Durban Climate Change Conference

Maybe more action by NGOs is needed to raise awareness so that the Durban circus er effort is a success. At least that would allow everyone to feel good about themselves and to know that everyone understands that they meant well and that even more important they cared.

[quote]THOUSANDS of anxious environmentalists, hard-eyed negotiators and bemused journalists gathered in Durban this week for the UN’s annual climate-change circus. Saving the planet, the main item on its agenda two years ago, in Copenhagen, was not uppermost in their minds. Saving the circus was: the failure in Copenhagen to forge a binding agreement to mitigate the world’s carbon emissions could yet lead to a breakdown of the whole UN process in Durban. To avoid that, negotiators have until December 9th to reach three goals. Least dauntingly, they must nail down the details of initiatives agreed on in Cancún last year, chiefly the Green Climate Fund. This aims to help poor countries curb their emissions and adapt to global warming. It is supposed to be stocked with some of the $100 billion that rich countries have promised poor ones by 2020.

Little actual cash will be proffered in Durban: progress will be limited to working out the details of the fund’s design, including the relative powers of donors and recipients, and to its possible role in wooing investment. Even this is contentious, as America wants a bigger role for the private sector. But such spats should prove surmountable. Alongside progress on another promised institution, to spread green technology to poor countries, the fund is Durban’s likeliest success.

Much trickier will be reconciling the demands of developing countries for an extension of the UN’s Kyoto protocol with the determination of most developed ones to bin it. The world’s only binding agreement to curb emissions has been a colossal failure. Since it was negotiated in 1997 global emissions have risen by over a quarter, mostly in developing countries. The treaty does not curb their emissions, which are now 58% of the total; China alone is responsible for 23%. The second-biggest polluter, America, (with 20%) is also free to emit, as it has not ratified the treaty.

Developed countries that did ratify Kyoto feel cheated. Japan and Russia have rejected a second round of emission-cutting under its aegis, after their current commitments expire at the end of 2012. Canada, which will hugely overshoot its Kyoto target, is reported to be considering quitting the treaty altogether. “Kyoto is the past,” said its environment minister, Peter Kent, before setting out for Durban.

Recent data meanwhile show how dismally the world is failing to deal with the problem. Rich and poor alike have accepted the somewhat arbitrary principle that warming should not be allowed to exceed two degrees. But the UN’s Environment Programme reckons that even if all countries honour their existing commitments, global emissions in 2020 would exceed the likeliest total consistent with that pledge by the equivalent of up to 11 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. That is more than double the amount emitted by all the world’s cars, buses and trucks in 2005.

[/quote]

economist.com/node/21540996

I liked this article from the Wall Street Journal. Had me in tears with laughter. Recognize any of the sentiments (another name for feelings)?

[quote]How do religions die? Regarding climate change as a religion…

As with religion, it is presided over by a caste of spectacularly unattractive people pretending to an obscure form of knowledge that promises to make the seas retreat and the winds abate. As with religion, it comes with an elaborate list of virtues, vices and indulgences. As with religion, its claims are often non-falsifiable, hence the convenience of the term “climate change” when thermometers don’t oblige the expected trend lines. As with religion, it is harsh toward skeptics, heretics and other “deniers.” And as with religion, it is susceptible to the earthly temptations of money, power, politics, arrogance and deceit.

This week, the conclave of global warming’s cardinals are meeting in Durban, South Africa, for their 17th conference in as many years. The idea is to come up with a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire next year, and to require rich countries to pony up $100 billion a year to help poor countries cope with the alleged effects of climate change. This is said to be essential because in 2017 global warming becomes “catastrophic and irreversible,” according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency.

Yet a funny thing happened on the way to the climate apocalypse. Namely, the financial apocalypse.

The U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada and the EU have all but confirmed they won’t be signing on to a new Kyoto. The Chinese and Indians won’t make a move unless the West does.
The notion that rich (or formerly rich) countries are going to ship $100 billion every year to the Micronesias of the world is risible,
especially after they’ve spent it all on Greece.

Cap and trade is a dead letter in the U.S. Even Europe is having second thoughts about carbon-reduction targets that are decimating the continent’s heavy industries and cost an estimated $67 billion a year. “Green” technologies have all proved expensive, environmentally hazardous and wildly unpopular duds.

All this has been enough to put the Durban political agenda on hold for the time being. But religions don’t die, and often thrive, when put to the political sidelines. A religion, when not physically extinguished, only dies when it loses faith in itself.

That’s where the Climategate emails come in. First released on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit two years ago and recently updated by a fresh batch, the “hide the decline” emails were an endless source of fun and lurid fascination for those of us who had never been convinced by the global-warming thesis in the first place.

