Given that a binding global deal to slash CO2 emissions will send millions of people back into poverty, and at the same time make no difference whatsoever to the climate (which will change whether we want it to or not), let’s hope they’re right:

European leaders voiced growing doubts on whether the world will meet a December deadline for a new climate deal as a summit here looked set to take up global warming in generalities.

Twenty leaders who represent 90 percent of the global economy were holding two days of talks in the eastern US city of Pittsburgh, itself billed as a model of transition from decaying steel town to a green technology hub.

The summit opened two days after a high-powered climate meet at the United Nations, where Japan and China offered new pledges on how to save the world from rising temperatures predicted to threaten entire species if unchecked.

But with just a little more than two months before a conference in Copenhagen — designated two years ago as the venue to seal the successor to the landmark Kyoto Protocol — pessimism was growing.

“When it comes to the negotiations, they are in fact slowing down; they are not going in the right direction,” said Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, the current head of the European Union.

“We are very worried that we need to speed up the negotiations,” he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also sounded a sour note.

“There has been progress, in particular from the Chinese side, from the Japanese side now, and the UN meeting with (UN Secretary General) Ban Ki-moon,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin before heading to Pittsburgh.

“But I have to say that when I consider what still has to be achieved before Copenhagen, we cannot be happy,” she said.

Read it here.

Two Indoctrination Alerts in one day? This is becoming a bit of a habit:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has called on university students in the US to devote their time and talents to tackling climate change.

In the US for the third G20 meeting, Rudd took the opportunity to speak to students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh about climate change.

He told the students that human use of technology had created global warming and it was humans inventing and adapting new technologies, that would lead to reduced emissions.

The spin just gets worse and worse.

Read it here.

And of course, Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swann, the Bill & Ben of Australian politics, will be there enjoying the free (carbon-fuelled) hospitality and (carbon-fuelled) flights whilst at the same time telling everyone how we should cut emissions:

The forum, hosted by US President Barack Obama, will discuss progress on financial market reforms [socialism good, capitalism bad – Ed], a co-ordinated world strategy to withdraw stimulus spending and a sustainable plan for economic recovery and growth.

The G20 will also further examine plans to crack down on bankers’ salaries and bonuses. [The politics of greed and envy – Ed]

It will also be the last chance many world leaders have to discuss climate change and financing arrangements for developing nations before the Copenhagen climate change talks in December. [King Canute style politics of hubris and arrogance – Ed]

Sounds like one to miss.

Read it here.

Indoctrination Alert as yet another teacher outs herself as a climate alarmist, having learned all the necessary propaganda from Al Gore himself. The Warrnambool Standard is gushing about it (well it would be – it’s part of Fairfax):

ENVIRONMENTAL campaigner Rebecca Phyland has been educating the south-west about climate change [hysteria] and now she’s taking her message to the world.

The Narrawong teacher will make a presentation for international educators and policy makers at the Greening Education Conference to be held in south-west Germany next week.

Ms Phyland is a permaculturalist* and teacher with South West TAFE and leads education and consultancy business Thornbill Eco Education.

Earlier this year she was one of 300 people chosen to take part in a training session to enable her to present environmental campaigner and former US vice-president Al Gore’s slideshow on the climate crisis [which we all know is a pile of steaming climate BS, by the way – Ed].

I wonder what she might teach her students at TAFE? A balanced view of climate science enabling the students to use their own minds to evaluate the various arguments? Or ramming Gore-based propaganda down their throats? I wonder…

Read it here.

* “While originating as an agro-ecological design theory, permaculture has developed a large international following. This “permaculture community” continues to expand on the original ideas, integrating a range of ideas of alternative culture, through a network of publications, permaculture gardens, intentional communities, training programs, and internet forums. In this way, permaculture has become both a design system and a culture of rewilding the human species.” So now you know. (source)

The first of many, we hope. Julian McGauran is threatening to vote against any ETS before any international agreement – dead right too.

Senator McGauran, who defected from the Nationals in 2006, said he would not vote for an ETS before the international community reached an agreement on targets to cut emissions.

Countries are due to decide targets at a United Nations meeting in Copenhagen in December.

Senator McGauran said he’d vote against any ETS bill that came before the parliament before a global agreement was finalised.

“There is no amount of compromise that would convince me otherwise,” he said.

“Once an international agreement is signed and active, a coalition amended ETS can be taken off the top-shelf and implemented in Australia.”

And we know how much chance there is of that…

Read it here.

A lonely voice of sanity amongst the hysteria.

In the past 48 hours, Wong has set an October 19 deadline for the Opposition to present its amendments to the Government’s lunatic emissions trading legislation – overlooking the reality that Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull had earlier indicated the Opposition’s amendments would be ready for Federal Parliament’s resumption on that day.

Before writing to Turnbull, however, she told correspondents in New York (where she is attending a United Nations picnic with the Prime Minister) that the so-called compromise plan she has advanced on Australia’s behalf would permit developing nations to continue to increase their greenhouse gas emissions.

