PDF《Editorial - Beyond the Little》

http://www.

ias.uwa.edu.au/new-critic/eleven/ritter

1 Editorial - Beyond the Little Mermaid Issue 11, March

2010 | David Ritter Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen Friendly old girl of a town '

Neath her tavern light On this merry night Let us clink and drink one down To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen Salty old queen of the sea Once I sailed away But I'

m home today Singing Copenhagen, wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen for me Lyrics from '

Hans Christian Andersen'

[Loesser, 1952]

1 CIA Superior: What did we learn, Palmer? CIA Officer: I don'

t know, sir. CIA Superior: I don'

t f*ckin'

know either. I guess we learned not to do it again. CIA Officer: Yes, sir. CIA Superior: I'

m f*cked if I know what we did. CIA Officer: Yes, sir, it'

s, uh, hard to say CIA Superior: Jesus F*cking Christ. Last lines from '

Burn after Reading [Cohen &

Cohen, 2008]'

2 The clock has ticked past the appointed hour. We are living in the post-Copenhagen world. In hindsight, the thinking seems oh so wishful. Some feared a greenwash outcome of superficial gains masking weak commitments, but few predicted the absolute extent of the summit'

s malfunctioning. World leaders coming together to reach a fair, ambitious and binding agreement on climate change was a fine ideal, but the result fell so colossally short as to make the original premise seem absurd with hindsight. Optimism buckled in a pathetic undoing. Negotiators and lobbyists emerged from the wreckage of the talks with faces covered in metaphorical dust, eyes fixed in long stares. The prisoner'

s dilemma was played out to the last act, as the blithe spirit of liberal internationalism was blown away by the inexorable logic of domestic political preoccupations. With very few and partial exceptions, none of the governments of the major powers feared that they would pay a

1 Loesser, Frank (1952) Wonderful Copenhagen from Hans Christian Andersen

2 Burn After Reading,

2008 [Film] Directed by Ethan and Joel Cohen. USA: Relativity Media http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/new-critic/eleven/ritter

2 domestic political price for failure in the Bella Center and so they failed with hearts that feared no electoral consequence. Every powerful state was a winner from talks in which none yielded the necessary ground, with the paradoxical result that we are all losers. Now, in the long shadow of the Little Mermaid, how should we read the failure and what comes next? Some of the commentariat and participants have tried to explain the debacle through an interpretation that might be described as '

it woz the Chinese wot dun it'

. In a much read comment piece in The Guardian, Mark Lynas asked rhetorically '

How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room.'

3 Despite Lynas'

compelling account, even the most amateur of hack historians should know to pause cautiously at the declarations of a man who claims to know because he was there. No doubt China bears some culpability, but the People'

s Republic is hardly an orphan in that regard. The Lynas thesis is a necessarily simplistic rendering of a complex event. '

Eye witness accounts'

are inevitably partial, omitting wider context as the focus narrows. China'

s negotiating position was surely no more problematic than various others on the table. And how was it that some key western developed states seemed inadequately briefed and prepared on the Chinese position? Another great villain of the conference is said to have been the USA. Obama was not able to deliver the world from climate change with a single imperial touch;