Runaway Climate Policy
It's Getting Hot in Herre

Last week, BushCo surprised a lot of folks (even Tony Blair) with the announcement of the formation of the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate, which "emphasizes the development and sharing of as-yet-unspecified new technologies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, rather than Kyoto-style emissions caps." Here's a few more details from The Guardian:

The six club members - China, Australia, Japan, India, the US and South Korea - will cooperate on the development, transfer and sale of clean technologies, to promote the efficient use of fuels. Technology that enables coal to be burned more efficiently and captures carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere is top of the agenda. The US, Australia and China are all big coal users and exporters. Alongside wind, solar, hydropower and geothermal power sources, new nuclear power facilities get equal billing, which will further dismay the environmental lobby. There are no targets and timetables for the delivery of any of the pledges and no carbon dioxide reduction targets. There is a hope that other nations will join the new club, which represents 45% of the world's population and nearly half of its energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The US alone accounts for 25% of the world's emissions. Japan, which has a binding 6% greenhouse gas reduction target under the Kyoto protocol, and China and India all emphasised yesterday their continued commitment to the treaty. A Chinese foreign ministry statement said the new pact complemented the Kyoto treaty and did not replace http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifit.

Reaction to this has been mixed, largely due to a) there aren't that many details involved in this announcement, b) despite few details, one detail that emerged was that there were to be no hard targets at capping CO2 emmisions, and c) BushCo doesn't have too much trust in the climate change-concerned community. But that didn't stop the BushCo apologist bloggers over at the conservative Powerline blog from spilling their KoolAid as they rushed to their keyboards to type the following out:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile. Hyperbolic? Well, maybe. But consider Bush's latest master stroke: the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. The pact includes the U.S., Japan, Australia, China, India and South Korea; these six countries account for most of the world's carbon emissions. The treaty is, in essence, a technology transfer agreement. The U.S., Japan and Australia will share advanced pollution control technology, and the pact's members will contribute to a fund that will help implement the technologies. The details are still sketchy and more countries may be admitted to the group later on. The pact's stated goal is to cut production of "greenhouse gases" in half by the end of the century.

Now, I am a firm believer in advancing technology to help both conserve energy consumption and reduce C02 emissions. And the basic premise of this multi-lateral agreement is something I could potentially get behind. But until BushCo starts to use any political capital to do more than just offer tax subsidies to oil and nuclear power companies in the much vaunted Energy Bill from last week, I would reiterate my points b) and c) from above.