One of the "side shows" associated with the WikiLeaks disclosures last week is some of the behind-the-scenes going on at last Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen. Many of the documents included in the WikiLeaks disclosures show that much of what was behind the "save the world treaty" was much more mundane than that: pure vote trade in many cases.
The documents show that at in the Copenhagen Summit of the CIA, through the State Department had asked the U.S. embassy to spy diplomats in key states and senior officials of the United Nations. Just as interestingly, what was not included was concern about the scientific validity of the data that we now know was bogus.
An old story? Not at all: the non-governmental organizations Third World Network, Friends of the Earth and the International Forum on Globalization said on Friday that there exists a secret text, which the Mexican government, the COP16 host, would present to the environment ministers.
This document, whose existence was denied by Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and other delegates, reportedly stipulates the replacement of the Kyoto Protocol with the Copenhagen Accord, which does not include obligatory greenhouse emissions cuts for the signatory nations.