Bali

The Bali climate conference has been going on for a week now -- so how's it going?

Not very well.

The United States, leading GHG emitter in the world, refuses to even play ball. Thumbing their nose at the UN, they say they and their buddies will develop their own plan. It will most likely be a voluntary plan, if we know Bush, and we know how much good that has done over the last few years.

Now the Canadians (emissions up one-third since 1990) have said that if the US won't participate, we won't either. Everyone is worried about the other guy having an advantage.

The European Union has committed to binding emissions reductions of 20 percent by 2020. Left unsaid is why they can meet that goal when they couldn't meet their (more modest) Kyoto targets.

The developing countries are saying, don't look at us!

Al Gore wants to bypass governments all together and rely on "people power," which he likens to the ban-the-bomb movement of previous decades. Yes, we all know how well that worked.

Things don't look very good, do they?