But the real reason they mattered is that they introduced a note of caution into an enterprise whose motivating appeal resided in its increasingly frantic forecasts of catastrophe. Papers were withdrawn; source material re-examined. The Himalayan glaciers, it turned out, weren’t going to melt in 30 years. Nobody can say for sure how high the seas are likely to rise—if much at all. Greenland isn’t turning green. Florida isn’t going anywhere.

The reply global warming alarmists have made to these dislosures is that they did nothing to change the underlying science, and only improved it in particulars. So what to make of the U.N.'s latest supposedly authoritative report on extreme weather events, which is tinged with admissions of doubt and uncertainty?
Oddly, the report has left climate activists stuttering with rage at what they call its “watered down” predictions.
If nothing else, they understand that any belief system, particularly ones as young as global warming, cannot easily survive more than a few ounces of self-doubt.

Meanwhile, the world marches on. On Sunday, 2,232 days will have elapsed since a category 3 hurricane made landfall in the U.S., the longest period in more than a century that the U.S. has been spared a devastating storm. Great religions are wise enough to avoid marking down the exact date when the world comes to an end. Not so for the foolish religions. Expect Mayan cosmology to take a hit to its reputation when the world doesn’t end on Dec. 21, 2012. Expect likewise when global warming turns out to be neither catastrophic nor irreversible come 2017.

And there is this: Religions are sustained in the long run by the consolations of their teachings and the charisma of their leaders.
With global warming, we have a religion whose leaders are prone to spasms of anger and whose followers are beginning to twitch with boredom.
Perhaps that’s another way religions die.[/quote]

online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 … 15576.html

Time to donate more money to NGOs to raise awareness about the problem? Again, I ask two questions:

  1. What have NGOs done to SOLVE the global warming, er climate change, er alternating weather patterns issue?

  2. IF those who believe in more government think that NGOs are needed, then is government not doing its job? Should the money that is donated to NGOs through charitable tax deductions, which ultimately reduces the money that government receives in the US, be subject to taxes? and all donations made to NGOs come from taxable income? so that they are not starving the important government agencies from acting? due to lack of sufficient funds?

Most of the money should go into a global fund for a well thought out solar subsidy scheme to bring the cost down below carbon fuel.

The cost of solar is already below that of carbon fuel. It has been for about five years. In countries which receive >1000 suns insolation per year, payback is ~7-10 years assuming typical retail prices for energy (~0.15euros/kWh), with an installation lifetime of 20+ years. There are a few places where theoretical payback could be <5 years, i.e., completely free energy for 15 years or more.

The fossil-fuel and nuclear industries are kept alive partly by subsidies and by cooking the books (such as failing to account for pollution caused by mining and burning the fuels), but mainly by a marketing model which is biased towards constant-output point sources rather than variable-output distributed sources. The problem is not the plant cost, but the way energy is distributed, sold and used. That’s not an easy problem to solve, especially since neither governments nor NGOs recognise it as a problem.

NGOs will not ‘solve’ climate change because they are in no position to do so. As others have mentioned, its a good thing that they’re making a noise about it, but they often have narrowly-focused agendas and don’t have the technical or business know-how to implement plausible solutions on a large enough scale. Neither, for that matter, do governments. I agree, to a certain extent, with those who suggest NGOs have a vested interest in an ongoing crisis, since any solution means they lose their raison d’etre. Unless they choose to actually start up profitable renewable-energy companies, I guess.

The countries that are complaining most about the (projected) effects of climate change are the ones most able to do something about it, and they don’t even realise. Most African countries (for instance) meet the insolation requirement for cost-effective solar, and many of them have sparse populations that need distributed power supplies. Because they have little existing infrastructure, they have no legacy-technology considerations, and could implement demand management because consumers have no other expectations. They could quickly become prosperous, energy-rich, and clean. Won’t happen, of course. As soon as that “compensation” hits the Swiss bank accounts, it’ll be party time in Dubai and London.

This article is probably right up Bob´s alley. NOTE: There are FLOOD WATERS not just in Assam BUT ALSO in Durban DURING the climate change conference. Like, how, like incredible is it that this like exactly like shows the results of like the climate changing and stuff. Like this is almost like too much to bear!

And check out the above photo and caption for more about Assam and how floods there are directly caused by GLOBAL WARMING.

See its PERSONAL. Qodeni Ximba died BECAUSE of global warming! This is personal. Climate change deniers listen up because you are to blame for this person´s death!

And these 20,000 people must do something now to stop these deaths. Cuz they are like happening now and stuff.

So, we are not sure that it is linked to climate change so we should investigate. The fact is that Durban has received TWICE the normal amount of rain in November. That would like mean there is an average and everything right? So sometimes Durban might receive two times less than average? and that would balance things out? How much shall we bet that the next conference when there are no rains will be an indication of human-caused global warming but this time with reverse results?

Ah… volunteer… so none of them receive any grants or any other funding to engage in work that involves the climate and possible human-induced ¨change.¨ None at all?

