Is President Obama's Love Affair with Europe Fading Fast? Der Spiegel Says He Has Failed the World on Climate Change

Is President Barack Obama's love affair with the Europeans fading fast? According to Der Spiegel, if the climate summit in Copenhagen fails, the blame will lie squarely with Obama. Ouch. President Obama came into office promising hope and change on a number of issues and the Europeans are watching closely to see what will happen with climate change, which his predecessor George W. Bush did basically did nothing about, even though he acknowledged that America is overly-dependent on oil. You see, President Bush was too busy waging two wars, among other things.

Greenpeace activists in Hong Kong urge Obama to take a stand on climate change. (DPA

But few people expected that the Barack Obama, of all people, would continue his predecessor's  climate change plan. When he took office at the beginning of 2009, it was clear that the success of the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen in December depended almost entirely on the US -- that America needed to take a clear leadership role on a problem that could shake civilization to its very core.

Obama Lied to the Europeans
 
Barack Obama cast himself as a "citizen of the world" when he delivered his well-received campaign speech in Berlin in the summer of 2008. But the US president has now betrayed this claim. In his Berlin speech, he was dishonest with Europe. Since then, Obama has neglected the single most important issue for an American president who likes to imagine himself as a world citizen, namely his country's addiction to fossil fuels and the risks of unchecked climate change. Health care reform and other domestic issues were more important to him than global environmental threats. He was either unwilling or unable to convince skeptics in his own ranks and potential defectors from the ranks of the Republicans to support him, for example by promising alternative investments as a compensation for states with large coal reserves.

Obama's announcement at the APEC summit that it was no longer possible to secure a binding treaty in Copenhagen, is the result of his own negligence. China, India and other emerging economies have always spoken openly about the fact that the US, as the world's largest emitter of CO2, has to be proactive in commiting itself to targets agreed on by way of international negotiation. But that is not America's style. The US is quite happy to see itself as the leader of the Western world. But when it comes to climate change, America has once again failed miserably -- for the umpteenth time. Source: Der Spiegel

It seems that President Obama is still taking heat for his trip to Copenhagen to lobby for the Olympic Games to have been awarded to his hometown of Chicago. The argument being made is that he was too happy to lobby for the games, but he is currently leaving open the question of whether he will come to the Danish capital in December for the UN Climate Change Conference. To be completely honest, this sends the message to other world leaders that they do not need to attend.

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