AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALIA

The Australian, Dec. 19: The climate change conference conformed to the two universal rules of meetings — the more people involved, the less chance of agreement on anything practical. And the people with the smallest stake always make the most mischief. Even with the statement that was expected to be stitched together overnight, the conference constituted two wasted weeks that will make no dramatic or early difference to global greenhouse gas emissions. And while the green extreme argues that this is the fault of the developed economies, the reality is that they never got a chance to hammer out a deal on behalf of all the people on the planet.

Hijacked

Copenhagen failed because it was hijacked by participants with other agendas — especially underdeveloped nations, including the Africans. While no one really knows what the impact of global warming will be on individual countries, poor nations have used it as an opportunity to extract more aid from the developed world. Not that they need help to reduce their carbon emissions. Given the incompetence of many African governments, their people do not have access to electricity at all, let alone rely on large and polluting power plants. Rather, the continent’s main sources of carbon output are entirely natural, animals, fires and the occasional volcanic eruption — which all the aid in the world will not stop.

And so the Africans tried to turn Copenhagen into a summit on world poverty and ways to expand their economies with green energy, using climate change as leverage to seek more money from donor nations — including China. Certainly there is a case for the developed world to fund developing nations’ mitigation and abatement efforts, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has agreed to a $US100 billion-a-year climate finance fund for them, if China agreed to international verification of its pollution-fighting efforts, But handing over “compensation” for wrongs done in the distant colonial past, without proper reporting of what the money is be used for, will only perpetuate the aid-dependency and its attendant corruption that has trapped large parts of the developing world in penury.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Khaleej Times, Dubai, Dec. 22: The news of a dozen Guantanamo detainees being returned to their home countries is welcome.

While it denotes progress on the detention closure front, it also highlights the challenges the returning detainees are likely to pose. US President Barack Obamas efforts to meet the deadline of January end next year is likely to be extended. It may be for technical reasons, complicated Congressional requirements and placement of an alternative judicial recourse to deal with ?the detainees.

As part of the closure plans, the US has been engaged with governments that are willing to take back their nationals. Washington was hoping to send at least 116 of the detainees back before January. The ones shortlisted for repatriation are mainly suspects who, due to inconclusive evidence, could not be charged, even after being illegally detained for years and having undergone extreme interrogation. Strangely, while the majority of detainees to be repatriated are cleared by the US, many have been refused entry into their home countries.