Sometimes you've got to read it to believe it. Deniers are such hypocrites. One day they'll pretend they care about vulnerable people in less developed countries and claim they want to sell them coal and oil so they can trade poverty for broken families and emphysema. Next minute they are bagging a call for nations to honour their commitment to help less developed countries, citing nutty conspiracy theories.
You may also recall that deniers have no compunction in sending money to Anthony Watts so he can go on a junket with no accountability and piss poor "reporting". Anthony himself isn't too proud to beg for handouts, and he lives in prosperous California. But he cannot abide the notion that the US or any other prosperous country would assist those less well off.
When it comes to giving foreign aid to nations in need, as part of an agreed commitment by wealthy nations, deniers groan and moan and mutter expletives.
The WUWT article (archived here) was based on a short article in the Guardian, in which the UN Secretary General said it's time to stop messing about and and get on with the job of reducing CO2 emissions. There was more. From the article:
He [Ban Ki-moon] welcomed signs of action, including more businesses favouring carbon markets, and a day of marches in September that he said had mobilised hundreds of thousands of people in the streets “from Manhattan to Mumbai to Melbourne”.
Ban also welcomed pledges by developed nations totaling almost $10bn (£6.4bn) to a new Green Climate Fund, due to help developing nations cut emissions and adapt to climate change that puts pressure on food and water supplies.
He called on countries that have not yet pledged “to consider making an ambitious financial commitment in Lima”. Australia is the only major developed nation that has not contributed to the fund, preferring to focus on domestic initiatives.
Ban urged developed nations to “meet and exceed” a goal set in 2009 of mobilising at least $100bn a year, in public and private finance, by 2020 to help developing nations.
It was the last three paragraphs that the selfish greedy deniers took objection to. The WUWT nuttery think that this aid is to stop global warming. It's not. It is to help both mitigation and adaptation but it will be geared toward less developed nations in need. Goodness knows why they think it's the poorest and most vulnerable nations that will stop global warming. Anthony Watts or his useful idiot Eric Worrall wrote:
Ban Ki-moon didn’t explain, in the Guardian article, how giving him and his bureaucrats more money would help prevent global warming. Presumably the donors, once parted with their money, wouldn’t be able to afford as much gas for their cars, which might reduce their carbon footprint. However, given that UN eco-warriors seem to spend a lot of their time flying between climate conferences, their enlarged carbon footprints might more than compensate for the poverty constricted carbon footprints of the taxpayers who are paying their bills.
About the Green Climate Fund
Click here to read about the Green Climate Fund. It was set up in part to:
...contribute to the achievement of the ultimate objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In the context of sustainable development, the Fund will promote the paradigm shift towards low-emission and climate-resilient development pathways by providing support to developing countries to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change, taking into account the needs of those developing countries particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. The Fund will be guided by the principles and provisions of the Convention.
At the rational end of the spectrum
Graham Readfearn writes at the Guardian, that rationality is peeping through at Lima, with documents starting to state what the world is hoping for:
...an aim of zero net emissions by 2050...No, it's not a signed on agreement - but it's a hopeful sign.
From the WUWT comments
Some comments are unprintable - at HotWhopper, not at WUWT. I'll show you some of the less unprintable and leave the remainder to your imagination.
Jimmy Haigh.
December 9, 2014 at 9:00 pm
Awww! Diddums!!!
It’s well past time to scrap the UN.
ColA is a "One World Guvmint" conspiracy theorist of the Tim Ball kind:
December 9, 2014 at 11:41 pm
Come on everyone I really believe we should whole heartedly support the UN in its single objective to reduce the evil CO2 and save the planet.
I strongly support the UN idea of carbon sequestration, it’s a great idea and so simple – just burry the whole UN, we get rid of a huge amount of useless carbon and actually RECYCLE it!! God that will get the Greens :-) and we get an economic bonus of being able to actually direct our money where it will function and not be gobbled up by an oligarchy bent on world domination!
cnxtim regards the poorest, most vulnerable nations on earth as "fat cats". That's one way to rationalise greed and selfishness I suppose.
December 9, 2014 at 9:13 pm
Not one zac for the fat cat pack !!
Jimmy Haigh. is thinking about ad homming, from the look of it, but isn't sure where to start.
December 9, 2014 at 9:22 pm
What did bankymoon do before he became head honcho at the UN? Did he drive a train? Did he organize a community?
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has probably achieved more good in his lifetime than Jimmy Haigh and all of his ancestors combined.
Billy NZ is money mad. That's all he thinks about.
December 9, 2014 at 9:23 pm
It’s not too late. I thought we were past the tipping point. 2015. It’s not too late,give me money,but we have to act NOW. 2016,we have to act NOW. 2017. We have to act NOW,before it’s too late. Give me more money. Etc.usv,usv,usv.
Zeke isn't just illiterate when it comes to science (elsewhere), he hasn't got a clue about international relations either. He's no worse than any of the other illiterati at WUWT.
December 9, 2014 at 11:03 pm
All these politicians, advisors, and heads of departments stepping down would certainly have a place to go, if they managed to secure the $100bn/year in “public and private finances,” in their own countries, for the World Empire (“UN”).
If this gets done, it will be the blackest treachery that any generation ever carried out against their own countries.
Ben D is money mad, too.
December 10, 2014 at 12:21 am
I bet the scammers are jostling for position to get a part of this loot stream when it starts flowing good…coming out of your very own pockets too…
So is The Infidel
December 10, 2014 at 12:21 am
If all the money was taken off each and every climate alarmist, the UN would have every cent they need to fix the problem. I suggest starting with Mr Moon’s bank accounts, all of them.
