Bush Promotes Hillary's Policies
By Cliff Kincaid (12/19/07)
Some conservatives are insisting that the Bush Administration's capitulation to the global warming alarmists at the Bali, Indonesia U.N. Climate Change Conference was either meaningless or else a victory! Such claims represent knee-jerk apologies for the Bush Administration. The spin has got to stop. The sad fact is that Bush endorsed Hillary's position on climate change at the Bali event.
Let us read from the State Department website about what happened in Bali. “Climate change is a serious challenge, the scale and scope of which will require a global response,” it says. “The United States is committed to doing its part, working at home and abroad on a range of initiatives, to strengthen energy security and effectively address climate change. We are fully engaged in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and we are committed to developing an environmentally effective and economically sustainable post-2012 framework to address climate change.”
Now keep in mind that the evidence requiring such a “global response” just isn’t there. Nobody knows this better than Senator James Inhofe and his capable assistant, Marc Morano, who was at the Bali conference covering proposals for global taxes on the American people. They have consistently pointed out that the theory of man-made global warming is designed to increase government control over our economy and our lives through higher taxes and energy rationing.
Recall that the Bush Administration did not support ratification of the UNFCCC’s global warming treaty or Kyoto Protocol. The administration had been insisting that any plan to reduce emissions be voluntary and devised by individual nations rather than as a part of a global treaty. But now it is committed to a more “effective” treaty. This is said by some conservative bloggers to be a victory because the Bush Administration wants certain “developing” countries like China and India to be covered by this new international agreement. This is really a victory for the United Nations and the globalists.
The State Department response is something that could have come out of the Hillary Clinton Administration. Indeed, the statement seems designed to lay the groundwork for Hillary’s “Plan to Address the Energy and Climate Crisis,” which she issued on November 5. Climate change “is a global problem that requires a global solution,” she said, in words that could have been borrowed from the Bush State Department. Hillary also urged the U.S. to play “an active role in developing the post-Kyoto treaty,” which is what Bush has done. Like Bush, she wants China and India to be part of it.
The Bush Administration has issued a document boasting that, from fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2007, the U.S. Government will have devoted some $37 billion to global warming. It’s hard to believe that an Al Gore Administration would have spent much more.
But more money will be needed. “The United States remains firmly committed to enhancing the financing tools needed to address global climate change,” declared the U.S. representative at the “Meeting of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation. “This is U.N.-speak for shaking down the U.S. and other “rich” countries for more money. The actual title of the discussion was the “Financial Mechanism Fourth Review.” It was Agenda Item 5(a) at the conference for those interested in more of the excruciating details.
“Mr. Chairman,” said the U.S. representative, “We do note that there are varying perspectives regarding the level and nature of the funding necessary to mitigate and adapt to climate change.” Varying perspectives? This is apparently a reference to proposals for global taxes on the American people to pay for it. The Bush Administration didn’t even object to them. It treated them as valid and legitimate points of discussion.
“President Bush has proposed a new international clean technology fund to accelerate the uptake of clean energy technologies around the world, and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is reaching out to partners to further develop this concept,” declared Dr. Paula J. Dobriansky, Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs and Head of the U.S. Delegation, at the Bali conference. How much will this cost the American taxpayers? Nobody seems to know. But we do know that it is designed to facilitate more foreign aid spending on the rest of the world.
Remember that all of this is taking place as President Bush is staging a mostly phony “spending showdown” with Congress.
In terms of cost, Dobrianky’s office could not tell me how much the U.S. spent on the Bali conference. Labeled the “most enchanting travel and holiday destination in the whole world,” Bali has been called the “Ultimate island.” It is full of luxury five-star hotels and beachfront and ocean-view villas. Kuta, a resort town in Bali, has an atmosphere in which “Sex whispers in the tree leaves at night,” according to one account at Baliguide.com.
Dobriansky’s office couldn’t (or wouldn’t) tell me the names of the members of the U.S. delegation. I got a list of participants from the UNFCCC press office. It shows 136 official participants from the U.S., including many from Congress.
Appropriately enough, the list of U.S. participants included Susan Biniaz, an Assistant State Department Legal Adviser who has played a leading role in selling the Senate on the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Treaty.
It seems that one bad treaty deserves another.
Why did the U.S. even send an official delegation to the event? I guess it has something to do with Bush leaving a “legacy.” If so, a President Hillary or Obama will be happy to inherit it.
Cliff Kincaid
http://www.aim.org/aim_column/5991_0_3_0_C/
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