What good is a road map when your navigator isn’t paying attention?

There is one day, Friday, left in the climate negotiations in Bali (because of the time difference, attendees are already sleeping off Thursday). The EU is calling for language that specifies a target – emissions cuts of 25-40 percent by 2020. Countries participating in Bali are making desperate pleas for some sort of road map or direction before leaving. But despite international, domestic and scientific pressure, the Bush administration still refuses to cooperate and the EU, in turn, as threatened to boycott Bush’s second major emitters meeting.

Even Al Gore has called the U.S. an obstacle to negotiations, and non-profit observers are getting visibly peeved. Environment & Energy Daily reports (subs. req’d):

“This is probably the most explicitly irresponsible act that any American administration has taken in any of our lifetimes,” Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, declared. “They should not be forgiven for they know full well what they do.”

Jennifer Morgan of London-based climate think tank E3G added, “There is a wrecking crew in Bali, led by the Bush administration and its minions.”

And so, the EU is keen to give Bush a taste of his own medicine. At the end of January, he has scheduled a second summit to discuss voluntary emissions (in Hawaii, of all places…). Should his policy not budge, senior officials from the European Union, France and Germany have threatened to boycott his effort PR-stunt.

The EU is the most rational voice of a negotiating partner right now, and their absence at any global warming summit would be unfortunate. But I do wonder how it would phase Bush, if any bitterness would show through other issues, or if Bush would just work on his sun and surf.

Perhaps that’s why Avaaz has this petition going: US to World: Bush Doesn’t Represent Us.