Just weeks before a long-scheduled United Nations conference on world poverty, the U.S. and Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton have demanded hundreds of fundamental changes to an international agreement years in the making. Here’s the lede from the Washington Post:
UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 24 — Less than a month before world leaders arrive in New York for a world summit on poverty and U.N. reform, the Bush administration has thrown the proceedings in turmoil with a call for drastic renegotiation of a draft agreement to be signed by presidents and prime ministers attending the event.
To appeciate the enormity of the monkey-wrenching, you really have to look at the document (available here thanks to Talking Points Memo). Bolton and the U.S. bluntly refuse to co-operate with the United Nations regarding AIDS, debt relief, migration, disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation, the PeaceBuilding Fund, and the universality of human rights, among other issues.
But this blog barely has time to keep with enviro issues, far less international relations. So we’ll confine ourselves to a brief recapitulation of what Bolton did to the language regarding climate change.To better appreciate the vastness of the changes, we’ve translated the deletions into affirmative statements, and put them in capital letters.
"We DO NOT recognize that climate change is a serious and long-term challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the world. We DO NOT call for further technological and financial co-operation for the sustainable use and management of natural resources in order to promote sustainable production and consumption pattersn as a means of keeping the balance between the conservation of natural resources and the furtherance of social and economic objectives."
"We therefore WILL NOT resolve to undertake concerted global action to address climate change, including meeting all commitments and obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, the UNPCCC and other relevation international agreements, increase energy efficiency, technological innovation, and to initiate negotiations to develop a more inclusive international framework for climate change beyond 2012, with broader participation by both developing and developed countries, taking into account the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities."
We WILL NOT continue to assist developing countries…in addressing their adaptation needs relating to the adverse affects of climate change…
If there were any doubt whatsoever that the Bush Administration intends to do absolutely nothing about climate change, this has erased it.
Kit Stolz 