Did anyone in Bonn amid the Euro-euphoria and Toad of Toad Hall bluster about the "saving" of the Kyoto Protocol have the bad taste to mention three little words: League of Nations? For that too was a meeting of minds which was going to save the world, but of course without the US; and so successful was the League of Nations that the outcome was the second World War.
But mention of that fiasco would have broken up the party of self-congratulation, and might even have prevented the ridiculous Margot Wallstrom, the EU Commissioner for the Environment, from weepily declaring: "We can go home and look our children in the eye. Something has changed in the balance of power between the United States and the EU."
European delusions
Europeans constantly delude themselves that an alternative to US-world leadership is to be found in the EU. In the absence of any military hardware, intelligence resources or clear political will, they resort to the sort of pieties which might pass muster in a school essay about how politicians should assess their achievements - looking little Piet or Pierre in the eye - but are otherwise worthless.
Two things happened last weekend: one was that the Kyoto Protocol was declared dead, and the other was that its corpse was then put on a life-support machine. And there it will lie, nice and warm, its mechanically-impelled heart pulsing its low liquid rhythm, until the next gathering of Ecoministers, when they can gather at the bedside and declare, "My isn't Kyoto looking well, what a relief, gained a bit of colour too", and then they can all go home and once again look little Piet or Pierre in the eye.
An international accord on global warming without the Americans has about as much validity as a vote by the Organisation for African Unity to put a giraffe on the moon. And this one isn't even meaningful: its target is to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2per cent - don't you just love that little 0.2 per cent? - below the levels of 1990. If achieved - and that "if" ranks with the delegate from Zimbambwe asking what if the giraffe got homesick up there - that would, at best, manage to slow (not reduce, mind), the growth of global warming by a mere 4 per cent over the coming century.
But we know that there will be no worldwide reduction of the production of greenhouse gases, for there is no meaningful policing system, no punishment for defaulters, and no reward for compliant countries. Do you know any government which, of its own accord, even as its competitors are roaring ahead, polluting away like crazy, is going to say to its electorate: "Sorry, nobody else is cutting their standards of living to keep the world safe, but we're going to regardless?" If you do, then you also know a government that's going to be put out of office at the next election.
Punishments
Not that policing of such matters has any meaning: we know that international law and international punishment means one thing - having a go at Serbs, or some other unruly but small power, to make an example of. But that doesn't mean that such laws will be imposed on major powers, especially ones run by criminals, such as China.
There isn't a single rule in the world that the Chinese government won't violate in its relentless pursuit of growth and its creation of a military and commercial empire in Asia. In its insane and wicked desire to subdue Tibet, it is even building a trans-Himalayan railway, one the mightiest industrial (and thus gas-producing) projects in world history.
So the idea that the Chinese are going to cut their greenhouse gas emissions in the least degree ranks - in terms of commonsense - with the musings from the delegate from the Democratic Republic of the Congo about putting up a couple of hippopotamuses to keep the giraffe company during those long lunar nights. (And a heated pool too, murmurs the chap from Uganda.) Of course, cries the bloke from Congo: perish the thought of those poor hippos on the moon without their beloved pool. With a jacuzzi, perhaps? suggests the delegate from Rwanda. My dear fellow, I intended one all along, avers M. Congo stoutly).
In addition to all this blather about looking their children in the eye, Europeans have been blaming President Bush for US policy on the environment. Where does this fatuous boscophobia come from? He is no more responsible for creating US hostility towards Kyoto than President Wilson was for the rejection of the League of Nations.
Rejected by Senate
Both were rejected by the US Senate - in the case of greenhouse gases, the Senate voted 95-0 against any environmental protocol which excluded India and China.
Inclusion, exclusion: it actually makes no difference with the Chinese. They're going to go their own way, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks of them or their greenhouse gases. The same with India. But of course, we'll not hear a word of criticisms of those countries, and all the contumely will be heaped on President Bush, who, unlike those blabbering Euroclowns, is not bewitched by meaningless sanctimonious verbiage about looking children in the eye. Bush's vice is this: he looks us in the eye instead, and he speaks his mind.
Our attempts to change the climate rank with Mrs Murphy's heroic work with her mop along the west Cork coast the night of Hurricane Charlie. But it is one thing to be futile: quite another to be sanctimonious with it as well.