Unfortunately, it looks more and more likely that some kind of deal at Copenhagen will happen. The news reports this morning are all gung ho about a deal, and the Chinese appear to be on board to some extent, although the quote from Hu Jintau was particularly vague:

“We will endeavour to cut carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by a notable margin by 2020 from the 2005 level.” (source)

There does seem to be some momentum behind it all. The Sydney Morning Herald is using the recovery of the ozone layer, resulting from the Montreal Protocol, to be an example of how a global treaty can work (i.e. as for climate change), sadly missing the point that the link between CO2 and “global warming” is far less proven than that between CFCs and ozone depletion.

Even The Australian, usually healthily sceptical on climate, is gushing:

PERHAPS frozen climate change negotiations are starting to thaw, both globally and locally. It seems certain no nation wants to be seen as sabotaging the Copenhagen climate change conference before it starts. And UN head Ban Ki-moon is calling for a ‘fair deal” as the basis for the Copenhagen talks. It seems he might have cause for confidence. Ahead of a major speech in New York by China’s President Hu Jintao on his country’s commitment to tackling global warming, Chinese officials were emphasising the country’s commitment to dealing with the “real and imminent” threat of climate change. The UN’s climate change director, Yvo de Boer, is talking of “his high expectations” of what Mr Hu intends to propose. Even India, which continues to demand action from the US, appears intent on bringing some reduction measures to the negotiating table. It seems a sea-change on climate is in the offing internationally and perhaps at home. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong is saying that if the conservatives can come up with a settled stance on the government’s emissions trading scheme by next month, she will consider amending the legislation.

This is despite admitting in the next paragraph that the science isn’t settled, but the public think it’s a problem [why is that I wonder? Continual media and government misrepresentations of the facts perhaps? – Ed], so therefore we have to deal with it. And with Ban Ki-Moon blackmailing the planet by making the climate debate an issue of morality, it’s hard to see how some kind of agreement, pointless as it will be, won’t be reached:

“Failure to reach broad agreement in Copenhagen would be morally inexcusable, economically short-sighted and politically unwise,” he said.

Mr Ban pointed to worst-case scenarios of UN scientists, who say that the world has only 10 years to reverse the course of climate change which would put at risk entire species and worsen natural disasters.

“The fate of future generations, and the hopes and livelihoods of billions today, rest literally with you,” he said. (source)

Pure climate madness, I’m afraid.

You heard it here first. The hyperbole reaches ludicrous levels as an alliance of small island states claims that failing to “tackle climate change” is equivalent to genocide, at least of a benign variety, whatever that is:

The alliance’s chairman, Grenada Prime Minister Tillman Thomas, says the states are gravely concerned for their survival.

“We’re already being threatened,” he said.

“What I’m saying is that those who are really concerned about humanity and about survival, would they just sit back and permit countries to disappear?

“It is really an ethical question we are faced with now. A failure to act is sort of really a benign genocide in a sense.“

Is it also “benign genocide” when a volcano erupts, an earthquake strikes or when tectonic plate movement means an island sinks into the sea? No, they are the natural hazards of living on planet earth, just like climate change.

Read it here.

What is it about the way Penny Wong speaks? It’s the continual repetition of a phrase, like she’s stuck in an endless loop, that rankles so:

“We want the legislation passed, that’s what we want, that’s what we’re focused on, not only early elections,” Senator Wong said.

“Why should we pass this legislation? Because it is squarely in Australia’s national interests to take action on climate change, it is squarely in Australia’s national interest to pass the carbon pollution reduction scheme.”

Exterminate, exterminate. And in any case, you’re wrong. Please explain how crippling our economy, before we know whether other countries (our competitors) will cripple theirs, is in our national interests.

Read it here.

The latest News Poll demonstrates how well the moonbat media, the IPCC, enviro-celebs like Tim Flannery and Cate Blanchett and governments of all political shades continue to brainwash a majority of the unsuspecting public into believing the following:

1. that anthropogenic global warming [climate change?] is real and dangerous;
2. that we need drastic cuts in emissions of “carbon pollution” to “save the planet”;
3. that Rudd’s ETS will cost no jobs and will miraculously save the Great Barrier Reef.

