If the jury was still out on President Barack Obama's climate policy accolades (a huge "if"), consider the verdict now in, and from a surprising character at that: Marc Morano.

Morano jubilantly referred to the President as "George W. Obama" in an interview with Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman at COP17, stating: 

They [the Obama administration] have kept the exact same principles and negotiating stance as President George Bush did for eight years. Obama has carried on Bush’s legacy. So as skeptics, we tip our hat to President Obama in helping to crush and continuing to defeat the United Nations process. Obama has been a great friend of global warming skeptics at these conferences.

Watch:

In a final demonstration that the entire Bush presidency has been a fraternity prank that got out of hand, the U.S. President left the G8 meeting today shouting the words, "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter," and pumping his fist.

Short of announcing publicly how much his "blind trust" has earned from oil-related activity during the last eight years, it would be hard to imagine a clearer statement on why George W. has done less than nothing about climate change. He actually thinks this is funny.

Get elected president and go down as the worst in history. Don't get elected president and win the nobel peace prize and the hearts of millions around the world. Karmic, poetic but also bittersweet.

The Huffington Post reports that Bush will welcome Gore to the White House on Nov. 26th during an event to honour Nobel Peace Prize winners. While he's got him there, Bush might want to ask Gore on some tips on how to win friends and influence people - seems like being a greedy, ignorant, warmonger backfired.

The three "world leaders" who are working hardest these days to kill the Kyoto Accord are also asking their public to believe numbers that are, at best, misleading.

U.S. President George Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Australian Prime Minister John Howard lead three of the richest countries in the world and the three leading per capita greenhouse gas emitters among major nations. All three have rejected the Kyoto Accord - or any other fixed and measurable limit on greenhouse gas emissions - preferring "aspirational" targets that are voluntary and keyed off "carbon intensity." All three are also straining credulity in making their case.

President George Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and now the Canadian Council of Chief Executives are all suggesting that voluntary targets to reduce energy intensity will be a sufficient short-term response to climate change.

But Suncor Energy, one of the biggest players in the biggest CO2 emissions industry in Canada, has offered a stellar illustration of the idiocy of that position.

UPDATE: Environmentalists reject APEC climate agreement.  

There was never any reason to hope that the conference of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation countries was going to come to anything useful. The goal, as Australian Prime Minister John Howard stated from the outset, was to prevent the implementation of binding emission reduction targets.

Now we come away with vague climate intensity targets - little more more than business as usual - and a round of self-congratulatory rhetoric.