Generous cash from the U.S. and concessions on verification by China may lead to the announcement of some sort of agreement at COP15 in Copenhagen. The King of Epirus, Pyrrhus, describes the effects in the headline above.

The details of a potential agreement have not been reached, but the limits of moral outrage have. We have stepped over a line.

I refer, obviously, to the welcoming of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe to the Copenhagen summit, to giving him the podium to speak from, and for letting him depart without handcuffs. Robert Mugabe is the human face of evil, and to give him a microphone cheapens the cause of any fight against climate change. Indeed it cheapens modern humanity. Sacrificing any respect for human rights in Copenhagen will make any deal dirty, and guarantees that any aid given to developing countries is almost certain to fall into the pockets of dictators like Mugabe. I'm used to leftist rhetoric from the likes of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez--I'm just waiting for him to transform into Woody Allen's dictator in Bananas and order his people to wear their underwear on the outside of their pants. But Mugabe--there's no joking about this thug, and there should be no tolerance of his presence. If this is what winning is like, what difference is there in losing?

The dictator who single-handedly trashed the environment as well as the population of Zimbabwe said the following words: "When these capitalist gods of carbon burp and belch their dangerous emissions, it's we, the lesser mortals of the developing sphere who gasp and sink and eventually die. "Why," asked the billionaire Mr. Mugabe, "is the guilty North not showing the same fundamentalist spirit it exhibits in our developing countries on human rights matters on this more menacing threat of climate change?" The fact that this murderous thug can stand free from fear in Copenhagen to lay forth his demands for aid, aid which will immediately be siphoned off into his pockets, speaks volumes about how morally bankrupt those desperately seeking a climate deal have become.

Due to his autocratic incompetence, Zimbabwe, a wealthy and wonderful nation not so long ago, has seen life expectancy decline from 60 to 34 years for women. Infant mortality is 8 per hundred. He has gotten a pass for this because his first victims were white farmers, who he had dispossessed to give farms to blacks. But it was just the first step in his trashing of a country, and most of his subsequent victims have been black.

The next time any alarmist tries to claim the moral high ground in the climate debate, I will throw Mugabe's name in his face with all the disgust I can muster.

Any deal that requires the bribery of Robert Mugabe is not worth having. It is, however, a fitting conclusion to the farce that is Copenhagen.

Shame. Shame on you all.

Thomas Fuller
SF Environmental Policy Examiner