Ugh. Yet another eco-globalist heading to a collectivist international conference and attempting to foist a one-size-fits-all environmentalist rulebook upon the masses:

The UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon says his top hopes for 2013 are to reach a new agreement on climate change and to urgently end the increasingly deadly and divisive war in Syria. …

Ban laid out this ambitious wishlist in an interview before heading to the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, saying he plans to take “the uncommon opportunity” of being with 2,500 government, business and civil society leaders in the Swiss ski resort to exchange frank views on these issues. …

“Climate change is fast happening – much, much faster than one would have expected,” he said. “Climate and ecosystems are under growing strain.” …

“I will do my best to mobilise the political will and resources so that the member states can agree to a new legally binding global agreement on climate change,” Ban said. …

If globalists and environmentalists and whomever are really setting about to find ways to get the world to reduce its carbon emissions and general pollution, they certainly have a funny way of showing it. The United Nations and their moral relativist, prosperity- and individualist-hating ilk have tried umpteen times to forge some kind of global climate agreement, but anyone can see that the idea loses more and more efficacy every time. It’s tough to convince any power player to quixotically sign on to ideas that will demonstrably diminish their economic growth, especially when prosperity is the key to producing the types of innovations, efficiencies, technologies, and getting-more-from-less ideas that really have a chance in perpetuating “cleaner” habits. And why environmentalists insist on shooting themselves in the foot with their dead-set opposition to further natural gas development — a huge factor in the United States’ lately-reduced carbon emissions — is beyond me.

Normally, I would instantly dismiss this kind of thing — dude, it’s not gonna’ happen. President Obama has been reluctant to give much lip service to global climate treaty ideas in the past couple years of his presidency — but, this has me a little nervous. Of course, a global climate treaty would need the consent of Congress, but…

President Obama made addressing climate change the most prominent policy vow of his second Inaugural Address, setting in motion what Democrats say will be a deliberately paced but aggressive campaign built around the use of his executive powers to sidestep Congressional opposition.

“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,” Mr. Obama said on Monday at the start of eight sentences on the subject, more than he devoted to any other specific area. “Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.”

The central place he gave to the subject seemed to answer the question of whether he considered it a realistic second-term priority. He devoted scant attention to it in the campaign and has delivered a mixed message about its importance since the election.