No Oil for Pacifists: Copenhagen Status Check

New York Times: "China and the United States were at an impasse on Monday at the United Nations climate change conference here over how compliance with any treaty could be monitored and verified."

BBC: "Negotiations at the UN climate summit have been suspended after developing countries withdrew their co-operation."

Heritage Foundation:

These poorer nations demanded that richer nations sign a treaty that includes a large transfer of wealth to the developing world to compensate for the developed world’s historical contribution to global warming. The G-77 countries ended their walkout after less than two hours, perhaps because global warming has had no apparent impact on December Copenhagen temperatures.

Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post:

Among the tens of thousands demonstrating outside the climate change summit, some were carrying giant clocks set at 10 minutes to midnight, indicating the imminent end of the world. Elsewhere, others staged a "resuscitation" of planet Earth, symbolically represented by a large collapsing balloon. Near the conference center, an installation of skeletons standing knee-deep in water made a similar point, as did numerous melting ice sculptures and a melodramatic "die-in" staged by protesters wearing white, ghost-like jumpsuits.

Danish police arrested about a thousand people on Saturday for smashing windows and burning cars, and on Sunday arrested 200 more (they were carrying gas masks and seem to have been planning to shut down the city harbor).

EU Referendum:

As reported by Reuters -- with a slight correction: "The head of the Asian Development Bank (ADP), Haruhiko Kuroda, warned governments that a failure to reach a climate deal in Copenhagen could lead to a collapse of the carbon market, which would hit efforts to ~~deal with climate change~~ make carbon traders very rich."

It helps of course to know that Mr Kuroda is best known in greenie circles for setting up the ADB Advisory Group on Climate Change -- chaired by millionaire businessman Rajendra K. Pachauri, part-time chairman of the IPCC.

The Daily Telegraph:

The world has only seven years before climate change causes a "point of crisis" that will drive food shortages, terrorism and poverty, the Prince of Wales has warned.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the ministerial segment of the Copenhagen climate conference, the Prince said the "survival of the species" was in peril. . .

The Prince, who flew in by private jet, joined Arnold Schwarzenegger the Governor of California and Al Gore, the former US Senator, who also flew in to add impetus to the talks.

The Daily Telegraph:

The world must take action on climate change at Copenhagen even if the science is not correct, Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister has suggested.

Following the 'climategate scandal', Mr Blair said the science may not be "as certain as its proponents allege".

But he said the world should act as a precaution against floods, droughts and mass extinction caused by climate change, in fact it would be "grossly irresponsible" not to.

Ron Bailey in Reason magazine:

I spent the day waiting with thousands of others in subfreezing cold to try to get into the proper building to obtain credentials for the official United Nations Climate Change Conference. I clocked about five hours in line while my housemate, in town representing a Colorado NGO, waited 10.5 hours and was also turned away. The conference chaos makes one wonder how anyone expects the U.N. to run the world's climate if it can't manage a queue?

Korea Times: