a "significant and unprecedented thing"

Whooee! France's new bossman, Nick Sarkozy sez a new climate change agreement between France and China is a "significant and unprecedented thing". Maybe. Maybe, not. Accordin' to Pryminister Steve, the Kyoto Protocol was a bigass mistake that the world shouldn't make again. Steve's big problem with Kyoto is that it didn't include countries like China and India.

How's a deal between just two countries supposed to do anything? King Steve sez any deal worth makin' has to include the whole dang world. Unanimous or useless.

Worse yet, this here China-France deal sez the two countries wanna work towards the selfsame goals as that bigass mistake we don't wanna make, Kyoto.

BEIJING -- Chinese President Hu Jintao and French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced after their talks on Monday the releasing of a China-France joint statement on responding to climate change and the establishment of a partnership between the two countries in this regard.

According to the joint statement, the first of its kind issued between China and another country, China and France both reiterated their commitments to the aims, principles and provisions of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol.

The two sides will establish a bilateral consultation mechanism and hold consultations once a year in turn in the two countries, to strengthen dialogue and cooperation on climate change, in the principles of Common and Differential Liability, respective capability and equity.

The two sides pledged in the joint statement to strengthen cooperation in the relevant fields, including bio-diversity, water resources, desertification, natural disasters, forests, garbage treatment, pollution prevention and environment-friendly economic measures, and promote the cooperation on the development, extension, application and transfer of technologies.

The two countries will cooperate on the major technologies of energy saving, renewable energy, hydrogen energy and fuel battery, clean coal and nuclear power for civil use.

The statement said the two countries will encourage the establishment of joint ventures to encourage technological innovation on responding to climate change, and will also encourage their enterprises and financial organizations to participate in more climate change and sustainable development cooperation projects of each other.

The two countries will promote world attention to the climate change issue and devote to a series of projects on the research on climate change, and increase the possibility of common cooperation with other countries, in a bid to benefit the least developed countries, especially African countries.

The two countries promised to attend a meeting of contracting parties to the UN Convention and Kyoto Protocol, scheduled for December in Bali, Indonesia.

Sarkozy hailed the releasing of the joint statement as a "significant and unprecedented thing". (Source: China Daily)

Well, I'm a cynical sumbitch an' I sure as hell don't trust the rotten, torturin' human rights abusin' Chinese. I ain't so sure the Chinese ain't just stallin' fer time an' tryin' to look good an' I ain't too keen on France helpin' China expand its nuke power capacity. France is nuke crazy an' that's part o' what they're talkin' about.

But I do gotta give credit where it's due. This here Sarkozy's only been in power fer a coupla months an' he's already got one o' the world's worst polluters to sign on the dotted line. I wonder if King Steve ever thought o' tryin' to get the Chinese to commit "to the aims, principles and provisions of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol."? Nah! Why would he? Kyoto's a mistake.

JimBobby