Bonn climate talks end with minimal progress

12 June, 2010 by

Clearly wishing he was somewhere else

Which is obviously good news. The longer it takes for the UN to reach a pointless “climate deal” the more likely it is that the whole climate edifice will have crumbled to dust. But Yvo de Boer, who’s clearly in Prozac mode at the thought of escaping the UN’s climate bureaucracy is trying to spin it as some kind of progress:

A new round of climate talks has ended with rich and poor countries both sharply criticising a new text meant to pave the way toward a deal to halt global warming.

Still, the United Nations says progress has been made at the two-week meeting in Bonn.

“This, all in all, is a big step forward, making much more possible in Cancun,” UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said on Friday, referring to the next major climate summit in Mexico at the end of the year.

In Bonn, negotiators from 185 countries tried to revive efforts for a global treaty to fight climate change after the disappointing UN summit in Copenhagen in December.

Summing up the talks, the chair of a negotiating group, Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe, presented a compromise text on all major issues of a climate treaty which was meant to bridge some of the differences between rich and poor nations and to become the basis for further negotiations.

However, delegates from countries including the United States, China, India, Brazil and Pakistan rejected the text in a floor debate.

Bolivian ambassador Pablo Solon told reporters the document favours developed countries and incorporates too much of the so-called Copenhagen Accord, a political declaration brokered by President Barack Obama in the Danish capital.

“This is not a basis for negotiations,” Solon said. “We are in the middle of a very complicated situation.”

Environmental groups also were not impressed. [When are they ever?]

“This text has moved very little,” Wendel Trio of Greenpeace told reporters.

“On content, we don’t see the progress we need,” said Antje von Broock of Friends of the Earth.

Business as usual, then.

Read it here.

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Daily Bayonet GW Hoax Weekly Roundup

11 June, 2010 by

Skewering the clueless

As always, a great read!

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Climate Madness: call for supermarket goods to have "carbon labelling"

10 June, 2010 by

Not a joke, perhaps?

You Couldn’t Make It Up Alert: More lunacy from Down Under as a local consumer group calls for products to have a label showing the amount of amount of greenhouse gases generated by a product’s raw inputs and manufacturing process. No, really, they’re 100% serious:

UK shops have hundreds of product lines with a carbon label and a UK parliamentary environment committee has said such labelling may prove the single most important measure in promoting change at home, work and in business to slow down climate change.

Australia has no such labelling and its big supermarkets and the industry body, the Australian Food and Grocery Council, are querying the consumer appetite for it and if carbon emissions should be stated on a product or if a label with a single broad environmental rating is better.

The AFGC said it couldn’t estimate when a consistent approach may be agreed and some form of labelling introduced.

Asked what the industry was doing to help raise consumer awareness, the AFGC said it had a group of retailers and manufacturers looking at options but no consumer groups were included in the group.

Choice senior food policy officer Clare Hughes said: “I think the industry needs to be showing leadership and responding by giving consumers information so that they can make sustainable choices.

“This is an area where we should be educating consumers, explaining that there are sustainability implications for the food choices that they make, and not just waiting,” Ms Hughes said.

Can you believe it? All of this is based on the assumption that CO2 is the primary driver of climate, which it almost certainly isn’t, and if it isn’t, this whole exercise is totally, utterly pointless, and will just push up the cost of essentials at the supermarket checkouts. At least the Coles supermarket chain has more sense and is politely telling them all to get lost:

“It’s premature to commit to one approach until we better understand the level of customer demand for, and understanding of, carbon labelling”.

Climate madness.

Read it here.

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Meet the green who doubts "The Science"

10 June, 2010 by

Peter Taylor

An illuminating article from a former AGW believer:

The science around climate change is not as settled as it’s presented as being. I used to think it was, until about 2003 – and then, feeling that the remedies being proposed for climate change would be more damaging to the environment than climate change itself, I took it upon myself to look at the science.

In my book on biodiversity, Beyond Conservation, I had mentioned in one of the chapters that perhaps the man-made global warming theory was not all it was being cracked up to be. The changes we are seeing now, I wrote, suggested that some other processes were at work. I then took time out, visited the science libraries, and checked the original science upon which today’s models are based.

I was shocked by what I found. Firstly, there’s no real consensus among the scientists in the UN working groups, especially around oceanography and atmospheric physics. The atmospheric physics of carbon dioxide for example is presented as being pretty straightforward: it is a greenhouse gas, therefore it warms up the planet. But even that isn’t settled. There’s a huge amount of scientific disagreement on how much extra heating in the atmosphere you will get from carbon dioxide. It is even broadly accepted that carbon dioxide on its own is not a problem. So, you can double the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and get half to one degree warming, which is within the natural variability range over a period of 50 years from now at the current rate of emissions.

