Climate Change: China Has Obama Right Where They Want Him

If you take this at face value, all I can say is that you heard it here first. This, however, could also be viewed as a savvy pre-emptive move on the part of the Chinese. They know that Western governments, the US in particular, are pining away for a perceived success (IMO a real success is impossible) and they can hold out the prospect of failure as a bargaining chip to secure very favorable terms for China. Last year at this time, it looked like it would be the Europeans that had the most riding on success at Copenhagen. Several European countries had already embarked on "greening" their economies, which in essence meant that they imposed inefficiency and uncompetitiveness on themselves, and they were looking to drag the rest of the world toward greater inefficiency with them to regain some competitiveness. A year later, after a pro-growth result in the German election and a nascent but fagile recovery emerging in Europe, leaders have backed off the importance of Copenhagen. Moreover, the Euros have been dumping the onus and responsibility on Barack Obama, setting him up to take the blame if the confab fails. Global warmism is already a big focus for loyal Obama supporters in the US and a major policy plank of his administration. Thus we are left with really only one major world leader who is significantly invested in a success at Copenhagen, Barack Obama. (I'm discounting Gordon Brown from this by virtue of his irrelevancy, although he needs a win, any win.) Furthermore that leader, recent events on the world stage have shown, is prone to make bad deals, to give tangible things up for promises and/or nothing at all or for the sake of appearances. The Chinese know this, and could be setting Obama up for making a deal that is very good for the Chinese regardless of how good it is for the US or the climate.

UPDATE:  Obama isn't going.  This is the one intelligent thing I've seen him do in months.  He isn't taking the bait and knows that there is no deal to be had, why should he go?