REDD-Monitor’s occasional series, Carbonballs usually features the howlers made by con artists selling carbon credits as investments. Today’s post features Al Gore, Former Vice President of the USA, the man who insisted on carbon trading as part of the Kyoto Protocol, back in 1997.
On 11 December 2014, COP20Lima posted a short video of Al Gore speaking in Lima on YouTube. Despite the fact that little had been achieved during the negotiations and the interview was posted just as the usual power politics were kicking in, Al Gore declared COP20 a success:
Lima is already a success.
Ah, and I hope that when the final gavel, ah, falls it will be seen as a truly historic success, ah, in setting the stage for a successful agreement in Paris one year from, from this week.
Ah, and as I say already so much progress has been made that it’s obvious that the spirit of Lima has been extremely powerful in bringing people together from every continent, from every income group, from every culture, and every national background.
So, COP20 is a success because lots of people, from all over the world, er, flew to Peru. Really?
Gore’s comments came not long before Yeb Saño, who headed the Philippines’ negotiating team for three years but was dropped from the Lima team, tweeted that we should “Watch out for #LimaCOP20 last minute railroading of a weak agreement.”
Which, of course, is precisely what happened.