Lima hypocrisy alert: Bianca Jagger lectures us on climate

9 December, 2014 by

Lecturing the little people

Lecturing the little people

I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.

Here we have the familiar, nauseating sight of the rich and privileged lecturing the little people on how to behave:

Whatever her youthful reputation as the wife of a world-famous rock star and glittery jet setter, Bianca Jagger has committed much of the past 30 years of her life to advancing causes associated with human rights and environmental protection in the developing world.

On Sunday morning, during a side event connected with the annual UN climate negotiations here in Lima, Peru, the 69-year-old Jagger sounded every bit the international diplomat she’s become in recent years. Delivering an impassioned 13-minute talk during a panel discussion, she spoke bluntly about the perils of climate change and the need to restore both destroyed and degraded forests as the best strategy to reduce the ongoing damage.

“Climate change will affect everyone, everywhere, in every nation, in every echelon of society, in the developing world and the developed world,” Jagger said. “We will all suffer the catastrophic consequences of rising sea levels, ocean acidification, food scarcity and political unrest. But some of the most vulnerable communities in the world are bearing a disproportionate burden of the harm without having significantly contributed to the cost. This is a terrible injustice.”

Noting that climate experts predict that 2014 will become the hottest year on record, Jagger warned: “Time is running out. Inaction will lead to severe and irreversible damage.” (source)

Next up, Leo di Caprio, leading a conga-line of Hollywood A-listers who travel everywhere on private jets and consume enough electricity to power a small African republic, but expect everyone else to sacrifice their already inferior quality of life to ‘save the planet’.

Pass the sick bag…

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Lima talks treading well-worn path to oblivion

8 December, 2014 by

The path towards climate oblivion is well-worn

The path towards climate oblivion is well-worn

Climate talks always follow the same, drearily predictable path:

  1. The talks are prefaced by months of building excitement from the Greens and climate headbangers;
  2. The UN and the WMO issue urgent warnings about the extreme [insert any weather phenomenon here] and the consequent need for action;
  3. The media is jammed full of Hottest Year Evah™ headlines;
  4. Ban ki-Moon and Christiana Figueres start spouting the usual ‘last chance to save the planet’ BS;
  5. The parties arrive at their luxury hotels, having emitted thousands of tonnes of CO2 getting there;
  6. Once the initial excitement has died down, the partying has finished and everyone has epic hangovers, the same tired old differences between rich and poor countries emerge;
  7. Nothing happens until a day before the scheduled end;
  8. Suddenly, there will be frantic negotiation into the early hours to ‘rescue the talks’;
  9. Barack Obama, climate messiah, will fly in at the last minute – his mere presence an almost certain guarantee of success;
  10. A hastily cobbled-together ‘agreement’ (which will have no binding effect, and which will kick any hard decisions further down the road) will be announced in order to save face;
  11. The media and the Greens will publicly hail this sham agreement as a successful outcome, whilst secretly acknowledging that it is yet another embarrassing failure;
  12. Everyone disappears back home (belching thousands more tonnes of CO2), and the whole thing is forgotten until the next ‘last chance’ comes around.

Lima appears to be following the script pretty closely:

International climate talks in Lima, Peru, are entering their final week, with few hints of whether a newfound optimism that marked the start of negotiations will translate into an agreement that would rein in climate change.

Convened by the United Nations, the talks aim to craft the framework for an international accord to curtail heat-trapping emissions and adapt to changes already occurring on the planet. The final agreement is due to be signed in Paris next December.

Despite more than 20 years of discussions about what nations must do to contend with climate change, the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases are higher than ever, as negotiations have continued to snag on the contradictory priorities of different countries.

The latest round in the discussions began last week with fresh momentum, in large part thanks to steps the U.S. took last month, including a major deal with China to curb emissions and a $US3 billion ($3.6 billion) commitment to help developing nations fight climate change.

Yet over the days since the Lima conference began Dec. 1, clashes have flared between developed and developing countries over issues such as whether emissions cuts should be mandatory and how much money rich countries should provide to help poor nations cope with damage from climate change.

Many conflicts stem from countries hewing to familiar hard-line bargaining positions. The question remains whether the brinkmanship will give way to an agreement by the end of the week on key issues, the most pressing of which is ground rules on emission-reduction pledges that countries are to make early next year.

“It’s disappointing that countries can’t rise above these petty differences, but it’s not surprising,” Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said from Lima. “Everything always comes down to the wire. (Cabinet-level) ministers have the chance to rise above this when they arrive this week because this is their chance to create their legacy on climate change.”

The window is closing fast for countries to cut greenhouse gases enough to avert the greatest global temperature increases and natural disasters associated with them, climate scientists and organisations such as the World Bank warn. The current round of talks would shape efforts to address climate change after 2020. A 2009 agreement reached in Copenhagen delivered voluntary commitments from some nations, including the United States, to take steps before 2020. (source)

All on track for yet another failure masquerading as success, then.

