Where's Ruddy?

21 December, 2009 by

Dead ringer

You would have thought that Kevin Rudd, after the “triumph” of Copenhagen, would be bursting to bore the Australian public rigid about the amazing, “historic,” “unprecedented,” [insert fifteen more adjectives here] deal struck and how it’s now full steam ahead for an ETS in February because the rest of the world is committed to doing the same… hang on, that’s not quite right. Unsurprisingly, Kevin has holed up in Kirribilli because his spin-meisters haven’t yet worked out the script. Tony Abbott makes hay:

“You were the one who built Copenhagen up. You were the one who was a friend of the chair. You were the one who was the co-author of the rejected documents. You need to explain yourself.

“Having come back from Copenhagen, instead of explaning the outcome to the Australian people, he is in hiding in Kirribilli House. Now I say to Mr Rudd do the right thing by the Australian people, come out of hiding, don’t closet yourself in Kirribilli House, don’t send out Penny Wong and Kate Lundy and all these other millions to explain the disappointing outcome of Copenhagen – do it yourself.

“I think the public are reacting against the way the government is conducting this debate in these sweeping, moral terms, I mean in the end the debate over how we respond to climate change should be based on fact not faith.

“This is not a theological question, it’s a practical question and I think Mr Rudd risks triggering a very serious backlash from public if he keeps running around like Torquemada – trying to have climate change heretics burnt at the stake.”

Brilliant stuff. More of the same, please.

Read it here (and listen too!)

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Climate madness from Ross Garnaut

21 December, 2009 by

Pontificating…

Ross Garnaut hangs around like a bad smell, pontificating on climate matters when nobody really gives a toss (a bit like Malcolm Turnbull, in fact), and his latest announcement suggests Australia commit to a 25% emissions reduction by 2020:

Professor Ross Garnaut told The Australian Online today that such a goal [2˚C warming] would require Australia to embrace the top end of the [government’s] target.

“Well that’s the 450 parts per million. If the world really was on the path to delivering that that would be a 25 per cent target in Australia by 2020 and 90 per cent by 2050,” he said.

However, he said the Prime Minister would have to wait until he discovered what the world was doing before he committed to such a target.

“I think we’ve got to wait. The wise thing is to wait and talk to others,” he said.

So we have to cut 25% by 2020, but at the same time wait until we see what the world is doing? And even if you can look past that inconsistency, you have to ask, what difference does it make to global emissions if Australia cuts by 5%, or 25% or 100%? Answer: nothing. Anything we do is just a gesture, and a pointless one at that.

And if you can look past that, then you have to ask why they think 450 ppm will guarantee only a 2˚C rise in temperature. The sun didn’t take part at Copenhagen, neither did the oceans, nor the clouds, nor volcanoes, nor cosmic rays, nor the solar system, so I wonder what they all think of this tiny, annoying surface irritant on the planet (i.e. humans) deciding what its climate will be in 2050?

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Rudd to "try again for ETS tax"

21 December, 2009 by

Delusional about climate

At least the Daily Telegraph is calling it an ETS “tax” now!

Kevin Rudd, along with all the other world leaders at Copenhagen, believe they have the power to regulate the earth’s climate. They genuinely believe that it will bow to their superior power, and keep its temperature rise below whatever figure they deem to be the right one.

There is one word for this kind of belief: delusional.

And now Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan are continuing to press ahead with the ETS for the hopelessly pathetic reason of “business certainty”.

Treasurer Wayne Swan said the controversial emissions trading scheme that would push up the cost of electricity and power was “just as relevant now as it was before Copenhagen and we need to pass the bill for business certainty”. [Well done to the Tele for calling it as it is! – Ed]

The ETS was rejected by the Senate earlier this month and the Government planned to re-introduce the scheme for parliamentary approval in February next year even though other nations were refusing to agree to cut their own carbon emissions.

The Rudd Government said it still remained committed to cutting the nation’s greenhouse gas output by between five and 25 per cent.

It would set a more exact target in February next year when other nations made public the size of any greenhouse reductions they would be perpared to make.

Keep pushing, guys. The more you do, the more the public will see through this nonsense.

Read it here.

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Wikipedia: Don't trust it on climate

21 December, 2009 by

Don't go there

Why? Because over 5000 articles have been tampered with by UK Green Party activist William Connolley so that they all neatly fit in with the IPCC agenda (bit like the temperature records, really):

Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information source the world has ever known – Wikipedia. Starting in February 2003, just when opposition to the claims of the band members were beginning to gel, Connolley set to work on the Wikipedia site. He rewrote Wikipedia’s articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug.11, the Medieval Warm Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph. He rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who were skeptical of the band. Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the world’s most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets, followed by others that the band especially hated, such as Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, authorities on the Medieval Warm Period.

All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement. (source – h/w WUWT)

WUWT is now reporting that Connolley has been ditched by Wikipedia. However, are you starting to detect a theme here? Anything to do with the alleged “consensus” has to be doctored, tampered with, fiddled or manipulated in order to keep it afloat. Hardly the sign of “settled science”.