 When the alternatives, namely:

1. climate change is predominantly natural, in which the human signal from anthropogenic CO2 is almost undetectable (despite billions of dollars of research);
2. emissions cuts means reducing energy consumption, which means limiting or reversing economic growth, which will plunge millions of people around the world (back) into poverty;
3. Rudd’s ETS will cripple the Australian economy, destroy thousands of jobs, and make not one iota of difference to the climate, either locally or globally

is not even considered. At least things are moving in the right direction, however:

According to the latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian last weekend, support for the government’s [ETS] scheme is still strong at 67 per cent but is down from 72 per cent in October last year.

Those uncommitted on a scheme have risen from seven to 11 per cent.

Outright opposition to the scheme is a steady 22 per cent of those surveyed.

Those “strongly in favour” of an emissions trading scheme have fallen from 35 per cent in October last year to 29 per cent last weekend.

Slow progress indeed.

Read it here. See also:

Mixed messages: Libs split on carbon
Climate change poll flags pitfalls for both leaders

It doesn’t seem to matter how many studies show that the ETS will obliterate jobs left right and centre, because the government always falls back on its Treasury modelling that says the whole thing will just be a minor irritation to the economy. And since they appear to have an almost religious duty to push through the ETS come what may, that’s not surprising. But others have different views:

THE minerals industry has demanded Kevin Rudd overhaul his proposed emissions trading system or risk smashing Australian jobs and the nation’s industrial competitiveness.

As the Prime Minister lobbied global counterparts for action on climate change in New York yesterday, the Minerals Council of Australia warned that his ETS plans were far too tough compared with new European Commission ETS proposals that emerged during the weekend.

If Mr Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme went ahead, the council said, it would cripple the ability of Australian companies to compete against Europeans, costing thousands of jobs and billions of dollars and having no environmental benefit.

The dire warning came as Mr Rudd continued to express pessimism about the chance of a new agreement on global emissions reductions at the UN Copenhagen climate change summit in December.
…
MCA acting chief executive Brendan Pearson yesterday backed the cautious approach, seizing on weekend proposals from the European Commission to attack the CPRS as a potential job-destroyer.

Under the EC proposals, Mr Pearson said, 80 per cent of minerals producers and manufacturers would receive free permits, meaning the coal, aluminium, copper and non-ferrous metals industries would faced little cost.

At the same time, 90 per cent of Australia’s mining exports, by value, would be produced without any compensation.

“While Australia’s coalmining sector pays $5 billion in carbon costs over the next five years, the EU industry will pay nothing,” Mr Pearson said. “While the Australian gold sector pays $810million, the comparable industries in the EU (and US) will face no or limited permit costs.“

Sounds like a level playing field, doesn’t it?

Read it here.

The Opposition are pouncing on comments by Kevin Rudd on CNN about the relative timing of the ETS bill. Just for laughs, check out the language our leader uses in a formal interview (an embarrassment to Australia wherever he goes):

“The government I lead was only elected 18 months or so ago, we ratified the Kyoto Protocol immediately and we are into these negotiations big time,” he said [“Into these negotiations big time”? Oh, please – Ed].

“But you know something, our domestic emissions trading legislation was also voted down by our Senate a very short time ago.

“That doesn’t impede me from being active in these negotiations and my observation of President Obama is it doesn’t impede him either.”

The Opposition’s spokesman for the Environment, Greg Hunt, has jumped all over that statement.

“The Prime Minister is telling Australians one thing at home and telling Americans another time abroad,” he said.

“It’s absolutely clear as we’ve always maintained that we should get on and work on an international agreement that should occur before rather than after we finalise an emissions trading scheme in Australia, because we won’t know what the form of the scheme should be until we know what the rest of the world is doing.

“I actually think today’s statement to the Americans on CNN by Kevin Rudd takes away his own argument for a system before the world comes to an agreement.

We shall see. More likely, the Krudd spin cycle will deal with that little misunderstanding, and we will be back to square one by tomorrow morning.

Read it here.

