO2 emissions by 50 percent, US obstructionism on climate change would stand in too sharp a contrast even for the anti-internationalists currently in the White House.
So, rather than openly deriding the Bali effort, the White House is instead using China and India as proxies to accomplish its goal of ignoring climate change and thwarting any efforts to stop it:
Officially, the US government says it wants to push in Bali for a climate protection "road map." But SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that this may not be true. US government officials are already attempting to coordinate with China and India to prevent binding emissions limits.
[...]
In the run-up to the Bali Climate Conference that opened Monday, the administration of US President George W. Bush established contact with representatives of the Chinese and Indian governments in an attempt to curb progress on climate protection initiatives.
As Gomer Pyle used to say, "Surprise, surprise, surprise!"
Here's how it will play out:
According to the source, Washington is hoping that the two greenhouse gas emitters will openly declare during the conference that they are unwilling to accept any binding limits on emissions of greenhouse gases -- at least not as long as the US is unwilling to do more or if the Western industrial nations do not provide them with more financial aid for climate protection initiatives. If successful, the US could use the tactic to prevent itself from becoming an isolated scapegoat if negotiations in Bali end in a stalemate.
The tactic will end with stern pronouncements from the White House that India and China are simply demanding too much in the way of handouts from the American taxpayer, and they'll harp about the unfairness of that manufactured unfairness for weeks (all the while ignoring the corporate handouts represented by the millions of American jobs exported to those same two countries).
If the Bush strategy continues, Bali won't accomplish any more than Kyoto did.