At the same time, Australia and other wealthy Western nations would have to suffer cutbacks by submitting their own legally binding economy-wide emission reduction targets.

Even those who have gone along with the totally unproven human-induced climate change nonsense would have to see the idiocy in this illogical humbug.

It is a case of unscientific theory being met with ill thought-through policy which can only have one outcome – the erosion of the industrial base of technically superior Western and Asian nations in favour of development of Third World economies.

Despite all of that potential turmoil, none of it would have any possible effect on the emission of greenhouse gases or impact on global climate change. Further, Wong and Rudd remain determined to push through legislation which will drive up the cost of living for ordinary Australians and cost thousands of jobs in the key industries driving our robust economy.

Essentially, the Rudd/Wong plan would reverse the development of Australia that has taken place since European settlement.

The Rudd/Wong solution is, in short, a joke. Much like the UN itself.

Read it here.

And they thought one and a half hours of Gaddafi’s rambling incoherence was punishment enough. The delegates were all stampeding for the exits as Rudd patronised and talked down to them in that trademark monotone. All the usual climate bull was wheeled out as expected:

What is required globally is the leadership to embrace this truth [right on, man – Ed] and to respond to it accordingly because the truth is all our governments need [“ooh, ooh, yeah, the truth is all we need”- cue guitar riff – Ed] to reach beyond their self interests and instead fashion a grand bargain between the developed and developing countries of the world – a grand bargain on climate change which embraces both historical and future responsibility; a grand bargain which is anchored in the science of climate change [Science? SCIENCE??? You wouldn’t know the science if it smacked you in the face – Ed] and the need to keep temperature rises within two degrees Celsius to avoid catastrophic climate change.

What, no Rudd-speak? No talk of programmatic specificity? Such a disappointment…

Read it here.

A more downbeat, and therefore encouraging, view of the UN talk-fest from The Australian this morning, with Tim Wilson stripping away the rhetoric to reveal, well, not a lot:

INTERNATIONAL negotiations are like a game of political pass the parcel and every government is desperate to ensure they’re not holding up negotiations when the music stops.

Last July India was left holding the parcel of negotiating text for the World Trade Organisation’s Doha talks when the music stopped, and was internationally condemned for the failed negotiations.

At this week’s UN Climate Change Summit in New York, the grand rhetoric from political leaders shows they are seeking to make sure the music keeps playing when they are in the spotlight.

Kevin Rudd is proposing a “grand bargain”, Chinese President Hu Jintao has proposed per capita emissions cuts and Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh is celebrating proposed domestic legislation for emissions targets. Their statements aren’t about securing agreement but laying the foundations of blame for when the December Copenhagen meeting collapses in attempting to replace the failed Kyoto Protocol.
…
Next week climate change negotiations resume in Bangkok to iron out details for a Copenhagen agreement. [Oh great, another week of climate nonsense to put up with – Ed]

Present negotiating texts include radically different and mutually exclusive visions for emissions targets and how to secure them through instruments, including international financing and undermining intellectual property on low-carbon technology.

Expect another round of media savvy statements to ensure no attending minister looks like they are holding back a deal. But the music will stop by the end of the December Copenhagen meeting and if ministers are smart, they won’t be passing the parcel, they will be dropping it.

And while Rudd and Wong seek to pass their emissions trading scheme they will be committing Australia to unilateral action to harm our economy while the rest of the world points fingers for Copenhagen’s failure.

So even if Australia isn’t left with the parcel in Copenhagen, Rudd and Wong will come home to start a new game: ETS hot potato.

Read it here.

ACM’s favourite alarmist is on top form again, this time in cahoots with an bunch of international enviro-crackpots, who have prepared a report on the “lines in the sand” that must not be crossed if we are to “save the planet.” No, really, stick with it:

The boundaries for climate change, fresh water use, pollution and ozone depletion among others, if transgressed, could bring the world into a new era of decline, the scientists warn.

The global study brought together 28 researchers, including three Australians, and outlines exactly what levels are required to keep the world sustainable.

For climate change, it’s a carbon concentration of 350 parts per million; for biodiversity, it’s the loss of only 10 species per million each year.
…
“We are entering the Anthropocene, a new geological era in which our activities are threatening the Earth’s capacity to regulate itself,” said report co-author Professor Will Steffen, a director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University in Canberra.

“The expanding human enterprise could undermine the resilience of the Holocene state, which would otherwise continue for thousands of years into the future.

“Here we have a challenge … on how can we get our act together?”

So when the climate change fraud has finally been debunked, and the alarmists are desperately looking for another path to global socialism, this report gives plenty of options to choose from:

The other areas include the stratospheric ozone, land-use change, ocean acidification, fresh water distribution, the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, aerosol loading and chemical pollution.

You have been warned.

Read it here.

Given who else is in the room, it ain’t saying much:

Rudd smartest guy in room, says Clinton

“In my opinion, he is one of the most well-informed, well read, intelligent leaders in the world today,” Mr Clinton told the audience.

I guess that would be compared to such intellectuals as Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Silvio Berlusconi etc, etc… Everything’s relative!

Read it here.