My belated condolences. I always enjoyed reading his posts and will miss his insight and wide ranging views. May hew…
COP19 – the grubby truth behind it all.
It must have been a weekend because I was about. The kids rushed in and I had the “Dad, Dad, he’s hurt” plea for help and their miniature hands plucking at me like a flock of birds pecking and pulling me urgently out of the house sideways. They do that, you know it’s important because in their sub three-foot world, they always know when it’s time to kick a biggie problem over to the grownups.
I got there quick and the kid was unconscious. Nine, ten year old boy. Airways clear, breathing good, pulse good, pupils responsive so someone at home in there, a clean blood check and no breaks that I could feel. I sent a runner back to tell my wife to call an ambulance. While we wait for it to arrive, I try to find out what happened but they’re all too excited and scared to get any sense from. I think he just might have fainted or perhaps it was an epileptic episode. It don’t matter, he’s stable.
The ambulance arrives and the professionals start having a look at him. The Mum waddles up in no great hurry and accompanied by a posse of kids. Unkempt, untidy, overweight and a mouth breather. At a glance, fifth generation welfare class. She does all the wrong things, by which I mean she doesn’t do a single one of the right things. She doesn’t go near him, try to touch him or even try to talk to him. Just stands around flat-footed like the rest of the spectators, maintaining a social distance and gawking at the action. Instead, as they get him into the vehicle, she fixes me with a stare and tells me she came out of the house so quickly, she didn’t bring any money. How was she ever going to get home from the hospital?
You’re on the receiving end of that extended pause, that slightly eyes wide stare, that silent smug expectation that you’ll dig into your pocket and give them money, just to get out from under that social pressure and you tell them – “You can always walk home, you look like you could do with the exercise.” You’ve never seen a face go from a lazy approximation of needy martyrdom to raw naked hate so fast. The ambulance jockeys, two clued up guys who’ve been keeping an ear on the proceedings, snigger and after confirming the kid’s name and address, and as she’s no real interest in travelling to hospital with him, depart.
In a lovey dovey, climate conferency sense, the exact equivalent of that was precisely what happened in Warsaw at the recent climate conference.
As predicted by all but the most deluded pundits, it actually was a complete waste of time and taxpayer’s money. It was never going to result in a Warsaw Pact. Nothing of any significance was signed up to except where the next one is to be held. However, some very important decisions were made, whether the climate alarmists refuse to acknowledge it or not.
The first one was that the developed countries, all rhetoric aside, were not going to sign on the dotted line to some unlimited and continuous liability to pay the conniving sharpies of the developing world for damages caused by emitting carbon dioxide. Did they really expect the all growed up countries to hand them a book of blank cheques like that? Sorry maties but nobody is actually that stupid.
The next proposition they went after was an immediate contribution of thirty billion Yankee dollars with an ongoing contribution of one hundred billion per annum in climate damage reparations. The bottom line of two weeks of earnest negotiation about those ideas was they were told to Foxtrot Oscar by the grown ups. In response, they stormed out of the supposed negotiations, led by China. What happened next was truly stunning.
Nobody came chasing after them.
In response and at the end of what was possibly the slowest dash for the exit door at any international conference, they turned around just long enough to amend the closing statement in such a way that they themselves had no future liability for any failure to limit their own carbon emissions, and completed the storming out. The whole charade was led by China, a rich country somehow perceived as a poor one and by now the world’s biggest emitter of the dreaded carbon dioxide and the one who’s building two coal-fired electricity generation plants a week.
You really couldn’t make shit like that up.
©Pointman
Related articles by Pointman:
2012 – The real doh! about Doha.
2011 – The Durban debacle awaits …
Pointman's 
You never disappoint! A cracking good article, well written as always.
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Yes: well-argued and -written. Thank you.
..
Oct 2010 – la Nacion, San Jose, Costa Rica –
UNFCCC exec sec’y C Figueres emphasizes the need for her homeland to be at the head of the line, when money starts flowing to developing countries. She was on her way to Cancun[?] and COP#?, her first as shepherd of Kyoto protocols. Her years, since LSE training, as a carbon trader/analyst and marketeer, led her to believe the hype.
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And don’t forget all the Big Green organisations pitching a hissy and flouncing out too, only staying long enough to issue their “demands” about what everyone else “must” do.
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The PRC, the real naked emperor!
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It was a very smart piece of manoeuvring by the PRC to guarantee a failure, while flaunting the most plausible of deniabilities.
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What was Australia’s response to the COP19?
Oh that’s right, we told them to pi$$ off, as we passed legislation to repeal the Carbon Tax in the Lower House! (It will still need to pass the Senate in order to become Law.)
And how did those Left-leaning eco-Taliban react? With their usual phony outrage, of course!
=> “Australia’s international reputation on climate action is rapidly deteriorating”
LOL!
COP19 has proven Prime Minister Tony Abbott right. It really is socialism masquerading as environmentalism. It has NOTHING to do with the environment and EVERYTHING to do with “re-distributing wealth” from Developed nations to Developing countries.
Meanwhile, Japan is no longer commiting to previous emission targets! LOL!
“Japan slashes: Forget a 25% cut in CO2 emissions, now the target is a 3% rise!”
=> http://joannenova.com.au/2013/11/japan-slashes-forget-a-25-cut-in-co2-emissions-now-the-target-is-3-8/
I think its getting obvious that this whole sham is about de-industrialising the developed societies because a number of eco-nuts want to apply “equality” on a global scale. The primary weapon is through deliberate legislation and economics. (Taxes and trading).
