Gore: Evanglist On a Global Stage

Al Gore addressed a deeply engaged audience last night. He cautioned delegates: Don’t let your frustration and anger stop the process. Finish your work and leave a “hole” where you can drop in the U.S. after 2009. 

The US is terrified of being seen as the country that wrecked these talks, says Tony Juniper FOE International. They could face a world boycott.  

Just before 4 AM this morning, as negotiations continued, the U.S. delegation dropped a bomb into the negotiations. It insisted on language that divided the delegates. Maracelo Furtado of Greenpeace calls it deadly, and unfair to developing countries who were not the cause of climate change.  

Yesterday, the European Union delegates indicated that if there is no progress made at the UN Climate Change Conference, they will boycott the U.S. led major emitter’s conference in Hawaii in January 2008.  In mid-year, Japan will host a G-8 meeting. With Bush still in office in 2008, Japan is in the difficult role of acting as host to the US and other major emitting countries.

Japan needs to act with more courage. say some Ministers, to let the U.S. know its lethal role in Bali is not acceptable, now, or at the future conference Japan will host next year.