This is Penny Wong’s brilliant idea to get agreement at Copenhagen. Again, living in a kind of fantasy world, where she really believes that the whole world will take notice of the proposals of a country that contributes 1.5% of global emissions. I’m sure the world will listen politely, like one does to a demented great aunt, say “That’s nice dear” and then get back to the real world:

AUSTRALIA has unveiled a compromise proposal to break the deadlocked Copenhagen climate change negotiations that offers developing countries a more flexible way to pledge their efforts towards global greenhouse gas reductions.

Under the compromise proposal, to be announced by Climate Change Minister Penny Wong today, developing countries would not have to commit to binding, economy-wide emission-reduction targets. But they would have to submit their own binding “schedule” of how and where their reductions could be made.

The idea has been described by US President Barack Obama’s special climate change envoy, Todd Stern, as a “constructive proposal”.

But then comes the big issue:

In what appears to be a reference to China and India, she will say the developing countries with “greater capacity and responsibility” would have to promise actions that added up to “significant reductions below baselines”.

So although developing countries submit their own schedules, China and India’s schedule would have to meet certain criteria to be acceptable? What are those criteria, Penny? Because, to be honest, only China and India matter in all this. And if you start setting criteria for China and India, you’re back to, er, exactly where you started. Brilliant.

Read it here.

Actually it’s not just fiction, but outright [insert L-word here]. Writing in the Fairfax press this morning, where else, Jose Manuel Barroso clearly hasn’t been looking out of the window for the last 10 years:

CLIMATE change is happening faster than we believed only two years ago. Continuing with business as usual almost certainly means dangerous, perhaps catastrophic, climate change during the course of this century. This is the most important challenge for this generation of politicians.

And at the same time, Kevin Rudd has conceded that there is little chance of any agreement at Copenhagen… but that we should still plough on with the ETS before December anyway. Maybe one of you can explain the logic, because it eludes me:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says he is not prepared to delay consideration of the Government’s emissions trading scheme legislation despite conceding a global agreement remains some way off.

Mr Rudd is in New York to advance international negotiations on strategies to cut greenhouse gas emissions ahead of the December Copenhagen summit.

However, he is worried progress on international climate change talks are progressing too slowly to reach an agreement before [at?] Copenhagen.

And unfortunately, the Opposition’s stand-in emissions trading spokesman, Ian Macfarlane still believes that negotiating with the Government is the best option:

The Government says it is prepared to negotiate on the legislation if the Coalition puts forward specific changes to the bills.

Mr Macfarlane says he expects to have amendments ready before Parliament resumes in four weeks.

“I’m still confident that within a week, I’ll be able to sit down with the Department of Climate Change and have a preliminary discussion about their latest information from Copenhagen and following that, frame up a set of amendments over the following two weeks that I’ll firstly take to Shadow Cabinet and then to the party room,” he said.

Wrong answer.

Read it here and here.

The Age reports on another “yoof” climate campaign wittily entitled “Youth Decide” (“you decide,” geddit? Link here.) in which the kids of today vote on which world they wish to inherit. Here are the three options:

Even The Age pokes fun at the poll, wondering why we should pay attention to the opinion of 12 year olds (brainwashed at school by endless showings of An Inconvenient Truth in science class, rather than in politics class). But it also includes an almost unbelievable quote, revealing a great deal about The Age‘s view on the campaign to save the planet from climate change:

There is not, now, much value in arguing about the science of climate change. Even if it’s wrong, enough people now believe it that it may as well be right. 

In other words, give up trying to argue that the science is wrong. We’ve successfully pulled the wool over the public’s eyes now, mostly thanks to the misrepresentations in the media, and primarily thanks to the alarmist Fairfax (which includes The Age itself and The Sydney Morning Herald), and so who cares if it complete BS? We will achieve our political goals whatever happens now.

Well, I have news for you, Michael Coulter and your colleagues in Fairfax. Whether you like it or not, we will continue to argue that the alarmist science is wrong until there isn’t a breath left in our sceptical bodies. And nothing The Age or The Sydney Morning Herald prints will stop that.

Read it here.

Cutting population to save the planet:

Birth control ‘could combat climate change’

Read it here.