Australians rejected their BS locally because they forced it down our throats. And now we’ve made a clear sign we’re rejecting their BS globally through the Govt we’ve elected!
Anyway, it looks like (according to the loony eco-nuts): Australia, Canada, Japan, Poland, India, and Saudi Arabia are the ‘climate saboteurs’ group of countries!
…I say one should wear that like a Badge of Honour!
Side note:
“eco-Taliban” or “eco-nuts” = Radical Environmentalists who go way beyond conservation and keeping dodgy companies honest. They want to tear all of us down in order to fulfill their global “Utopia”. I don’t quite know what that Utopia is, as it varies from eco-nut to eco-nut, and I don’t want to know…As they’ve demonstrated (at least in Australia), they are willing to impose their nonsense upon us. (They hurt our aspiring-class here in western parts of Sydney. And it made them mad. They mis-calculated as this class outnumbers them! They want families and they want to thrive and prosper!)
…No surprise Climate Change is an incredibly unpopular topic in Australia. I guess we’re sending a clear message back => We’ve had enough!
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Amendment…
According to COP19 (UN’s 19th Conference of Parties):
* Developing nations are now known as => Climate Victims.
* Wealth redistribution is now known as => Climate Justice.
Now doesn’t that sound awfully like a Left leaning concept?
* Victims.
* Social Justice.
…The foul stench of Leftism fills the halls of the United Nations.
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The question, Aussiebear, is how do we one the eyes of the rest of our own population, as well as the rest of the world that this has nothing to do with environment, and everything to do with a particularly unpleasant brand of socialism.
The utter ignorance of the general public on the truth about the lack of CO2 involvement in any climate change is frightening, but more so is the evangelistic zeal of the ignorant who are intent on seeing a carbon tax and/or trading scheme that will do nothing for the climate but everything for the few who will profit from it. It’s the same old “some are more equal than others” scam, this time writ globally if they can get away with it.
The hype and hysteria surrounding this remind me most alarmingly of 1930s Europe, totalitarianism and appeasement.
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I do hope the door whacked them a good one on the way out.
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An excellent article as ever Pointman and bang on the nail.
aussiebear – “Utopia” is how my great grandparents used to live in 19th century England – you know, 12 hours a day in the fields, no holidays and desperately trying to keep your family fed and out of the workhouse. The environmentalists want us back there, it is just that they don’t realise it.
The strange thing is that being Green is like any other creed. Only a few are the senseless zealots, but if you are in that team you have to go along with it – for your own good. An obvious example that comes to mind is Nazi Germany. The same is true of all religious conflicts, and now Climate Science (try getting a grant or even a job saying you are even agnostic on AGW).
If you are Green and want to protect the environment, as most us do, you are expected to disconnect your brain and go along with whatever lunacy the leaders say.
Someone said a few months ago – “25 years ago Greens were chaining themselves to trees – now they are burning them” – The thing is, they are not the same Greens are they? – and fault-lines are beginning show in places like Germany where the sensible Greens are beginning to protest at the environmental damage caused by the rabid fools running the show.
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Good report Pointman. It’s been so refreshing to see the tide turning.
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More from the “you couldn’t make this up’ department:
Beijing is waging a war against air pollution, one barbecue at a time.
http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/24083312/beijing-destroys-barbecue-grills-to-cut-pollution#axzz2luV0wGCv
The Chinese are leading the way in the walkout with good reason.
Until developed countries take global warming ‘science’ seriously …
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It was a delight to watch the toddler tantrums of the mendicants and greenies being ignored by the grown-ups for a change. You know that thing that a toddler throwing a tantie, with eyes tightly closed, sometimes does where they open one eye to check whether anyone is paying attention? That was what the belated return of the delegations who flounced out reminded me of.
Of course their demands were ambit claims – they must have known that they were never going to get 100 billion PER YEAR. But it is crucial that the countries identified as potential donors to this slush fund give them nothing, rather than imagining that they are brilliant negotiators because they only give them part of what they asked for.
The whole principle of reparations and compensation is utterly wrong, and here’s hoping that the grown-ups do not fall into the trap of rewarding a tantrum with a Smartie instead of the demanded chocolate biscuit. Because if they do, all that will happen is that the tantrums will escalate.
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Wonderful. The mother “waddling” up gave a bit of a clue that this wasn’t going to pan out quite as expected.
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Another excellent write up Pointman.
Permit me to express a thought that has been lingering in my cranium for some time:
All scientific, medical, technological, democratic (where democracy has been introduced) and most other advancements made by countries such as China, India, Indonesia and most other 3rd-world countries large and small, that are now claiming monies from the western democracies (this includes of course Australia) as reparations for ‘climate change’ should be sent the bill for all that technology that we have been giving them for free for centuries..
Can someone propose that during the next CoP20 in Paris?
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If the Romans can design and construct sewers, aquaducts and roads, 2,500 years ago, why cannot other peoples sort out their own development problems
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THE ESSENCE
I have found (and mentioned in DotEarth – NYTimes) the essence of the Warsaw COP, even before it began.
With the murky, cold November there, the center point of the meeting was to be the hot Kielbasa snack bar.
The Australian delegation, according to European complaints, had the same revelation. In the middle of the ministerial meetings, they were dressed in T-shirts (to prevent stains), sat right near the bar and stuffed themselves with the sausage.
Sadly, the beer to go with it was not provided. Among fears that it would lead to the animated discussions changing into fistfights.
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