Copenhagen: The "deal" that wasn't


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.

Copenhagen: Rudd's nauseating, sycophantic speech


Nauseating

Nauseating

Something about Kevin Rudd’s speeches makes my flesh creep. Tedious to the point of rigor mortis (he is, of course, the “toxic bore” – thank you, Tony Abbott, for that gem!), yet at the same time patronising and condescending – and nauseating – and pompous. How one man can be offensive in so many ways is a wonder to behold. Yet is a hugely popular prime minister back here in Australia. What gives? Anyway, let’s sample some of the best [worst – Ed] bits:

History is calling us at this great conference to frame a grand bargain on climate change,” Mr Rudd told summit delegates on Thursday night, Australian time.”

History will record (the summit) as either a time when the peoples of the world, mindful of a common threat to us all, decided to act in concert against that threat, and so decided to turn the tide of history.

“Or else history will record this conference as a time when once again we became so consumed with the petty nationalisms of the past that we turned instead against each other and failed to act on this great common challenge of the future.” [Trying to sound like Churchill, are we? – Ed]

Mr Rudd quoted from a handwritten note he’d received from Gracie, a six-year-old from Canberra. [Uh oh – time to reach for that sick bag… – Ed]

“Hi, my name is Gracie. How old are you?” he read out. [Please, please stop – Ed]

“I am writing to you because I want you all to be strong in Copenhagen, please listen to us as it is our future.” [It’s coming, it’s coming… – Ed]

Mr Rudd added, “I fear that at this conference, we are on the verge of letting little Gracie down”.

Bloooaaaargghh.

Read it here (you have been warned).

Rudd ducks question on ETS cost… three times!


"You're dithpicable, Kev"

"You're dithpicable, Kev"

Thanks to Tony Abbott, the government actually has a fight on its hands to persuade the Australian people of the merits of the ETS. If Turnbull had been leader, this would have been waved through without a second thought. How stupid does that look now, eh, Malcolm?

KEVIN Rudd has refused to directly address Tony Abbott’s claim that Labor’s proposed carbon emissions trading system will cost average Australian families $1100 a year.

Instead, the Prime Minister has forecast a Coalition government’s response to climate change would wrap Australians in red tape by allowing Canberra bureaucrats to dictate individual behaviour. [Yeah, Kev, you’d know all about red tape. That’s what Labor does best, isn’t it – big government, red tape, regulation, interference in every aspect of our lives, and massive taxes, just like the ETS – Ed]

In a television interview yesterday, Mr Rudd was asked three times to respond to Mr Abbott’s $1100 claim, which has been at the centre of the Opposition Leader’s political attack since he won the Liberal leadership a fortnight ago.

Each time, he refused to address the figure.

Later yesterday, as Mr Rudd prepared to leave Australia for the UN-organised climate change conference in Copenhagen, Mr Abbott accused him of squirming on questions about his “great big new tax”.

Finally, finally, Rudd is on the ropes.

Read it here.

Indoctrination: Kids give PM climate lesson


Climate indoctrination

Climate indoctrination

Indoctrination Alert as children at an ACT school meet Kevin Rudd:

Canberra school children have urged Kevin Rudd to do all he can to stop climate change – including walk to work.

The prime minister met with youngsters from the O’Connor Cooperative School on Monday, hours before leaving for global climate change talks in Copenhagen.

They presented him with a book of suggestions to help stop rising greenhouse gas emissions harming the environment.

Some children called for massive cuts to carbon emissions, others the rollout of electric cars.

But Nicholas, seven, had a much simpler idea.

He encouraged people to walk to work, especially Mr Rudd, because he lives so close to Parliament House.

How can children of K-2 age call for “massive cuts to carbon emissions” unless the phrase had been provided to them by the teaching staff? Sorry to state the obvious, but the lefty enviro-loony teachers in Canberra clearly haven’t grasped it: seven year-olds should be taught how to read, write and do sums, not force fed political and environmental propaganda.

Thank your lucky stars your kids don’t go to school there.

Read it here (and the school’s website is here)

Abbott: Rudd's Copenhagen entourage an "unfair expense"


Rudd wants to rule the world

Rudd wants to rule the world

But surely Statesman Rudd requires all of those 114 delegates (including a personal photographer) in order to appear sufficiently like a future UN secretary general for the unofficial job interview he’s attending? Oh, you guys all think he’s going for climate talks? Ha, ha – good one.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott says the size of the Australian delegation to the UN climate conference in Copenhagen is an unfair expense on tax payers.

