Live from Cancun: Bureaucrats gone wild!

Yes, it's a catchy headline invoking thoughts of crazy spring breaks and outrageous behavior. But I believe it's a fitting title for the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 16) taking place in that city today through December 10th.

*** Aside: At least they picked a place where it isn't likely to snow - wonder if they banned Al Gore?
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And what, exactly, will the bureaucrats be doing in Cancun? Besides lounging on a beach, that is?

Well, they'll be talking about how to curb greenhouse gas emissions; transfer wealth and technology from developed to developing nations; and raise the cost of traditional energy in order to prop up politically popular new sources. At least, that's how Americans For Prosperity and other free-market groups describe it.

I plan to be there to find out. Thanks to a scholarship for travel expenses, I'll be attending COP 16 as well as the AFP Hot Air Tour on Thursday. If you're in the Cincinnati area, you can participate as well - in conjunction with AFP-Ohio and COAST.

Even the introduction to the conference explaining it, makes my eyes swim:

The United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Cancun, Mexico, from 29 November to 10 December 2010, encompasses the sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP) and the sixth Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), as well as the thirty-third sessions of both the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), and the fifteenth session of the AWG-KP and thirteenth session of the AWG-LCA.

To discuss future commitments for industrialized countries under the Kyoto Protocol, the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) established a working group in December 2005 called the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP). In Copenhagen, at its fifth session, the CMP requested the AWG-KP to deliver the results of its work for adoption by CMP 6 in Cancun.

But I'm sure bureaucrats love that sort of thing. As for me, I can't help but think of the scene in Monty Python's "Life of Brian" where they hold the conversation and decide to hold a meeting to form a committee to examine the options of acting together to form a plan .... to rescue Brian.

Or perhaps the Robin Williams 'acronym' scene from "Good Morning Vietnam" where he says, "Excuse me sir. Seeing as how the VP is such a VIP, shouldn't we keep the PC on the QT, because if it leaks to the VC, you could end up an MIA, and then we'd all be put on KP."

Here is a link to the various discussions and the schedule for COP 16.

I'll be blogging from the event beginning Wednesday and will cover AFP's event Thursday evening.