Hopenhagen's dirty secret

By Pepe Escobar from the Asia Times

BEIJING - A November 21 caption on the cover of China Daily read, "Three women seem to dwarf the Bird's Nest [National Stadium] as they enjoy the winter sunshine and the blue sky on Friday. Beijing experienced its 260th blue-sky day in 2009 on Friday, reaching its target 41 days before the end of the year."

One might argue that the Chinese secret for climate control and reaching "targets" is that God is a card-carrying member of the Communist Party - and he has the "targets" of five-year plans to meet, just like anybody else (except "splittists"). God, of course, would not dream of becoming a splittist.

Only last month, no less than 1.34 million cars were sold across China. Now that's a greenhouse gas bonanza. Compare it to Beijing's new target of reducing per-unit gross domestic product carbon intensity by 40-45% from 2005 levels by 2020. What will they do with all these cars - exile them in North Korea?

Chinese businessmen, though, remain on target. Many have landed in Copenhagen for the United Nations climate change conference, and apart from sealing a smorgasbord of great new deals they have already made public their "dedication to exploring models of low-carbon economic growth".

Stretch limo from Kyoto
Congested by 1,200 stretch limos (and only five electric cars) and 140 private jets serving the real VIPs among the 15,000 delegates, 5,000 journalists and 98 world leaders gorging on rows of sustainable foie gras (plus free sex - courtesy of Copenhagen's 1,400-strong sex worker's union; talk about carbon dating ...), Copenhagen has been dubbed Hopenhagen. But reasons to be cheerful are slim.

Speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 countries and China, the Sudanese ambassador, Ibrahim Mirghani Ibrahim, has made it clear the North's maneuvers to circumvent the Kyoto protocol and at the same time to corner the South won't fly. Under Kyoto, adopted in 1997, the industrialized North had committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 5% against 1990 levels over 2008-2012. Everybody broke their quotas.
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