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Trouser-wetting thunderclap in Sydney

7 December, 2014 by

I was casually recording an approaching storm this afternoon when this happened, and I had to change my underwear.

Turn the volume up, watch full screen in HD for the full experience… OMG…

The strike was about 80 metres away (behind the camera, I believe) and marble-sized hail followed from a suspected supercell.

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Australian aid to bypass corrupt United Nations

6 December, 2014 by

Beware the handbag…

Beware the handbag…

Another of Julie Bishop’s handbags to the head for the moonbats at the UN.

Bishop should really go much, much further and tell the Pacific Island scroungers riding the climate bandwagon where to get off, especially since flooding is far more a result of geological sinking rather than sea level rise, and that sea level rise is probably mostly natural rather than burning fossil fuels, but it’s a start:

Australia will continue to directly pay for climate change adaptation in vulnerable South Pacific island nations through its aid budget rather than donate to a UN Green Climate Fund designed for the same purpose, the foreign minister said Friday ahead of traveling to climate talks in Peru.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said governments should judge for themselves whether bilateral action to reduce the impact of climate change on developing countries was a more efficient use of aid money than donating through the UN.

“The Green Climate Fund is about supporting developing countries build resilience to climate change. Australia is already doing that through our aid program,” Bishop told The Associated Press before leading the Australian delegation to Lima for a UN climate summit.

“From my experience, bilateral work is able to customise responses when we’re working directly with another partner country,” she said. (source)

Send any dollars to the UN, and a large chunk of it will be syphoned off to pay for the rent seekers at the IPCC and WMO, rather than going to its intended beneficiaries.

Shock. A government that thinks for itself rather than bowing and scraping to the unelected fraudsters at the UN.

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2014: Hottest year EVAH! No, it isn’t.

5 December, 2014 by

Satellites don't lie, unlike the UN and WMO

Satellites don’t lie, unlike the UN and WMO

The World Meteorological Organisation, an arm of the UN, is working itself up into a climate-gasm at the possibility of 2014 being the Hottest Year Evah™.

Strangely enough, this is at precisely the same time that climate talks in Lima, organised by, er, the UN, are trying to encourage the world to take urgent action on climate change. Coincidence? You be the judge.

Here’s the statement. [Read more…]

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Madness: the planet has rights too, you know!

4 December, 2014 by

Greens are vegetables too, you know!

Greens are vegetables too, you know!

I am seriously not making this up.

There is an organisation called the Rights of Nature Tribunal, in which a ‘Prosecutor for the Earth’ will bring cases against governments and businesses where there have been breaches of the ‘Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth’. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so freaking scary.

I know it sounds like something out of medieval witchcraft or Lord of the Rings, but the ABC, naturally, is taking this all extremely seriously (so no giggling at the back):

THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT’S handling of the dangers facing the Great Barrier Reef will be brought before an international tribunal in Lima, Peru on Saturday. It is one of 12 cases being heard at the International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature.

Michelle Maloney, national convenor Australian Earth Laws Alliance and chair of the Environmental Defenders’ Office, Queensland helped prepare the case. She said the aim was to generate a strong statement of concern from the “ethical leaders” of the Tribunal over the governments’ perceived neglect of the Reef in the face of climate change, increasing development and agricultural run-off.

“We will be presenting the escalating threats from industrial development that the Queensland and Australian governments are allowing to happen and that threatens the existence of the Great Barrier Reef in contravention of UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention. AELA is bringing the case to bring to the attention of the global community what’s happening to the Great Barrier Reef,” she said.

The International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature formed earlier this year from an alliance of nearly 100 environment and law groups. It aims to promote what it describes as “wild law”, the idea that ecosystems have an intrinsic right to exist and are not simply a resource for humans. (source)

But wait a minute, if the planet has rights, then it must accept responsibilities, correct? Otherwise, that isn’t justice at all, it’s just victimisation, so the Earth needs to accept those responsibilities before trying to enforce its own rights, yes?

I therefore give notice that I intend to sue the Earth for all the catastrophic earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides and other natural disasters that have occurred in the last thousand years and which have killed millions of innocent human beings.

Just because the Earth thinks that we haven’t done as much as we should have done to save the tree frog or whatever, that’s no reason to belch millions of tons of lava onto the surface of the planet and wipe out entire civilisations. I think the Earth needs to suffer some serious punishment for its irresponsible and dangerous actions…

OK, sarcasm off. Fortunately this laughable tribunal has no powers (yet), so governments and industry can simply give it the two-fingered salute, which I very much hope they will.

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Pocock’s pointless protest earns him a penalty

3 December, 2014 by

Two points for a conversion… to the Greens

Two points for a conversion… to the Greens

Joining the enviro-activists in chaining yourself to plant and machinery at a coal mine isn’t a great look, and the Australian Rugby Union won’t give you a second chance.

