Tuesday, December 22, 2009

OPEC Holds Course, Crude oil futures slipped toward $73

Crude oil futures slipped toward $73 a barrel after OPEC, as expected, maintained current oil-production levels. Of course, that should mean a cut—the cartel really wants members to start complying with their output quotas, both in the WSJ. The blame game for Copenhagen gets started in earnest—and it ain’t China’s fault. George Monbiot goes off the reservation and slams Barack Obama, invokes Iraq war lessons, and hears the orchestra on the Titanic. Naomi Klein gets in the same groove: “There are very few US presidents who have squandered as many once-in-a-generation opportunities as Obama,” both in The Guardian. More Copenhagen post-mortems: Eric Pooley explains why rush-hour climate diplomacy didn’t work in Copenhagen (“Imagine that a Department of Motor Vehicles office joined forces with an Alitalia ticket counter and set out to save the world”) and won’t work in Washington, in Bloomberg.