DURBAN, South Africa -- The United States has abandoned the international effort to curb global warming and will never again consider legislation that would limit heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, the Senate's chief climate skeptic told the U.N. climate conference here in a brash video message today.

"The message from Washington to the U.N. delegates in South Africa this week could not be any clearer: You are being ignored," Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe told negotiators and environmentalists in a small meeting room on the sidelines of the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP).

"And you are being ignored," he added, "by your biggest allies in the United States -- that's President Obama and the Democratic leadership in the Senate."

Two years ago, Inhofe noted, Obama and several members of Congress traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark, to attend the U.N. talks. Though that meeting didn't yield a new treaty on emissions, the president was instrumental in brokering a voluntary agreement on national emission-cutting targets and funding known as the Copenhagen Accord.

But Obama stayed home this year, as did all members of Congress and the president's Cabinet, citing busy year-end agendas. And expectations for the U.N. gathering are low, with some expecting it to lead to the death of the Kyoto Protocol -- the only binding multilateral treaty on climate change. Many here are blaming U.S. domestic policy and negotiating stance for the treaty's demise.

Inhofe -- sounding a bit like Hanoi Hannah, a radio personality known for her propaganda broadcasts during the Vietnam War -- pronounced efforts to pass U.S. climate legislation "done, gone, dead forever." And gone with them, he said, is the Kyoto Protocol.

"You should know that global warming skeptics everywhere wish we could be with you celebrating the final nail in the coffin on location in South Africa," he said. "And tell Al Gore hello for me."

Congressional Democrats have been relatively quiet on the Durban talks, but Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer released her own statement today from Washington in which she said climate action is vital.

The California Democrat, who was involved in several failed attempts to win Senate passage of a climate change bill, only mentioned the U.N. climate talks a few times. She wished the negotiators good luck.

Instead, Boxer focused on instances of extreme weather that some link to climate change and on efforts Democrats and her home state have made to ratchet down emissions.

"It is our moral obligation and legislative responsibility to address this enormous global challenge," she said. "I pledge to do everything I can to stand up to climate change deniers, to shine a light on the truth, and to build support for taking common-sense steps to address this critical global problem."

Skeptics parachute into Durban

Inhofe's triumphant mood was echoed by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, the skeptic group whose members arrived here yesterday by landing on North Beach in brightly colored parachutes bearing slogans like "Climategate 2.0: Science Not Settled."

"Climategate" is the name given to the scandal in 2009 in which emails were stolen from a British university and posted to the Internet just ahead of the Copenhagen talks. Skeptics said the emails, written by prominent climate scientists, showed researchers were colluding to manipulate data to show human activities are changing climate patterns. Subsequent independent investigations of those emails found that that was not the case.

A similar bunch of emails surfaced last month, but they appeared to be leftovers from the first event. This is the "Climategate 2.0" referred to on the parachute.

Marc Morano, a former Inhofe staffer who now maintains the skeptic blog Climate Depot, taunted the audience that former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, the only candidate for the Republican presidential nomination who had maintained that man-made climate change is occurring, has "bailed," citing the second batch of emails.

"The only Republican you had hope for has bailed on you," he said. "So that's the good, cheery news I bring you."

A British heckler in the audience pointed out that in appearances announcing his shift, Huntsman said the University of East Anglia -- where the emails originated -- was located in Scotland. East Anglia is a county in England.

Morano was joined on stage by Leon Louw, executive director of South Africa's Free Market Institute, who said that climate change was inevitable, but could be better dealt with by strong economies run on cheap, high-carbon fuels.

The Kyoto Protocol keeps African countries poor, he said, "and the best that can be done for them is that they can have some kind of alternative way of being poor."

"What I think anyone who is decent wants to see is for Africa, and Asia, and other poor parts of the world to have cities like New York, Tokyo and Paris," he said.

Also speaking were prominent international climate skeptic Lord Christopher Monckton and Kelvin Kemm, an African nuclear physicist who said that the current trend of warming was no different than historic events like the mini-ice age that froze the Thames River in Shakespeare's time.

Monckton answered the only questions entertained by the group, in which he explained that the oceans are not becoming more acidic as most climate scientists have claimed. Monckton himself is not a climate scientist, but was a domestic policy adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Morano said after the presentation that the group would meet with South African activists, but would not bother meeting with U.N. delegates.

"We're here to deliver the message, because this is a vast echo chamber here where they never hear from the outside world -- except essentially falsehoods about how the whole world is waiting breathless for some kind of agreement," he said, "where they think the United Nations is somehow going to somehow be able to pass some kind of regulation that's going to control the floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and droughts.

"This is now getting to the level of medieval witchcraft, where they think the U.N. can control the weather."