All he has achieved is to portray himself as a complete goose:

Former Wallabies captain David Pocock has been charged over a protest against a coal mine in northern New South Wales.

The ACT Brumbies player was among a group of seven who locked themselves on to digging equipment at Whitehaven Coal’s Maules Creek Mine site for 10 hours yesterday.

Pocock, 26, and the other protesters have been charged with trespass, remaining on enclosed land without lawful excuse and hindering the working of mining equipment.

All were granted conditional bail to face court in January.

Pocock said he was aware he was likely to be arrested before joining the protest.

“Those charges are something each of us has considered,” he said.

“I think when you put it in the context of a possible future for the Earth with climate change and the challenges the local community face, that certainly puts it into perspective and it doesn’t seem like that big of a sacrifice.” (source)

Stick to playing rugby…

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Result! Coalition slashes funds to UN climate scroungers

2 December, 2014 by

Snouts out of the trough

Snouts out of the trough

It’s a drop in the ocean, to be sure, but at least it is in the right direction. The ABC, naturally, is inconsolable:

The Federal Government has slashed funding to a key United Nations environment agency by more than 80 per cent, stunning environmental groups ahead of a global climate change summit in Peru.

The ABC has learned the Government cut $4 million from the UN Environment Program (UNEP), which provides advice on environmental policies and climate change negotiations.

“Whether it’s air pollution, whether it’s ozone depleting substances, what’s happening in the world’s oceans, the conservation of biodiversity – for a relatively small amount, Australia benefits from leveraging well over $500 million in contributions that other countries make,” UNEP’s executive director Achim Steiner said.

Australia was due to contribute around $1.2 million this year, but has only offered $200,000.

Over the next four years it will scale back its funding by $4 million. (source)

Only a few billion to go, then…

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Ed Davey: ‘One year to save planet’

1 December, 2014 by

Where do they find them?

Where do they find them?

OK, right, just shut up and listen. We’ve only got ONE year to save the planet, starting NOW.

Thus spake the UK’s moonbat minister for energy, commenting on the Lima gab-fest:

World leaders must agree a deal to tackle global warming within the next year or risk losing our way of life as we know it, Ed Davey, the energy secretary has warned ahead of major international negotiations in Lima.

About 9,000 politicians, diplomats and non-governmental organisation delegates will descend on the Peruvian capital over the next two weeks for the UN’s annual climate change talks, intended to thrash out key details to enable a global deal by an agreed deadline of next year’s summit in Paris.

Mr Davey told the Telegraph: “These are the last major annual talks before we hit our deadline in Paris next year. We need a deal in Paris – there is no alternative that will protect our national security, our economy and the way of life we take for granted.” (source)

Ed was no doubt following the timetable set by the WWF:

WWF’s Climate Solutions report shows how the world can limit its heat-trapping emissions with known technologies and policy changes, using only sustainable, environmentally friendly energy sources.

“The question for leaders and governments everywhere is how to rein in dangerously high levels of carbon dioxide emissions without stunting development and reducing living standards,” said James Leape, WWF International’s Director General. “The Climate Solutions report shows not only that this can be done, it shows how we can do it. We have a small window of time in which we can plant the seeds of change, and that is the next five years. We cannot afford to waste them.

Except that report was in, er, 2007.

Even worse, according to Penny Sackett, alarmist ex-chief scientist, our time runs out in just three days…

sackett

Quick, panic!

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Lima: latest in long line of pointless climate gab-fests

29 November, 2014 by

Life is tough on the climate bandwagon…

Life is tough on the climate bandwagon…

Billions of taxpayer dollars will be pissed up the wall yet again, sending environmental rent-seekers and trough-feeders to an exotic luxury hotel to tell the world how to control the weather.

But don’t forget, the big one is in Paris next year, so this is just the warm-up. Hopefully, Paris will be just as successful as Copenhagen.

Typically, the ABC has one of its regular enviro-gasms:

Representatives from almost 200 nations have begun arriving in the Peruvian capital, Lima, for UN climate talks that get underway on Monday.

Delegates will meet for 10 days to work on a new deal to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions, meant to be agreed at a summit in Paris in December next year.

Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, has described the talks as a “stepping stone” towards a universal treaty.

“Never before have the risks of climate change been so obvious and the impacts so visible,” she said in a statement ahead of the meeting.

“Never before have we seen such a desire at all levels of society to take climate action.

“Never before has society had all the smart policy and technology resources to curb greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience.”

Pledges in recent weeks by China, the United States and the European Union to limit emissions have helped brighten prospects for a new global deal, even though it is likely to be too weak to match UN calls for deep cuts to limit heatwaves, droughts and rising seas. (source)

Worse than Groundhog Day.

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