Means exactly the opposite that this guy thinks:
The first week of every COP meeting consists of posturing, speeches, protests, and NGO reports. Everything of significance to the treaty is announced late in the meetings, often on the last day, after a flurry of last-minute negotiations. Coming to Copenhagen at the climax of the talks, specifically to push negotiations “over the top,” as the White House statement says, is a risky move for Obama. He’s got skin in the game now; he’ll look foolish if he rides in at the last minute and fails to broker an agreement.
If he’s willing to stick his neck out like this, Obama must be pretty confident that he can get a deal. There have been signs of momentum for weeks now. The much-discussed deal with China was just one in a raft of commitments from the developing countries, including India and Brazil. Movement from the developing world has undercut one of U.S. conservatives’ principal arguments for inaction. Over 65 world leaders have pledged to attend.
Au contrare, The president’s delay signifies exactly the opposite.
Right now the Climategate scandal is still in the “discovery” phase. No matter how much the left wants to paint it as watergate, it is more aken to the Pentagon Papers. Support for the religion of Global warming has dropped like a rock. What more might come in over the course of those 9 extra days?
The delay gives him several advantages:
1. He is able to react to new news with either better prepared spin or rightous indignation depending on what is revealed.
2. When no significant deal occurs (almost certainly) he can make the case that he tried but couldn’t manage to make a last minute win, he just didn’t have the time, particularly since he had to devote so much attention to pressing domestic issues.
3. If some kind of significant deal does come out of it (very unlikely) he can take credit by his last minute arrival being just enough to save the day.
This is purely political, he knows that in 2012 he isn’t going to have to worry about the left. For all their talk they are not going to vote republican nor are they willing or able to counter the race card that will be played against them if they refuse to support or turn out for him.
This is strictly face saving, enough of a presence to take credit if it is due while little enough to avoid blame.
Of course I could be totally wrong and he might still have the Olympic hubris that he did before, but with his polls below 50% I doubt it. I can’t believe he could be that foolish, but you never know.
Update and for those of you who are pooh poohing this scandal consider the following:
The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.
and the polls in charge of all the money that will be taxed and spent over this nonsense are not happy:
The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics.
Quieting skeptics is more important than seeking fact it seems. Especially now that the US’ own point man before congress made an inadvertent admission:
But when asked about some of his own extreme statements and predictions, Holdren replied that scientific research had moved on from the latest UN assessment report in 2007. The most up-to-date scientific research was contained in a report written by some of the world’s leading climate scientists and released last summer. Holdren mentioned and referred to this report, Copenhagen Diagnosis, several times during the course of the hearing.
I remember when Copenhagen Diagnosis came out because nearly every major paper ran a story on it. Global warming is happening even faster than predicted, the impacts are even worse than feared, and that sort of thing. I also remembered that the authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis included many of the usual conmen who are at the center of the alarmist scare. So I asked my CEI colleague Julie Walsh to compare the list of authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis with the scientists involved in Climategate.
I’m sure it will come as a shock that the two groups largely overlap. The “small group of scientists” up to their necks in Climategate include 12 of the 26 esteemed scientists who wrote the Copenhagen Diagnosis. Who would have ever guessed that forty-six percent of the authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis belong to the Climategate gang? Small world, isn’t it?
We can’t wait, we can’t wait! How different does this sound than a used car salesman struggling to keep a buyer who spotting something odd under the hood on the lot?
Update 2: Roger Simon tosses a piece of reality on the subject as well.