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UK Telegraph: Pachauri mired in conflict

21 December, 2009 by

Money from climate scare?

The UK Telegraph  runs an eye-opening piece about IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri’s business dealings, which conflict hugely with his UN role:

No one in the world exercised more influence on the events leading up to the Copenhagen conference on global warming than Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and mastermind of its latest report in 2007.

Although Dr Pachauri is often presented as a scientist (he was even once described by the BBC as “the world’s top climate scientist”), as a former railway engineer with a PhD in economics he has no qualifications in climate science at all.

What has also almost entirely escaped attention, however, is how Dr Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations.

These outfits include banks, oil and energy companies and investment funds heavily involved in ‘carbon trading’ and ‘sustainable technologies’, which together make up the fastest-growing commodity market in the world, estimated soon to be worth trillions of dollars a year.

Today, in addition to his role as chairman of the IPCC, Dr Pachauri occupies more than a score of such posts, acting as director or adviser to many of the bodies which play a leading role in what has become known as the international ‘climate industry’.

It is remarkable how only very recently has the staggering scale of Dr Pachauri’s links to so many of these concerns come to light, inevitably raising questions as to how the world’s leading ‘climate official’ can also be personally involved in so many organisations which stand to benefit from the IPCC’s recommendations. (source)

Pachauri has already responded, but typically in the ad hominem style we have come to expect:

“Nothing much of substance has been found in the hacking controversy. So this is another attempt by the climate sceptics to discredit the IPCC. They now want to go after me and hope that it would serve their purpose,” Pachauri told The Indian Express on Sunday evening.

“Frankly, I would not even like to respond to them. Every single payment that I receive goes to my organization (TERI) which is non-profit organization. The extra money that my organization generates goes into the ‘Lighting a Billion Lights’ campaign that TERI has launched. These allegations are nothing but lies,” he said. (source – h/t Tom Nelson)

“Nothing of substance”? So I guess destroying data, refusing FOI requests, manipulating temperature records are all OK with the IPCC, are they? Sure.

We’ll see – there will be more to this story, that’s for certain.

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Post-Copenhagen civil disobedience starts already…

20 December, 2009 by

Smash the State

Let’s hope this isn’t a sign of things to come. The first protest in response to the outcome of Copenhagen:

Environmentalists have chained themselves to a coal train and rail tracks in Newcastle in protest against the outcome of Copenhagen’s climate talks.

The 25 activists marched onto the tracks at the Kooragang coal export terminal about 9am (AEDT) on Sunday, stopping a train and occupying a bridge.

The action, organised by the environmental group Rising Tide, aims to shut down coal exports from Newcastle, the world’s busiest coal terminal.

Spokesman for the group Steve Phillips said the protest is an act of desperation after the UN climate talks in Copenhagen failed to produce a just, effective and legally binding treaty.

“The US, Australia and other wealthy countries wrecked the talks,” Mr Phillips told AAP.

“People are tired of seeing our leaders fail to address to problem of climate change – we want to undertake bold and long-lasting action.”

For some reason, some people, believing themselves to be on a crusade to save the planet, think that democracy just isn’t good enough. Throw away the key.

Read it here.

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Copenhagen: the recriminations begin

20 December, 2009 by

Backstabbing begins

The back-stabbing kicks off with our own Penny Wong blaming “radical nations” for refusing to back the Obama deal:

Australia’s Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, has criticised the critics.

“There are a few radical nations, a few radical states seeking to block action on climate change internationally, seeking to derail this process,” she said.

Many said the deal fell far short of UN ambitions, but Senator Wong welcomed the outcome of the talks. [That’s cognitive dissonance for you – Ed]

“Of course there is a lot to do,” she said.

“Of course we would have wanted more, but this is a significant step and what is important now is pressing on.”

Pressing on? How about switching off? I am so over Copenhagen… roll on Christmas.

Read it here.

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Copenhagen: the aftermath

20 December, 2009 by

The aftermath

The general reaction has been “a lot of hot air”, which just about sums it up:

GLOBAL leaders went to Copenhagen to save the world but used the final hours to desperately try and save face.

A “frustrated” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last night joined US President Barack Obama in putting the most positive spin on the outcome of the conference, but the final “deal” was condemned across the political spectrum.

Poor countries and green groups were outraged by the three-page “political statement” brokered by Mr Obama – and four other national leaders – in the dying hours.

Mr Obama called the outline of the agreement – yet to be endorsed by most other countries last night – a “meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough”, but admitted “this progress is not enough”. (source)

Rightly, Tony Abbott lays into Kevin Rudd’s self-serving agenda on the ETS:

The Opposition Leader, who argues Australia should delay a domestic carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) until a substantive agreement has been struck at a global level, said: ”Copenhagen, it seems, has been a very Kevin Rudd kind of agreement. There’s been a lot of words but not many deeds come out of it.”

