This tart wrap of the UN climate change conference in Montreal comes from David Ridenour, husband of ”conservative” blogger Amy Ridenour and her correspondent at the COP/MOP climate shindig.

In his last post from Montreal, Ridenour wrote:

From the beginning, the official delegations to the U.N.’s Climate Change Conference were divided into two camps. One camp includes the United States, China, India, Japan, Australia and much of the developing world. This camp opposes strict greenhouse gas emissions caps on economic grounds. The other camp includes the hypocrites.”

There you have it:

On one side, the selfish and the desperate, on the other side, the self-important and the smug. So much easier to start a really good fight – and to disrupt any chance of intelligent consensus – when you can call people names.

Especially when the names stick. Ridenour goes on:

Those paying the most lip service to the Kyoto Protocol have been amongst its most flagrant violators. For example, Canada, whose Prime Minister, Paul Martin, lashed out against the United States for failing to support the Kyoto Protocol, has increased its greenhouse gas emissions from the treaty’s 1990 baseline by between 22 and 24 percent.”

Ouch, and again ouch.

Never mind. Regardless of the real progress made in Montreal, there is still much opportunity to delay real action, in the U.S. and elsewhere. Ridenour, who was held up leaving Montreal because of bad weather, signs off by noting: ”Incidentally, the French word for delay is retarde.”

Apply that where you will.