Copenhagen: Rising from the Dead?

I may have spoken too soon. The Obama administration is making a last-gasp effort to put together a deal in Copenhagen:

The United States today pledged support for a $100 billion annual climate protection fund in a move that could clinch a global deal just as the Copenhagen summit appeared to be heading for failure.
Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, attached strong conditions to the US contribution to the fund, including a demand that China accept independent scrutiny of its emissions reductions.
She also said that the money would only be forthcoming if a deal was signed tomorrow by 193 countries. This was a clear signal to developing countries to lower their demands for higher emissions cuts from the US and other rich nations. …
Mrs Clinton made it clear that the US would not be improving on its previous commitment to cut emissions by 4 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020. …
The US contribution would be earmarked partly to protect rainforests, as the White House believes that the US public is more willing to accept paying for this.

One can hope that this last-minute offer is only for show. News accounts suggest that China is unlikely to agree to international verification of its alleged reductions in carbon emissions. What does that tell you?
Meanwhile, Russian sources say that the Hadley Center for Climate Change at the British Meteorological Office has, like the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, manipulated data to exaggerate global warming:

The [Institute of Economic Analysis] believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.
The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.
The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations. On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.
IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.

The “data” relied on by global warming alarmists are shot through with this kind of cherry-picking. Russian records are of course very important simply because of the size of Russia’s land mass. Just last year, Russian weather data figured in another scandal. NASA’s global warming unit, headed by alarmist James Hansen, hid the current decline in global temperatures by the simple expedient of recycling Russian temperatures from a year earlier.
Let’s hope Secretary Clinton’s proposal goes nowhere.
UPDATE: Don’t miss Roger Simon’s report from Copenhagen–So many despots, so little time!
FURTHER UPDATE: Climategate is taking its toll, notwithstanding media efforts to downplay the scandal. Rasmussen reports that “Public skepticism about the officially promoted cause of global warming has reached an all-time high among Americans.” In the latest survey, American adults (not voters) believe by a 50 percent to 34 percent margin that “global warming is caused primarily by long-term planetary trends.” As with health care, this is an issue on which Congressional Democrats and the Obama administration are swimming against the tide of public opinion.

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