You might not know it from media reports and the self congratulation of advocates but Bali was a bust.

The Bali global warming talks ended in nothing, but that didn't stop European leaders from pointing to the bright side: the U.S. was booed.

Here's Wash Post:

"As we saw in the room today, the political price for blocking things has come up in recent months," said Connie Hedegaard, the Danish climate and energy minister, whose government will host the 2009 treaty talks.

Hedegaard was referring to boos the U.S. representative got after rejecting emissions reductions goals and timetables.

But having diplomats boo each other would seem to indicate a new nadir, not a new peak, in climate negotiations. (At least WWF's climate head was honest, acknowledging that, "in the process, we lost substance.")

The truth is that those countries that ratified Kyoto haven't any more reduced their emissions than the U.S. Those countries that have did so for reasons other than global warming (coal miner's strike in the UK and collapse of East Germany industry after reunification). EU leaders will try to show a decline in total emissions by counting those emissions that Russia would have brought on line had its economy not tanked after the fall of Communism.

There may be a political price for declining to join in this charade. More's the pity. Though there is great uncertainty about the consequences of growing GHG concentrations it is perfectly clear that those who are exploiting this concern are doing less than nothing. That's politics, it seems.

In truth the emissions increases of Europe and the US are worse than stated. They have off-shored the majority of their increases to developing countries. They import finished goods produced using older and dirtier technologies. In a sense those emissions can be attributed to developed countries too, and even if this attribution is disputed the fact remains that the emissions happened and will be in our shared atmosphere for as much as a century.

Here's an even worse example of political idiocy.

in a historic moment that involved developing countries taking a united stand against the US, who blocked progress over the two weeks of the talks, a deal was agreed to. The memorable moment came when, in midst of discussions on the level of financial commitment required from developed nations on assisting technology transfer, Papua New Guinea's represnetative, Kevin Conrad said defiantly to the US “If you cannot lead, leave it to the rest of us. Get out of the way”.

The US conceeded. . .

Some feel that removal of the numerical reference from the text means that the Bali roadmap lacks substance, whereas others say that what is important here is having an agreement that includes all nations – and that has an end date for negotiations after the current US administration leaves office.

Whether Bali has only succeeded in bringing the world’s largest emitter back to the table at the expense of achieving real emissions reductions remains to be seen.

Bali didn't succeed in anything. Fortunately. And as the author, political activist Olive Heffernan crows, it's really about the US presidential elections rather than climate change. There's a BDS epidemic and Bali was a hot spot.

Climate change isn't a political problem. No benefit can possibly come from a global agreement. The issues are technology and economics, and that is something that only requires effort from true world leaders: mainly the US, China and India. While Europe dithers - pretending to care while increasing its emissions and hiding much more - a focused effort by the large and vigorous societies to develop cheaper and cleaner energy systems would go far. The tiny, and illusory, emissions cuts Europe advocates are less than useless.

It really doesn't matter what Europe thinks or does. They aren't on the bus. This is a problem for big players in the world, those that have the intellectual and economic energy to make a difference, and a forward looking attitude that enables them to engage with the future rather than hide from it. Europe is sliding into senescence and just wants to sit in a chair and drool. It is up the the younger and more vital societies to do and decide.