And his conclusion on the state of climate research is spot on:

We’re seeing the dangerous development here of a very intolerant political ideology. It is a very strange political and scientific situation, in which vast sums of money are underwriting a bureaucracy of climate accountants and auditors, and in which academic funding is easier to obtain if you put man-made climate change at the top of your research proposal. I have never seen anything like it in the 40 years of my scientific and environmental career.

Read it here. (h/t CCF)

Peter Taylor’s book Chill is available from Amazon.

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Global warming claims fail legal scrutiny

9 June, 2010 by

Legal analysis

A law professor from the University of Pennsylvania has dissected the global warming consensus and found it to be an empty shell, as Lawrence Solomon reports:

The cross-examination, carried out by Jason Scott Johnston, Professor and Director of the Program on Law, Environment and Economy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, found that “on virtually every major issue in climate change science, the [reports of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and other summarizing work by leading climate establishment scientists have adopted various rhetorical strategies that seem to systematically conceal or minimize what appear to be fundamental scientific uncertainties or even disagreements.”

Professor Johnson, who expressed surprise that the case for global warming was so weak, systematically examined the claims made in IPCC publications and other similar work by leading climate establishment scientists and compared them with what is found in the peer-edited climate science literature. He found that the climate establishment does not follow the scientific method. Instead, it “seems overall to comprise an effort to marshal evidence in favor of a predetermined policy preference.”

The 79-page document, which effectively eviscerates the case for man-made global warming, can be found here.

Doesn’t tell me anything we haven’t suspected all along…

Read it here. (h/t WUWT)

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Rudd: Climate will be "core election issue"

8 June, 2010 by

You can tell when he's spouting horse-shit, his lips move…

Music to my ears. This is great news for the Opposition and Tony Abbott, as Kevin Rudd claims he will be going to the election with two massive new taxes, the 40% super profits tax on resources, and the threat of an ETS to push up the prices of virtually everything. When you add this to the disastrous poll results for Labor this week, it’s a double whammy that will knock Rudd for six (with luck). But of course, you can never trust a single word Rudd says, so it’s probably all horse-shit anyway and he’ll conveniently forget the ETS again, but for today at least, it’s the story:

Climate change will be still be a core issue at the federal election, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.

The federal government has officially delayed its emissions trading scheme (ETS) until at least 2013 after failing to convince the Liberals to pass it.

But that doesn’t mean the government isn’t fully committed to tackling climate change, Mr Rudd says.

He said that, unlike Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who has a different view on the subject “depending on what day of the week you happen to ask” [I think you’ll find that’s a description of you], the government has always accepted [the dodgy, corrupt, fudged, politically and financially motivated, biased and discredited IPCC version of] the science of climate change.

“It is clear to me and always has been, for years and years and years, that climate change is happening,” Mr Rudd told Fairfax Radio on Tuesday. [Yeah, it’s happening mate, and has since the dawn of time – get the f**k used to it]

“That is why I ratified Kyoto. The Liberals were opposed to ratifying Kyoto.”

Yeah, and what did Kyoto do for the climate, Kev? Speak up, can’t hear you! That’s right: nothing, nada, zip. And yet it has cost global economies billions which could have been spent on, oh, I don’t know, how about better healthcare, or better schools or in fact anything else rather than pointless emissions reductions.

But I’m not complaining. Rudd has already shot himself in one foot with the resources tax, and raising the spectre of an ETS again will be a bullet straight through the other. I don’t know about a lame duck PM, more like a terminally crippled one.

Read it here.

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Global climate deal "a decade away"

8 June, 2010 by

Enough already!

If we’re unlucky enough to get one at all. So remarks outgoing UN climate chief Yvo de Boer as the latest gab-fest in Bonn enters its second week:

It was hoped that by June 11, the 182 delegations taking part would agree on a draft agreement to be signed at the next major meeting in Cancun, Mexico next December.

However, Mr de Boer, says he doesn’t believe developing and industrialised countries will reach a meaningful agreement in time.

“I don’t see the process delivering adequate mitigation targets in the next decade,” he said.

“What we have on the table now from industrialised countries takes you to about 13 or 14 per cent below 1990 levels, and clearly we need to move beyond that, so I think that in this process we will need a number of steps and phases to get to that ultimate response, but I am confident we will get there in the longer run.“

Fortunately I don’t share your confidence. With luck, in the next ten years, it will be apparent that man-made CO2 plays a minor role in climate, dwarfed by natural drivers and suppressed by low climate sensitivity, and the whole emissions reduction hysteria will be looked back on as a rather quaint episode in humanity’s history.

Read it here.

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Wong "misled Senate" on ETS dumping

7 June, 2010 by

Responsibility? Me?