The Opposition says Kevin Rudd will be taking 114 people to the conference – a larger contingent than that of Britain or India.

World leaders will be joining the conference next week to try and negotiate a global climate agreement.

Mr Abbott says the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd should be focussing on Australia.

“I think it’s in a sense admirable that Kevin Rudd is prepared to risk jet lag for our country,” he said.

But the people who he’s really got to persuade about his whopping great big emissions tax are here in Australia, not in Copenhagen.”

Rudd cares little for domestic politics at the moment – his focus is the world stage.

Read it here.

Copenhagen Day 5 – Rudd's document irks Chinese


Day 5

Day 5

It’s not going very well, and part of the reason for that is Kevin Rudd’s desire to be seen as an international statesman, at the forefront of negotiations. But unfortunately his meddling is annoying the Chinese, whose participation is essential if any deal is to come out of Copenhagen:

CHINA has accused the developed world of retreating from its undertakings to cut greenhouse gas emissions, rejected a proposal at the Copenhagen conference to reduce financial help to China and described the draft deal Kevin Rudd worked on as creating “a lot of problems”.

The Chinese have accused the developed world of abandoning the Kyoto Protocol and pressuring the developing nations to cut emissions without proper compensation for the “luxury emissions” the West has put out for the past century.

The so-called “commitment circle” draft document worked out between Denmark, Australia and other nations was said to be from a small and isolated group and designed to lift the political standing of individuals. [Who could they possibly mean? – Ed]

The Chinese position is providing no room to raise its carbon emissions target and to accept any binding agreement. It is demanding new technology regardless of patents, and rejects the view that it should be labelled a developed nation. The draft proposal, which involved the Danish leader and Mr Rudd as a “friend of the chair of the conference”, “was not the overwhelming view of developed countries and was also a personal view not representing the view of his country“, Mr Zhang said.

“The so-called draft has been widely criticised by the developing camp through the group of 77, which truly demonstrates this draft was made by a very small number of countries in isolation, and there are a lot of problems to be addressed,” he said. (source)

Keep up the good work, Kevin – you’re doing everyone a favour. If you want to read the draft, you can find it here.

And China is digging in, pushing its right to economic development:

China has become the “key” to success at Copenhagen, on the developing side, but the world’s most populous nation is fighting back against proposals, in part developed by the Australian Prime Minister, which would redefine China’s status as a developing nation, oblige it to meet tougher targets and cut its access to the billions in aid from the developed world to fight climate change. The proposals also effectively weaken the binding agreements under the Kyoto Protocol.China, in a co-ordinated effort, has decided to put responsibility for emissions cuts back on Europe and the US and to declare its targets of 40 to 45 per cent reductions as “the upper limit”, or the maximum achievable.

Using the backlash from the developing world at Copenhagen, China is marshalling its argument that the West created the greenhouse gas problem and built its wealth upon coal-fired industry. Now, says China, it has 150 million in poverty, millions in regions who suffer harsh winter conditions and their right to develop and simple comfort and sustenance cannot be denied. (source)

Meanwhile, the EU has begun the global socialism at the core of the Copenhagen summit:

European Union nations have agreed to give 7.2 billion euros to help developing nations tackle climate change, the Swedish EU presidency announced Friday.

“The EU total is equal to 2.4 billion euros per year,” over the next three years, with voluntary pledges coming in from all 27 EU member states, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said after a two-day EU summit in Brussels.

The ‘fast start’ money is Europe’s contribution to helping the developing world to adapt to global warming over the next three years and to encourage the ongoing UN climate change conference in Copenhagen to do more. (source)

Just a drop in the ocean compared to what they’re hoping for…

Rudd-maths: 114 – 14 = "50 or 60"


Bottom of the class

Bottom of the class

Kind of like Rudd-speak, Rudd-maths is maths in another universe. Rudd-maths is fine with the mainstream media – they just wave it through. If it had been from a Liberal, however, they would have been all over it like a rash. This all relates to Australia sending a frankly ridiculous delegation of 114 (one hundred and fourteen) to Copenhagen, including 7 media advisers and a “personal photographer,” compared to just 70-odd for the UK. Nice work if you can get it.

