Greenpeace activists arrived in climate emergency vehicles, including squad cars from the “Climate Crime Unit” and an ambulance from the “Climate Emergency Response Unit.”  Ascending 25-foot ladders, they wrapped the building with yellow caution tape. In a statement, Greenpeace statement detailed the charges against the U.S. Chamber: misleading the public about climate change, stalling action on climate protections and energy legislation and holding the international climate talks hostage. While the Chamber claims to support climate and clean energy legislation, it spends millions of dollars lobbying against any proposed bills.

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Now it can sit back, relax and watch the action from a coffee shop outside the United Nations conference, content that its efforts to derail U.S. climate policy have effectively hamstrung the international negotiations,” writes Jim Hoggan in a post on Daily Kos that details the Chamber’s history of undermining meaningful action on climate change.

Hoggan, author of Climate Cover Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming, reviews some of the Chamber’s climate change-related stances and activities, including their recently issued white paper mocking the efforts and intentions of world leaders and citizens who want a strong, binding global agreement as soon as possible.

The report, telling titled “The Prospects for Copenhagen: More Realism Can Smooth the Way,”[PDF] begins this way:

“As this year’s negotiations wind their way to a conclusion in Copenhagen, Denmark, the prospect of a new international deal is not very bright, and it is not hard to see why.”

The report goes on to offer reasons why strong emissions reductions will just be too hard to do; it includes this highlight:

“Developing countries contend that as developed countries are responsible for most of the build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide (a debatable claim), they should go first with emissions cuts of at least 40% to 45% below the 1990 level by 2020 and 80% to 95% below by 2050.”

That skeptical message, Hoggan points out, echoes their 2005 report about the Kyoto Protocol, in which they talked about the expense and difficulty of attempting to stabilize the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere “if proven necessary.”

As Hoggan puts it: “Different year, different treaty, same message.”

- Suzanne Bopp

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