Bloomberg News is reporting this morning that the Bush Administration, instead of taking this opening, is throwing up more roadblocks to meaningful negotiations. China, India and other developing countries are taking steps to start to deal with the enormous pollution problems in their own countries. They want to begin acting in concert with other industrialized nations to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The Bush Administration, however, is unable to give up their head-in-the sand notion that climate change might somehow go away if we just continue to ignore it. As the Bloomberg article notes:

The U.S. shot back today at countries criticizing its opposition to specific targets to cut global warming pollution, saying nations pushing for the reductions are hindering efforts to craft a new climate treaty.

The U.S., the only developed nation not to ratify the emissions-limiting Kyoto Protocol, is the main opponent to a United Nations proposal to reduce greenhouse gases by 25 to 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels.

France and India are among countries condemning the U.S. for opposing emissions-reductions goals in a proposal aimed at guiding talks to replace the Kyoto treaty, which runs out in five years. They say the Bush administration threatens to stall progress on reaching an agreement by 2009. The U.S. argues all options to curb global warming should be considered and debate over targets should occur over the next two years, not now.

Senator Kerry also said in his news conference that the world is waiting for the US to show leadership on this issue. It is a matter of priorities. The rest of the world is beginning to face up to these problems. The United States, which accounts for about 25% of the world-wide greenhouse gas emissions produced, needs to set the pace by stepping up and taking action now:

We have to do a “follow us,” not a “you first.” If you do the “you first,” nothing is going to happen and we will remain exactly where we are, which is the goal of some people. If we do a “follow us” it’s going to happen.

There is an old expression that says, “lead, follow or get out of the way.” The world is all too aware that Bush Administration is clearly not willing to lead and won’t follow the advice of the world’s leading climate scientists by setting the pace for progress on global warming. But at least Senator Kerry was there in person to make sure that the delegates to the Bali conference know that the Bush Administration will be getting out of the way in the near future.

UPDATE: Adding insult to injury, this morning the Bush Administration and its lock-step allies in Congress successfully filibustered the revised version of the same energy bill that they blocked last week, forcing legislative delays that prevented all the other Democratic leaders except Senator Kerry from attending the Bali conference in person:

WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. John Kerry made the following statement today, after Republicans blocked a cloture vote on the energy bill. Kerry was the only member of Congress to attend the International Climate Conference in Bali this week.

“While the world’s leaders gathered in Bali to combat climate change, the Senate’s Roadblock Republicans didn’t have enough backbone to stand up to big oil and pass an energy bill that will help fight climate change rather than make it worse,” said Kerry.

“Republicans today made it clear they’d rather protect excessive tax giveaways for big oil than protect America from climate change or break our dependence on foreign oil. This vote today was a disgrace.”