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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Copenhagen: US deal may still fall apart

19 December, 2009 by

Still not over?

There is growing anger in Copenhagen over the “deal” agreed to by the US, China, India and South Africa, with no clear sign that it will actually get the approval of the delegates.

[H]ours after Obama and other key leaders flew home, delegates from 194 nations gathered to approve the text and met a raucous response from several developing states that resented not being part of the closed-door discussions.

Venezuela’s representative Claudia Salerno Caldera held up what appeared to be a bloody palm, saying that she had cut her hand in an effort to gain the attention of conference chair Denmark.

“You are going to endorse this coup d’etat against the United Nations,” she said as an all-night session approached dawn on its 13th day.

Ian Fry of Tuvalu, a tiny Pacific island whose very existence is threatened by climate change, said the agreement amounted to Biblical betrayal and vowed to defeat it.

“It looks like we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our people and our future,” he said to applause in the chamber.

…

The agreement was met with dismay by campaigners, who said it was weak, non-binding and sold out the poor.

“By delaying action, rich countries have condemned millions of the world’s poorest people to hunger, suffering and loss of life as climate change accelerates,” said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International, calling the outcome “an abject failure”.

“The blame for this disastrous outcome is squarely on the developed nations.”

“It can’t even be called a deal. It has no deadline for an agreement in 2010 and there is no certainty that it will be a legally binding agreement,” Antonio Hill of Oxfam said. (source)

The BBC’s Richard Black, on the ground in Copenhagen, writes in his blog:

UPDATE 0722 CET [ 0622 hrs GMT, 1722 AEDT]: Remarkable how the great swathe of developing countries is divided by the “deal” announced last night by President Obama.

We have some small island states in favour, and others against. None of them likes a deal that they feel may consign them to a future under the waves; but some, perhaps most, are choosing to accept it, either because they know there’s nothing else on offer, or because wider political considerations have swayed their hand.

The African Union appears to be onside – presumably steered by Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi’s endorsement on Wednesday of a proposal to raise $100bn per year by 2020 for poorer countries – the sum, not co-incidentally, that Hillary Clinton said the US would work towards raising.

But a group of Latin American and Caribbean countries appears adamant in its view that the deal was done illegitimately; and for that reason, and because it will not cut emissions enough to meet the IPCC’s criteria for keeping the global temperature rise within 2C, they feel it cannot be endorsed.

The wider conference “never gave a mandate to a small group of 25 countries to draw up such a document”, the Venezuelan delegate has just said.

…

UPDATE: 0835 CET [0735 hrs GMT, 1835 hrs AEDT]: The session’s been adjourned now for about 45 minutes while delegates try to find a way through this impasse. (source)

Curioser and curioser.

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Copenhagen: The "deal" that wasn't

19 December, 2009 by

The deal

The deal

As would be expected, the moonbat media all over the globe is hailing Obama’s “deal” as a triumph and “historic”, but in reality, it is paper thin and the absolute least that could possibly have been hoped for after twelve days of detailed negotiation.

Furthermore, you have to ask how Obama managed to get the US, China and India, who, only a few hours ago, were so far apart you could drive a coach and horses between them, to agree to the deal unless it was completely watered down and vague, as the Sydney Morning Herald reports:

The agreement foresees US contributions of 3.6 billion US dollars in climate funds for the 2010-2012 period while Japan would contribute 11 billion US dollars and the European Union 10.6 billion.

It also includes a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) — well short of the demands of island nations.

But a decision on targets for reducing carbon emissions by 2020 was put off until next month, a European diplomat said.

And unlike earlier drafts, the new accord did not specify any year for emissions to peak. (source)

And of course, it isn’t legally binding either. From a domestic point of view, this failure of Copenhagen to achieve anything significant demonstrates how misguided Kevin Rudd’s desire to pass the ETS beforehand really was. We all know that the only reason was self-promotion – to be able to turn up to Copenhagen with a “trophy” as part of his job interview for UN Secretary General. Thankfully, Tony Abbott put paid to that little dream.

Any delay in this process is good news. The longer it takes for a binding deal to be reached, the more chance there is that the fraudulent science will be exposed for what it is. Once people start to question the untouchable status of the IPCC, relied upon so heavily by Kevin Rudd and so many governments around the world, I predict a house of cards.

Indeed, the science is falling over everywhere you look. Just today in The Australian, there are reports that alarmism over the fate of the Barrier Reef was exaggerated, under the headline “Scientists crying wolf over coral”:

A SENIOR marine researcher has accused Australian scientists of “crying wolf” over the threat of climate change to the Great Barrier Reef, exposing deep division about its vulnerability.

