On a Course Leading to Tragedy: John Kerry in Lima

‘The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru, has entered its final day of scheduled talks. Deep divisions remain between wealthy and developing nations on emission cuts and over how much the world’s largest polluters should help poorer nations address climate change. On Thursday [, 11 December], Secretary of State John Kerry flew into Lima and made an impassioned plea for all nations to work for an ambitious U.N. climate deal next year in Paris. Kerry said time is running out to reverse “a course leading to tragedy.” (12 Dec 2014)’.

Meanwhile the further expansion of Pipelineistan into the new world appears to continue unabated, as pointed out by Amy Goodman at the end of the report. The news agency Reuters reported some time ago that “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on [28 October 2014] during a visit to Canada that he would like to make a decision soon on TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL crude oil pipeline. TransCanada has waited more than six years for the Obama administration to make a decision on the line, which would take as much as 830,000 barrels per day of Alberta tar sands crude to refineries on Texas’ Gulf Coast. The State Department is now awaiting the results of a court challenge on the line’s routing through Nebraska and completing its own study on the need for the line before it makes a final recommendation to President Barack Obama on whether to grant the project a presidential permit. The permit would allow the line, which faces criticism from environmentalists, to cross from Canada into the United States”.[1]

[1] “Kerry wants Keystone pipeline decision ‘sooner rather than later'” Reuters (28 October 2014). http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/29/us-canada-keystone-kerry-idUSKBN0IH1YP20141029.