Mark Lynas, a journalist for The Guardian, was an eyewitness in Copenhagen who claims he watched China deliberately sabotage the climate deal that President Barack Obama tried to broker on Friday. China’s strategy all along was to make it look as if the U.S. and its western allies had failed the world’s poor once more according to Lynas, who writes:
The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful "deal" so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.
Mr. Lynas was attached to the Maldives delegation, observed and uncovered some very interesting tidbits of how China uses other countries as pawns to achieve their objectives to rule the next century. For example, Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who self-appointed himself spokesperson for the entire world’s downtrodden, called the climate agreement a “suicide pact”. However, according to Mr. Lynas, Sudan is nothing more than a rapscallion lackey for the Chinese, whose motives were anything but pure:
Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public.
Lynas goes on to say that Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jinbao disrespected Obama and the other world leaders by sending a surrogate to negotiate the deal, in one of the oldest negotiations tricks in the book, the old “I have to check with my boss” gimmick, according to Mr. Lynas:
What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country's foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world's most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his "superiors".
China then systemically roadblocked progress every step of the way and did their utmost to strip out all the most critical targets and numbers, making the deal essentially worthless. The only purpose China served that day was as an obstacle:
A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak "as soon as possible". The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks in every corner of the world.
On Tuesday, India continued to snub their nose at the developed countries that wanted to make a deal as Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh was elated that Brazil, South Africa, India and China, now referred to as the BASIC group, were able to thwart the “relentless efforts” of “rich” countries to impose legally binding carbon emission targets (God forbid we set goals to reduce pollution and harmful gases ).
Unfortunately, in a sign of things to come, the head of the United Nations panel on climate change Rajendra Pachauri asserted that the emergence of the BASIC countries will render developed nations impotent in crafting an agreement on climate change without them.
What seems even more perplexing is how China not only blocked the insertion of performance metrics to monitor and verify the progress of the BASIC nations, but was able to insidiously, not to mention remarkably, obstruct other countries from adding their own.
What is China’s motive? Lynas contests that China wants to weaken climate regulation because they have the most to lose, considering the foundation of their economy is cheap coal, and as China’s coal-based economy doubles every decade its power grows commensurately. Lynas concludes:
Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China's century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower's freedom of action.
Related Articles
Copenhagen Climate Summit leaves lasting impressions (photo essay)
Copenhagen Climate Plummet (Part 1): World leaders fall short of a binding accord
Copenhagen Climate Plummet (Part 2): Backlash of flawed agreement
Comments
The truth is that it's Western Europe and USA which have pumped out MAJORITY of the CO2 currently in the upper atmosphere.
So it's incumbent upon the CULPRITS to clean up their act and redeem themselves.
China has nothing to do with this whole mess!!
China's emission on a per capita basis is way behind even Holland! Let alone the wasteful Americans who drive SUVs and live in huge-ass houses.
The supposedly unbiased journalists of the West are nothing but old colonial imperialist mouthpieces.
Ask the American what did they bring to the table? 3 percent from 1990 level? Isn't this a joke ?
>No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen
China + India = 40% of the world population, clearly didn't want any deal. Enough said.
Maybe China isn't stupid enough to believe that destroying the economies of the US and Europe is in their best interest. I suggest an equally effective way of eliminating CO2. Smother all those breathers who want to eliminate harmless gases at my expense. Western Imperialist Shutup: CO2 is too heavy to make it to the upper atmosphere. It is absorbed by the ocean and plants. I bet you work for one of those hockey-stick labs.
In response to Western Imperials Shutup,
So instead you are in favor of penalizing America's success of the past 50 yrs? Isn't this the same successful model that China and India is adopting that drove their economic growth? What was holding China back the last 50 years which prevented their economy to enjoy prosperity and "pollute" the last 60 yrs. Oh that's right, a backwards economic model that discouraged personal property ownership and communistic government. They did not have the capability to develope like the US and now the US has to pay retributions for it's success? So in another 15 years when China is projected to have the largest economy (based on manufacturing and emitting greenhouse gases), is China required to pay for it's part to it's poorer neighbors (such as Vietnam) or Indonesia. Doubt it.
