The

climate change conference held from December 7-18, 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark had very little to do with climate change and everything to do with the dismantling of America. There were three groups represented at the conference of the parties (COP15) – the rich countries, the poor countries and the most radical environmental groups. This was the largest United Nations conference ever conducted with 45,000 participants from 140 countries held in a facility built to accommodate 15,000.

COP15 may have been a climate change conference espousing lifestyle changes producing smaller carbon footprints, but that seemed to apply to everyone but a few select delegates. The conference supplied 1200 limos, only two of which were hybrid, to meet requests by delegates. The demand was so great limos were driven in from Germany and Sweden.

One hundred forty private jets flew into Copenhagen and surrounding airports for the conference. One can only imagine how large a carbon footprint that created. Riding bicycles and taking mass transit was expected of everyone else, including MerryLynn and me. We took a bus and rode the subway for over an hour every morning and evening to get to the conference.

Before the conference even began, United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) held a Children’s Climate Forum with teens brought to Copenhagen to discuss climate change and how they must commit to change for the good of the planet. The kids, ages 14-17 from 44 countries, were told that if they were forced to live in an environmentally compromised planet, they wouldn’t be able to enjoy their lives fully, since threats to their health and wellbeing would increase.

I spoke with a 16 yr. old from Florida named Pulkit Agrawal, one of the four U.S. Climate Ambassadors at COP15, who said he was worried South Florida would soon be under water if the glaciers continue to melt. Pulkit first attended a Junior 8 Summit held in conjunction with the G8 Summit last July in Italy where young people discussed their rights as related to the global financial crisis. Pulkit along with the others from the U.S. met with President Obama in Italy, a heady experience for any young person.

The Obama administration went all out to prove that they had changed the U.S. into a world leader on climate change. Two large rooms called the “U.S. Center ’09” were dedicated to back-to-back events every day of the conference. The 0 in the ’09 resembles Obama’s campaign icon 0. The 0 was filled in with something resembling the American flag but it was definitely not Ol’ Glory.

Cabinet members such as EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson and Department of the Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar were brought in to make presentations. When Lisa Jackson made the announcement the EPA would start regulating CO2 as a pollutant, she received a standing ovation from her liberal audience. Ken Salazar announced among other things that 1000 square miles of public land in 24 areas has been set aside for solar panels.

Obama is still campaigning but now it is for world leader. He arrived on the last day of the conference knowing the talks were at a stalemate but refused to leave without claiming some kind of victory. He met with countries most of the day, but China refused to attend several of the meetings. As the two largest emitters of green house gases (GHG), China and the U.S. had to reach an agreement for anything else to go forward. According to the New York Times, Obama found out China was in a closed meeting with Brazil, India, and South Africa, and he was not invited. So he and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton burst into the meeting uninvited, and several hours later, Obama emerged claiming “an unprecedented breakthrough” had occurred creating the “Copenhagen Accord.”

The only country to compromise in the “Copenhagen Accord” was the U.S. Obama and Clinton said the U.S. would “contribute” $100 billion per year until 2020, contingent on an agreement being reached where China would allow international monitoring of its emissions. China adamantly refused saying it would “infringe on its sovereignty.” The new accord is said to satisfy this requirement by developing countries submitting an international report of their emission reductions and activities, but nothing is in place to confirm the claims. However, the U.S. is still committing $100 billion per year until 2020 and to an additional $30 billion “fast start” money to be paid by developed countries through 2012. This money is supposed to be paid multilaterally by developed countries, but individual countries have not made commitments. So if history repeats itself, the U.S. will again pay the largest proportion of a non-binding accord.

A non-binding accord at COP15 is good news, but unfortunately, this climate change issue will not go away. When the U.S. Senate ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, the U.S. accepted the responsibility of protecting the environment by paying the developing world. Since that time, the U.S. has failed to ratify a treaty that specifies how this responsibility will be met. (The UNFCCC is based on the principle that parties should act to protect the climate system “on the basis of equality and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.”)

Since the UNFCCC was created and especially after the Kyoto Protocol went into effect in 2005, developing countries have been given new global status. They’ve had a taste of financial and technology advances given to them from developed countries and now see this global entitlement as a right. If not delivered, they want “climate justice.”

This new global status of developing nations has given a voice to: Communist dictators such as Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, to the smallest countries and to radical environmental groups, who turn to the UN when individual governments reject their liberal agendas. Chavez and Ahmadinejad use the global microphone to spew hatred for capitalism and the United States.

Radical environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, World Wildlife Federation, have had 17 years to establish their groups in developing countries and through education systems have brainwashed a generation of young people into believing the planet is in environmental distress. These young people turned out in the hundreds at COP15 and were the main cause of protests and violence in the streets; their passion for saving the planet borders on militarism.

After two years of negotiations and millions of dollars spent on travel and hype, the only accomplishment of the COP15 climate change talks was the non-binding Copenhagen Accord. However, the environmental groups and the developing countries will be back next year at the next COP in Mexico City in bigger numbers making even more extreme demands.