Mr Abbott said the draft accord was more ”good intentions”, but said it was better than no agreement at all on climate change.

He said Mr Rudd had been wrong to rush the Government’s climate change policy through Parliament. It was shot down in the Senate.

”I hope that he’ll now entirely reconsider his climate change policy,” he said.

Mr Abbott attacked Mr Rudd’s belief he may have been able to influence the outcome of an agreement struck at Copenhagen. ”I think that it was always a great conceit to think that Australia could save the world on its own,’‘ he said.

”The Australian voice should be heard in the world but I think it’s wrong for people like Mr Rudd to imagine that they can be much more than the mouse that roared.” (source)

And the Greens, clearly deranged, want Australia to commit to even deeper cuts, despite Copenhagen achieving nothing on a global scale:

The Greens have demanded that Kevin Rudd commits Australia to a 40 per cent cut in emissions by 2020 despite the failure of the Copenhagen summit to set emissions targets.

A deal struck by world leaders at the climate change summit in Copenhagen includes a global warming limit of two degrees well short of demands from island nations.

Greens leader Bob Brown says the emissions trading bills rejected by the Senate earlier this year allow warming of four degrees. [Actually, Bob, they allow whatever warming or cooling the planet feels like, because nothing Australia does will make any difference to the climate – Ed]

Senator Brown says Mr Rudd should now negotiate with the Greens so his Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is reset to keep warming at no more than 1.5 degrees. (source)

Australia’s 1.5% of global emissions determines the fate of the planet. Truly insane! Just think what a 40% emissions cut by 2020 would do to – it would be the end of our economy – oh, hang on, that’s what the Greens want, isn’t it?

At least Piers Ackerman delivers some climate sense:

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who sought to attain some semblance of world statesmanship as a “friend of the chair” appointed by host, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, again demonstrated his lack of diplomatic negotiating skills as conferees failed to agree to a meaningful conclusion.

Fortunately, Rudd’s attempts to scare Australians into supporting an untested emissions trading system in advance of the failed conference were derailed by a new and reinvigorated Opposition, under Tony Abbott, at the eleventh hour.

Had Malcolm Turnbull’s plan to go along with the Labor Party succeeded, Australia would now be suffering under a new tax scheme that would have ensured the collapse of industries fundamental to the economy.

The collapse at Copenhagen into a weak, almost meaningless morass of platitudes and “legally non-binding” (how’s that for humbug?) agreement with no firm limits on emissions provided real-time proof of the inability of the United Nations to organise, let alone operate, anything.That Australia sent more than 100 people to Copenhagen to participate in this gabfest only to return with a piece of paper that reads like a drunk’s New Year’s resolution is an absolute disgrace. What’s more, the whole show will be repeated in Bonn in six months in another exercise of futility, fatuity and duplicity. (source)

Phew, sanity at last.

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Copenhagen: summit ends without formal agreement

19 December, 2009 by

Finally over

It ends with a whimper, not a bang, as UN negotiators chose merely to “take note” of a US deal, as they were unable to secure the necessary agreement to formally adopt it. From The Washington Post:

The move came after a plan was dropped that would have paid developing countries to preserve their tropical forests in order to avert the release of greenhouse gases through deforestation.

That decision gutted one of the talks’ most meaningful outcomes, striking a blow to a coalition of poor countries and environmentalists that hoped to address a phenomenon that accounts for roughly 15 percent of the world’s annual carbon output. The program is known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, or REDD.

Negotiators had struggled throughout the early morning to overcome the objections of countries such as Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba and Sudan, who rejected the deal President Obama helped secure late Friday. They said the process of achieving the accord was undemocratic, and it failed to meaningfully address climate change.

That deal provided for monitoring domestic emission cuts but set no overall global target for cutting greenhouse gases and no deadline for reaching a formal international treaty.

The deal fell far short of even some low expectations for the summit, and left a comprehensive global battle plan for fighting climate change potentially years away. Although the agreement included some major players– China, India, Brazil and South Africa — it was not universally agreed upon by the 193 nations attending the summit, which some leaders left early Friday in apparent frustration. (source)

That’s it, I guess. There will be acres of comment in the media tomorrow, but it’s bed time here in Australia now!

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Copenhagen: Obama threatens China with "eco-spying"

19 December, 2009 by

Whatever next!

Ouch:

The final accord is widely seen to have acquiesced to Chinese demands by agreeing that emissions can be measured domestically, as long as the results are reported to the rest of the world.

However, speaking later, Mr Obama gave a veiled warning that satellite technology could be used for what is likely to be termed “eco-spying” to ensure countries honoured their commitments.

“We can actually monitor what takes place through satellite imagery and so forth, so I think we are going to have a pretty good idea of what people are doing,” he said. He added that the deal could be successful if “there is a sense of moral obligation and information sharing so that people can see who’s serious and who’s not”.

Can’t imagine the Chinese will be too happy about that, BHO…

Read it here.

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