Peter Ridd’s rejection of the consensus position that the reef is doomed unless greenhouse emissions are checked comes as new research on the Keppel group, hugging Queensland’s central coast, reveals its resilience after coral bleaching. Professor Ridd, a physicist with Townsville’s James Cook University who has spent 25 years investigating the impact of coastal runoff and other problems for the reef, challenged the widely accepted notion that coral bleaching would wipe it out if climate change continued to increase sea surface temperatures. Instead of dying, the reef could expand south towards Brisbane as waters below it became warmer and more tolerable for corals, he said.

His suggestion is backed up by an Australian Institute of Marine Science research team headed by veteran reef scientist Ray Berkelmans, which has documented astonishing levels of recovery on the Keppel outcrops devastated by bleaching in 2006. (source)

We will see that this is just the tip of a very large (global warming resistant) iceberg.

Finally, with thanks to the SPPI Blog, just in case anyone doubted the political agenda behind Copenhagen, it’s here on show, for all to see:

UPDATE: Just one further thought, extremist environmental groups may well see this result at COP 15 as a licence to take climate change action into their own hands (even more than they do at present), with civil disobedience and a bypassing of the democratic process. As evidence of this, here is a quote from Greenpeace UK:

It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one in Copenhagen.

I sincerely hope that the rule of law prevails and that such actions are firmly resisted. Failure to do this would lead to anarchy. You have been warned.

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Copenhagen: BREAKING: US, China, India and SA "agree to deal on climate"

19 December, 2009 by

Breaking news

Breaking news

In the last few minutes, reports are coming in that the US, China, India and South Africa have agreed on some kind of “climate deal”:

A senior Obama administration official says the U.S., China, India and South Africa have reached a “meaningful agreement” on climate change.

The official characterized the deal as a first step, but said it was not enough to combat the threat of a warming planet.

Details of the deal with these emerging economies were not immediately clear.

The agreement was reached Friday at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen after a meeting among President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South African President Jacob Zuma.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the agreement had not yet been officially announced.

The agreement was with the smaller group of countries, but was being worked by Obama and various negotiating teams with a larger number of countries, the official said. (source)

Just listening to BBC World Service. It’s to be known as the Copenhagen Accord, which will be a statement of intent. Apparently, it includes details on a 2c temperature rise, details on a financial mechanism for transfer of funds to developing countries, and verification mechanisms. There are many countries excluded at this stage, however, the EU, for example.

There is another plenary session in about an hour…

UPDATE @ 10 pm GMT (11 pm Copenhagen): Obama: deal will serve as foundation for years to come. No country entirely satisfied, and not clear whether there is any global deal, however.

Obama: “Not a legally binding agreement. A commitment that the US are making and is very important.”

Emissions: No numbers on emissions reductions, but a process for doing that.

Finance: Agreement on the “goal” of coming up with $100 bn per year by 2020

Sounds more and more like a fudge to paper over the fact that the conference has achieved virtually nothing. As Christopher Monckton predicted, it was almost inevitable that an “eleventh-hour” deal would have been reached…

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Copenhagen Day 12 – still waiting…

19 December, 2009 by

Day 12

Day 12

So here we are – it is just after 9 pm in Copenhagen on the last day of COP 15, and still nothing, and no sign of there being anything other than a weak, watered down, political “accord” at best. Barack Obama hath spoken, and even that didn’t do the trick. In fact, neither the US nor China budged an inch in their respective speeches.

Now there is last minute frantic activity to try and salvage something from the wreckage:

US President Barack Obama has launched intense after-hours diplomacy with China, hoping to salvage a new world climate pact after warning that an imperfect deal would be better than no pact at all.

The language in the latest draft being negotiated has been described as weak and failing to commit nations to binding emissions reduction targets.

As the meeting deadline passed, different texts, and drafts were being distributed, but all failed to match the level of ambition scientists say is needed for comprehensive action to tackle climate change.

In the latest text, there are no binding commitments for individual countries to commit to a global fund for mitigation.

While there was recognition of the science that says a two-degree temperature rise is likely, it failed to commit nations to reducing emissions under 2020 targets.

Instead it acknowledged that “deep cuts were required”.

It also declared that countries would “enhance their long term cooperative action to climate change”.

But the language failed to include a legal framework. (source)

Sounds like political waffle. Obama couldn’t save the day, and even the Guardian is critical:

Barack Obama stepped into the chaotic final hours of the Copenhagen summit today saying he was convinced the world could act “boldly and decisively” on climate change.

But his speech offered no indication America was ready to embrace bold measures, after world leaders had been working desperately against the clock to try to paper over an agreement to prevent two years of wasted effort — and a 10-day meeting — from ending in total collapse.

Obama, who had been skittish about coming to Copenhagen at all unless it could be cast as a foreign policy success, looked visibly frustrated as he appeared before world leaders.

He offered no further commitments on reducing emissions or on finance to poor countries beyond Hillary Clinton’s announcement yesterday that America would support a $100bn global fund to help developing nations adapt to climate change.

He did not even press the Senate to move ahead on climate change legislation, which environmental organisations have been urging for months. (source)

More to come, if and when…

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