The global climate talks are hotting up. This week, negotiators are meeting in Barcelona for the last week of discussions before the Copenhagen meeting in December.
There is a lot at stake. Arguably it is the future of the planet. Some countries are literally fighting for their survival while other countries are fighting to defend the status quo. The divisions between the rich countries that have largely caused global warming, and the poorer countries who in many cases will be the most affected, could not be more stark. So far the talks have been proceeding slowly but as the deadline for an agreement draws nearer, the tensions are starting to show.
Tuesday night Australian time, the talks were brought to a halt by the African group of countries who are demanding that rich countries commit to higher targets. They named the elephant in the room.
A ‘trust building’ lunch between the Umbrella group (chaired by Australia) and African nations ended with African nations walking out saying we’re dying and you’re not doing enough. Africans told them specifically that people were dying by the minute, ambitious reduction is not negotiable because the survival of millions of people depends on it, and if they weren’t here to talk about numbers then it wasn’t the right place to be.
At the G77 press conference, the Africa group put it bluntly: “When asked why they are not willing to put the numbers on the table…they say it’s politically and economically difficult …. For us it is a question of life and death, people are dying in Africa because of the actions of people in the West.”
And then they lanced the boil that has been plaguing negotiations for months. “We are not ready to give Annex 1 countries a blank check through LULUCF rules and the flexible mechanisms before they give us their aggregate numbers and individual numbers”.
Rich countries have put weak (or no) targets on the table and have been focusing on fixing the rules of the new treaty so that they can have as many loopholes as possible to allow them to continue with business as usual. They won’t put forward targets until they know how they’ll be able to squirm out of them.
Australia is a classic. First Kevin Rudd put out a target that was so low (5-15%) that it was only just enough to stop us being kicked out in disgrace, and then when it became clear that our low ambition had dealt us out of any influence, increased it to a highly conditional 5-25%. This is still far below what a rich country like Australia should be committing to and what African countries and the science demands :– 40% or more by 2020.
Australia is doing as much as anyone (apart from a couple of rogue states) to undermine prospects for a strong global climate treaty through our low ambition and relentless push for loopholes. It is remarkable that Kevin Rudd has somehow managed to position himself as a leader on climate change in spite of the reality of our negotiating position.
It’s not hard to look good on climate when you are compared to the US or to the Federal Coalition, but climate change can’t just be about spin or public relations. There is far too much at stake, and we are rapidly running out of time.
Oh dear, after a week of interest rate jockey jokes we have climate talks ‘hotting up’. C’mon Crikey, if you need help with the creative bit just let us know.
If Crikey is at all concerned about the future of the world, get Senator Heffernan to write an article of his viewpoints on climate change – he says Global Warming pales into insignificance compared to damage to the earth through over population.
We will not be able to grow sufficent food to feed the world by 2050 (even well before that) and he quotes some quite diabolical figures about future survial but while I think that issue is much graver than Global Warming (more certain) it seems nobody pays any attention to that.
At a recent Senate Enquiry hearing, he made those points and I was certain it would gain some traction in the media, but I guess nobody watches Senate Enquiries.
But Crikey could take the initiative and invite Senator Heffernan (forget some of his radical past comments) to write an article – I’m certain you would find his contention quite startling.
No doubt about it – KRudd and PWong are just making more hot air. Lots of words without meaning.
Yes Bill Heffernan is on the money, but who wants to listen. KRudd issues the spin, and the media generally, get spun.
Al Gore has been on the defensive over his financial motives for pushing for a cap and trade system to reduce CO2 emissions, arguing that he is merely putting his money where his mouth is, however, a startling revelation in a recent Newsweek article proves that Gore is only interested in solutions to environmental problems that line his pockets.
For argument’s sake, let’s accept the highly contentious premise that the life-giving gas that humans exhale and plants absorb, carbon dioxide, is a dastardly evil threat to the planet, despite the fact that Al Gore himself admits CO2 is NOT the major driver of global warming.
If there was a solution to neutralize CO2 emissions that didn’t involve devastating the economy, taxing the citizens into oblivion, de-industrializing the west and giving government huge regulatory powers over our private lives, would Al Gore, Maurice Strong and the rest of the kingpins of the globalist environmental movement be interested?One of Gore’s global warming advisors, CEO Timothy LaSalle, told Gore’s team that CO2 emissions could be neutralized completely by clever use of agriculture and technology, without the need for a global carbon tax or the use of cap and trade systems that Gore, along with people like the Rothschilds, Maurice Strong and Barack Obama, have a huge financial stake in promoting.“If we feed the biology and manage grasslands appropriately, we could sequester as much carbon as we emit,” says Timothy LaSalle, CEO of the Rodale Institute, who presented at two summits. The political clash is this: if you tell people soils can be managed to suck up lots of our carbon emissions, it sounds like a get-out-of-jail-free card, and could decrease what little enthusiasm there is for reducing those emissions—as one of Gore’s assistants told LaSalle in asking him to dial down his estimate. (He didn’t.)
So there you have it – LaSalle proposed a way of solving the CO2 issue but was basically told to shove it by Gore’s team because the methods he advocated would eliminate the need for what Gore and his cronies are really pursuing, nightmare regulation, taxation, and control over American’s lives, along with billions of dollars flooding into the coffers of Gore and the rest of the “carbon billionaire” globalists via the carbon trading systems they own.
You’re right John, about CC being bigger than spin, ironically, which is also why it was impertinent for someone to block my comment on one of your Rooted blog entries about the re-insurance industry economic sanction that is likely to impact Australia as a huge coal exporting do little/nothing government that has run a hundred miles from a carbon tax.
Later that same week, Beazley admitted to Monica Attard Sunday RN radio that Climate Change policy was likely to turn “punitive” like – do you think? – withholding of global re-insurance to Australia in the future.
Not happy having a valid comment deleted from the Rooted blog, as a subscriber. True it went ahead on a Keane story string as an alternative, but out of place, and out of time.