The Australian reports that Penny Wong may have misled the Senate about the precise details of the dumping of the ETS:

CLIMATE Change Minister Penny Wong has been accused of deliberately misleading the Senate over the dumping of the government’s centrepiece emissions trading scheme after she said cabinet had decided on shelving the plan.

The opposition attacked Senator Wong yesterday over her evidence to the Senate estimates committee after Environment Minister and cabinet colleague Peter Garrett admitted he had not been consulted about the government’s decision and had learned about it by reading a newspaper. (see here)

Mr Garrett revealed the decision was taken by Kevin Rudd’s four-person kitchen cabinet as part of the budget process.

He said it was disappointing that the decision had been leaked and he revealed that the first he had known about it was when he had read a newspaper report on April 27.

“That was an announcement and a decision that was leaked and I found out about it when it was leaked,” Mr Garrett told Sky News’s Saturday Agenda.

But under cross-examination in Senate estimates last month, Senator Wong said the entire cabinet had made the decision.

“Yes, it was a cabinet decision, and I have said the decision was made shortly before announcement, and that is as far as I propose to go in relation to cabinet processes and deliberations,” she said.

But don’t forget – this is Labor, so there’s always a way to spin it so that no-one ever has to accept responsibility for anything. In this case, the paper thin excuse is that the term “cabinet” includes any committee of cabinet, and the entirely unofficial assembly of the gang of four counts as a cabinet committee, despite the fact that it doesn’t even have a name, less still a documented role (other than Kevin Rudd’s personal claque).

Phew, that’s OK then.

Read it here.

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AFL = All For Labor

6 June, 2010 by

Wong-bot runs the "play footy" app

We reported back in March how the AFL wanted to get involved in climate change campaigning. Well now we discover (thanks to Andrew Bolt) that the AFL and its moonbat boss Andrew Demetriou, are the latest to embrace politically correct environmentalism by spruiking Labor’s climate change policies through a Green Clubs program, which also includes targeting children with climate propaganda:

THE AUSTRALIAN Football League has this week launched a new online training module called Green Clubs for community football clubs and the broader Australian football industry.

One of the biggest challenges facing Australian football is the impact of climate change on community football grounds. [Like what, exactly?  It’s not as if clubs are being forced to save electricity by abandoning massive floodlights for night matches…]

Green Clubs aims to educate clubs about ways they can reduce their impact on the environment, while ensuring the sustainability of sporting grounds.  The module includes strategies for saving water, reducing energy use and the amount of waste sent to landfill.

The Green Clubs module is one component of a partnership established last year with the Australian Government’s Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

In addition to the introduction of the module, an interactive climate change awareness program for families and children involved in junior football programs has also been developed.

…

Speaking at the Carlton Football Club today, the Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water, Senator Penny Wong, [who she?] commended the AFL and Carlton Football Club for helping to raise awareness of climate change amongst football clubs and their fans.

“We know Australians want to do their fair share in tackling climate change [don’t include me in that, by the way], and now the AFL is helping Australians to do that while they are at the football,” Senator Wong said.

Funny – because I thought that sport was something for all of us, a rare place where politics doesn’t intrude. Not any more it appears. I don’t know how many Coalition voters watch AFL, but I sincerely hope it will drop pretty dramatically after this.

AFL = All For Labor.

Read it here.

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Even Garrett didn't know ETS was dumped!

5 June, 2010 by

Feel like a mushroom?

We knew that staff at the Department of Climate Change found out by jungle drums that the ETS was shelved until 2013 [translation: dumped], but The Australian reveals that that Environment Minister Peter Garrett himself was unaware of the decision until he “read it in the newspapers”, such is the high regard with which Garrett is held within Rudd’s cabinet:

Mr Garrett said the decision was taken by Kevin Rudd’s inner Cabinet as part of the budget process and he had taken no part in the discussions. He said it was disappointing that the decision had been leaked and revealed that the first he knew about it was when he read a story in a newspaper report on April 27.

“That was an announcement and a decision that was leaked and I found out about it when it was leaked,” Mr Garrett told Sky News’ Saturday Agenda.

Mr Garrett’s admission is confirmation that the ETS decision was not discussed by the full cabinet and that the discussion was restricted to the so-called gang of four: Prime Minster Mr Rudd, his deputy Julia Gillard, Treasurer Wayne Swan and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner.

It also confirms that the ETS proposal was abandoned as part of the Budget process. Factoring in the ETS costs would have made it harder for the government to meet its accelerated target for eliminating the budget deficit.

And because dumping the ETS wasn’t enough to plug the massive black hole in their fictional budget, they whack a 40% tax on mining companies. Brilliant.

Read it here.

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