Thank you China.
obama does not need any help to humiliate himself all he has to do is open his mouth without a teleprompter in front of his face.
waaa the sky is falling, meanwhile Bernie madoff and his cronies in the federal reserve are robbing our economy blind. wake up!
After decades of topping the charts for carbon emissions and denying climate change, it is amazing to see how the Americans have turned into environmental activists willing to blame anyone (but themselves) for the problem that we have with global warming! Sudan is the appointed leader of the G77 group - it is its duty not to represent the Chinese only, but also the Indians, South Americans, and Africans! Your eyewitness is not honest Westerners! Why don't you ask him exactly why the Sudanese team objected to the deal thrown to them (and other developing countries) by the Danish Prime Minister?!!!
Quite in agreement with SteepW. China wants our dollars to buy their junk and trinkits sold at WallMart and in the mean time, blame US for its successes. China has always been an enemy of the Us and will always. We lost our manufacturing base to China and now China is producing the same and causing the pollution. I have been in China and seen it all.
One small step, I try not to buy any chinese goods unless I can not find it made by another country. Watch out America, the tiger is awake.
Western Imperialist SHUTUP.
YOU HAVE BROUGHT EARTH TO THIS STATE. YOU HAVE DONE IT> YOU FIX IT> SIMPLE.
The US and the Western European countries, as the empire and the colonialists, for two centuries have polluted the earth during their industrialization process and now all of a sudden they have become tree huggers. Their hypocrisy is both perplexing and amusing for everybody else sees them for who they are. To this day the "Western" countries their per capita emission is more than that of CHINA so they should first look at them selves before pointing fingers at others.
The writer of this article and the journalist of The Guardian are both very dishonest and not worthy as reporters. They are expressing their own biased opinions rather than objectively reporting the news. But....than again that is the media from the West. They falsify "news" to fit their own agendas and they exclaim their propaganda as the "truth." Well.... maybe THEIR truth, NO?!?
Guys, we are in this together. I am definitely very disappointed with China considering Obama is as close as we can get to making real changes today. To claim that "you messed it up and you should clean it yourself" is totally irresponsible. The truth is that the damage is done and we should work together to fix it. To only have western countries to clean it up while other countries to pollute it is totally insane! why would you want to make the same mistakes!
This could be the first example of how China would use their power to bully other countries. And it seems that they'll be better than the west in this!
Obama does a pretty darned good job of humiliating himself, as well as the American people, no assistance needed!
I will be surprise if China didn't counter back your hooligan's requirement. British ruined the world for 300 years and American are still ruining now. What did you say? Humiliate? Yes, you deserve the humiliation for yourself. Loser!
Yes, yes, the west is evil and China is wonderful; what with all that pollution, corruption and locking people up for 11 years for having opinions. They're great! You guys really have a sense of perspective. I now see the evils of representative democracy, individual liberty and multi-lateral environmental protection. How much does a blog spammer get paid by the party these days anyway? Do you get paid more or less if you're not spamming the BBC?
1> developed nations including America are the reason we have climate change. (80% of past emission stock)
2> while the Americans did not even sign kyoto the europeans who did sign it did not meet the targets accepted by themselves.
3> the waxman markey bill touted as america's response to the climate threat if implemented would see American percapita emissions 3 times above the 2005 world percapita average.
4> developping countries like India would have a percapita emission at least 4times less than the US in 2020, even if they kept growing without taking the emission intensity targets She has declared.
so in conclusion copenhagen was a failure but it was a failure when the developed countries failed to succeed the reductions implied under kyoto. this failure was furthur compounded by the total innaction of the US (waxman-markey is a waste of time compared to the required cuts.)
In such a situation it is the best option to bully the developping world to take large reduction :)
The small country of so-called united kingdom; who by the way needs to return Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland, let Scotland and Wales become fully independent Republics; has not done its share to protect the environment. The so-called brits are the filthiest and the ugliest peeps on earth and they need to shoot themselves in the head. All in the name of SAVING the environment!
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!