But in The Australian, Kevin Rudd tries to blame the huge number on the states:

A provisional list published in The Australian today contains the names and details of 114 Australian representatives, compared with just 71 for the United Kingdom.

Mr Rudd did not dispute the reported number, saying officials from the state and territory governments were part of Australia’s delegation.

He claimed the Australian delegation was larger than the British contingent because the UK did not have state governments.

We extend an invitation to (officials at the state level) and they come,” Mr Rudd told Fairfax Radio today.

But the provisional list contains details of only 14 representatives of state government, plus one delegate from the Australian Local Government Association.

The Prime Minister said the “core Australian government delegation” was “probably in the order of about 50 or 60”.

So there’s a huge hole in the maths there, Kev, in case you haven’t noticed. Take away the state representatives and you have 100. So where on earth do you get “50 or 60”? But hey, the mainstream media don’t bother about such trivia – except when it’s the Liberals, naturally.

Read it here.

Even the SMH says it's the government that's in denial


Painful reading

Painful reading

Paul Sheehan, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, has some painful home truths for Labor:

When Julia Gillard faced the media outside Federal Parliament in Canberra on Wednesday she looked shell-shocked. She then proceeded to give the most jittery, hollow, nonsensical performance of her career. It was pantomime of the lowest order.

Today the climate change extremists and deniers in the Liberal Party have stopped this nation from taking decisive action on climate change,” the Deputy Prime Minister said, deadpan, into a thicket of cameras and recorders.

Extremists and deniers. In case anyone had missed the point, she repeated the phrase five times. ”Now [we] have been stopped by the Liberal Party extremists and the climate change deniers. This nation has been stopped from taking a major step in the nation’s interests by Liberal Party extremists and climate change deniers.”

This is clearly going to be the mantra the Rudd Government uses to describe anyone who opposes its pointless legislation on an emissions trading scheme.

Gillard used the terms ”denier” or ”denial” 11 times, pointed words because they carry the connotation of Holocaust denial. The last time that tactic was used in the national debate, after the release of the Bringing Them Home report, it exploded on those who used it.

So this is going to get interesting because the political ground has shifted in the past six months. It is now the Rudd Government that appears to be in a state of denial.

Read it here.

Rudd the autograph hunter


Please Mr Obama!

Please Mr Obama!

Look where Barack Obama is, and there you’ll find our lap-dog Prime Minister, hanging on to the One’s coat-tails. So it’s no surprise that Rudd has changed his Copenhagen plans in response to Obama’s change of plan.

KEVIN Rudd has shelved plans for an early dash to Copenhagen after US President Barack Obama said he was not going until the late stages of the climate change conference, in the hope of closing a deal.

The White House announced over the weekend that Mr Obama would push back his visit to the conference until its final day, putting him in a better position to help broker an agreement.

Mr Rudd, who had the RAAF on standby for a snap trip to Denmark, will now attend the late stages of the conference.

Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Mr Rudd confirmed the Prime Minister had considered travelling to Copenhagen early, but said by Friday night it had been resolved Mr Rudd would attend during the final stages of the talks along with more than 100 heads of government.

It’s a great look for Australia abroad, you have to admit…

Read it here.

Rudd runs scared from climate debate


Denying the people a debate

Denying the people a debate

… with some half-baked excuse about the Opposition “not having a policy” – why on earth that would stop him debating the issue? Well, actually, I think we know the real reason, don’t we, readers?

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has dismissed a challenge for a series of public debates over climate change, saying the Federal Opposition needs to have a policy first.

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he wants to have the debates over the proposed emissions trading scheme before the Government reintroduces the legislation in February.

But Mr Rudd says Mr Abbott should instead focus his efforts on developing a Coalition policy.

“Mr Howard had a policy on climate change, Mr Turnbull had a policy on climate change – it was called an emissions trading scheme,” he said.

“Mr Abbott – the current leader of the Liberal Party – does not have any policy on climate change.

“I’d suggest the Leader of the Opposition calms down, puts in the hard yards and actually develops a policy.”

Despite the attempt at matey banter, and patronising put downs of Tony Abbott, it is still transparent as a sheet of Glad Wrap, Kevin!

If you don’t turn up, you lose.

Read it here.