If anyone is interested in doing research on the (arguably strong) link between greed, money-adoration, selfishness and climate science denial, that thread is a good place to start.
After labelling the UN Climate Fund "Bob Brown's* bank on an international scale" and as "socialism masquerading as environmentalism", Australian PM Tony Abbott has had to make a humiliating back down and announce that Australia would donate $200 million.
ReplyDelete* Bob Brown, former leader of the Australian Greens.
Yes, I saw that, Mike. So many broken promises :)
Delete"Australian PM Tony Abbott has had to make a humiliating back down and announce that Australia would donate $200 million."
DeleteIt's worth noting that Abbott is simply diverting funding from Australia's foreign aid budget to pay for this. There is no goodness emerging from Abbott's heart - it's simply a political gambit to plug his arty's and the country's increasinglygreat unpopularity.
And on top of this Julie Bishop had the gall to tell the world at the Lima meeting that there should be no difference between the developed and developing countries in terms of action required from them (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-11/foreign-minister-julie-bishop-defends-using-foreign-aid/5959406 - apparently the world's poorest should carry as much of the burden of the First World's profligate use of fossil fuels as should the richest, even though they garnered none of the benefit other than to have their original wealth exported to the West...
Australia has plunged deeply, deeply into pariah-state territory. It's ironic that "democracy" can, overnight, flick the switch from good global citizen to society- and ecosystem-destroying fascist colonial corporatism.
Would I be right, Sou, in concluding that there has been no article over there about problems in the Maldives with their water supply? When a desal plant broke down they've had to start bringing in bottled water for the locals. I suppose that so long as the visitors are OK, it's all tickety boo according to the denizens of WUWT and their ilk.
ReplyDelete(There are no problems for the rich folks at the resorts, they have their own power and own desalination plants. Wish I knew why they don't have rainwater tanks - their annual rainfall looks to be almost 4 times ours here in Adelaide.)
I hadn't heard about that myself, Adelady. Sounds as if the locals are doing it tough there.
DeleteIt hadn't occurred to me to think about water there. But I presume they have the same problems as some of the Pacific islands. They used to rely on wells but seawater has penetrated so there is no potable water available from them.
DeleteI realise that there's a problem with malaria and mosquitoes, but modern rainwater tanks are pretty good at excluding insect access. With more than a metre per year of rainfall, they should be able to collect enough, safely enough, to cut down the need for desalination.
Lewandowski rated free-market ideology as highly predictive of warming denial. I'm assuming they meant "free" markets, where there are no rules -- not the regulated markets Adam Smith espoused.
ReplyDeleteFor many at WUWT "free market" ideology isn't all that strong or pure, or only when it suits them. Remember Viv Forbes just the other day, wanting to nationalise the Australian car manufacturing and copper smelting businesses or whatever it was he was wanting (probably just a taxpayer funded bail out)? The WUWT deniers were all for it.
Deletehttp://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/12/viv-forbes-at-wuwt-takes-shot-at.html
Ideological Young's modulus approaching zero; the appealing authority is ten kilos swinging on a rubber band. Watch out!
Delete"Free" does seem to mean that the rich and powerful are free from the threat of losing money.
DeleteI think a hundred billion a year exclusively for climate change is a bit to optimistic, excessive, and may be subject to the waste and abuse described by the author. I do think some amount will be needed to offset the costs of adaptation and mitigation efforts by these countries. I also think the largest share of the responsibility for reducing emissions should be with the developed world and China and we should allow the developing world to use coal when the costs of other sources is prohibitive. I think this strategy can work because once the demand (stimulated by government action) for renewables increases, the private sector will step in and develop the next generation of energy solutions which can be provided to the developing world to accelerate their transition.
ReplyDelete@-JosephDecember
Delete"I think a hundred billion a year exclusively for climate change is a bit to optimistic, excessive, and may be subject to the waste and abuse described by the author."
To put it in perspective it is less than a quarter of the annual revenues of EXXON.
Or just over six months profit for the 'big oil' industry players.
izen
That would be a 70% increase over current development aid globally.
Deletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governments_by_development_aid
A hundred billion seems too high. It's not going to be Exxon that pays for it, but tax payers. And a program of that scale and scope would be to hard to manage.
Don't get me wrong I am no denier or skeptic in the least. I think robust mitigation strategies are necessary to deal with the risks from climate change.
Sou suggests
ReplyDelete"If anyone is interested in doing research on the (arguably strong) link between greed, money-adoration, selfishness and climate science denial, that thread is a good place to start."
Way too easy Sou. An epidemiologist could knock that study over before lunch. It writes itself.
Also, (and this is a genuine observation) the incidence of sexist and racist comments by science deniers would be an interesting stat.
DeleteIncluding islamofobia. It is a syndrome.
Delete"I think a hundred billion a year exclusively for climate change is a bit to optimistic, excessive, and may be subject to the waste and abuse described by the author."
ReplyDeleteBut it's not. That fund is a total amount. Australia's eventually been shamed into contributing $200 million, but that's going to be spread over 4 years.
Personally, I think the costs are going to be be way over that amount before very long. There are a lot of developing and island countries. They're not all as badly off as The Philippines in terms of specific vulnerabilities, but whether it's a few needing a lot or a lot needing lesser amounts, it's going to add up.
Not only that, but the fund will be replacing a lot of foreign aid, not just from Australia but I think some other countries are diverting other foreign aid to this fund.
DeleteA hundred billion will not go far, but it's a start. There are bound to be some successes and some failures as with any expenditure. Deniers will tout any failures but the successes will be what makes a difference.