“Present negotiating texts include radically different and mutually exclusive visions for emissions targets and how to secure them…”

Surprise surprise.

As for India’s "per capita emissions of greenhouse gases not exceeding those of the developed countries"...

LOL. Go India! I suppose the policy problem for the carbon self-flagellators is that those uppity third-worlders *will* keep insisting on living, and aspiring to food, clothing and shelter for their children, tsk tsk, if only we could dream up a social engineering scheme of world government to curb their populations.

What about my proposal: ask everyone in the west who’s in favour of cutting these evil wicked emission, and then make it illegal for them to use fuel, electricity, or anything else that might wound the earth with their sinful carbon footprint, starting with politicians and government-funded scientists calling for world government control of all human activity.

The Copenhagen gabfest is shaping up to be the grant festival of pious hypocrisy that reflects its origins in woolly thinking and anus-gazing vanity. “The wind blowing out my arse is so important the whole world depends on it.”

The climate parcel is indeed a hot potato and reminds one of the cartoon Peter Nicholson cartoon in The Australian:

http://www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au/cartoon_6801.html

The only way we can reduce our global carbon footprint is through economic equity - birth rates are lower in economically secure and secular nations. There is no need for brave new world approaches to population sustainability.

If Australia was to go through the ETS door first (and possibly last) then we might also re-think our obsession with free trade and impose an import tax equal to the level of carbon tax it will impose on local business.

While the developing nations seek to improve their standard of living, as they should, we should also reduce our own wasteful habits and live within our environmental means. Even the dissenting scientists agree that the planet would not cope with the excesses of the West being the norm across the planet. The West needs to do more, not less than developing nations.

In "Pass the climate parcel" Tim Wilson wrote 28 September 2009:

>International negotiations are like a game of political pass
>the parcel and every government is desperate to ensure
>they're not holding up negotiations when the music stops. ...

The Internet, plus some psychology may come to the rescue. I was telling at green ICT conference in Sydney last week about advancesd with smart phones and wireless netbooks: http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/online_collaboration_lowering_emissions/

Smart phones and netbooks are becoming cheaper and can replace a lot of desktop computer use. This will reduce the energy use (and therefore carbon emissions) of computers. This could reduce carbon emmissions about 1% overall in developed nations.

More significantly, access to wireless Internet could replace travel and physical goods. This could reduce carbon emissions by 25 to 50% by 2020. Unlike the construction of solar power plants or carbon capture on coal power stations, neither of which is feasible by 2020, an Internet rework of the economy is possible using equioment which is being purchased anyway.

Individuals are buying smart phones and netbooks. In addition the government is buying netbooks for school children and a national fibre network for Australia to connect them to. All we need to do is to teach people to use the technology to replace carbon polluting activities.