Along with Al Gore… Funny that she fails to mention that this was a joint award. Did she forget or has Al Gore become too much of an embarrassment?

Yes, but the distance that the United Nations put behind its commitment to these possibilities had, as the earlier article noted, caused global warming true believers to gnash their teeth in anger. Surely this reporter would have noted that whole report. Why is she interpreting the results and final summary of the report thus? is it deliberate?

So Kyoto in her view is a success? Would anyone else like to sign up to her version of Kyoto and its accomplishments?

China refuses. So much clarity and direction in two simple words.

If you mean by a vote of 97 to 0 yes the US refused to ratify the Kyoto Treaty. This was when remember Clinton was president and sing along with me now Al Gore was vice president. Hmmmm…

How many want to bet on break?

And yet dear reporter when Clinton and Gore were in charge, the result was 97 to 0 so were they all Republicans in the Senate? Gee. What an accomplishment?

They also as I have shown directly fund a number of climate change NGOs and research and are part of important boards and conferences that have led to the view that climate change is an important issue.

Funny but I showed that Exxon gave $8 million to climate change skeptic groups and 6.6 million to those advocating or professing climate change to be a serious issue. Not much of an advantage financially.

in the streets? Oh dear, this must be good. It sounds like action or at the very minimum an effort to raise awareness.

Arrests! Goodness. How serious!

Really? How?

Ah! Climate change is the same thing as apartheid! I get it. Both are evil. Both subject humanity to slavery. Both can be overturned if the fascists in charge of a country or those in charge of oil and gas corporations are shamed into action or are overthrown. Power to the people. No pun intended on power as it could be coal-fueled. hardeee harhar.

Cry! Freedom! Fuck air conditioning! I so totally get it! More of these articles! MORE! It is certainly raising awareness! bwahahahahahahaha

guardian.co.uk/commentisfree … ast-chance

And one more delicious addition from the Guardian…

Fry? Oh dear? and now not only the leaders and bankers but also the citizens are not to blame for refusing to take action. Looks like this little religion is turning on its would-be adherents for lack of er commitment? smirk.

I loved this photo caption just in case anyone thought that the Guardian could even try to be objective:

[quote]Peter Wilby guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 December 2011 21.00 GMT Article history
‘Osborne is an urban animal who, apart from the odd week on ski slopes in Switzerland, has spent nearly all his life in London.’ Photograph: Rex Features
After he’d clobbered public sector workers and poor families on tax credits, George Osborne said in his autumn statement that he was “worried about the combined impact of … green policies … on some of our heavy, energy-intensive industries”. He continued: “We are not going to save the planet by shutting down our steel mills, aluminium smelters and paper manufacturers.” If we carried on “with endless social and environmental goals … businesses will fail, jobs will be lost, and our country will be poorer”.[/quote]

So this writer believes that more Solyndras are needed? wise?

Oooohhhh. Selling your daughter to prostitution? Hmmm so if I do not care about global warming or refuse to take action, I might as well be selling my daughter into prostitution. That is er excuse the language fucked!

You lost the election pal. Why should a Conservative prime minister be responsible for implementing a Labour prime minister´s policies?

Tipping point? Is it just me or is the deadline constantly being pushed back. Now, it is 2017. Wasnt it like 1997 before and then 2007 and now 2017? Or am I hallucinating? probably from the record heat?

Do non-religions believe in and need miracles as well? or are we miraculously close to calling global warming a religion here?

so it is back to the business leaders in their cabals controlling the world? Gosh. What a difference an election makes. It sorta is kinda like how after Obama won we do not here about Guantanamo anymore…

So the bankers don´t care and refuse to act because they are evil and now this reporter is mad and complaining that banks are if not evil interested in making a profit and that does not mean investing in solar energy or other green-approved programs? Geee…

Looks like someone has figured out that the world will still need energy in the absence of solar salvation.

So, when Vivienne Westwood has saved the planet with her $1 million donation to Cool Earth (love the name) we can all follow her lead and we have seen how donations to climate change NGOs have changed the world. No? We have not? But … they have raised awareness right? and that has to mean something right?

So consumers don´t care either… What is an enlightened reporter to do?

OH NO! only 11 signatures. How unholy are these people? caring about their personal lives at the expense of the planet!

They should be condemneed for shirking their duties.

Yeah. That need to feel good even when it does not really lead to any practicable results can certainly irk one, right? God don´t I know it!

You cannot imagine the smirk on my face and the accompanying GUFFAW that went with it. JESUS This is a treasure.

Ah… so let´s get our kicks in on neoliberalism but… the failure of the housing market in the US was caused by government not market intervention or how else would you term Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae subsidized mortgages. Neoliberalism? hmmm bit of a stretch of the definition me thinks…

Yes, we need more sacrifices… MORE SACRIFICES.

Last time I checked, no one had voted in either the communist or socialist parties so why are the pro-market politicians responsible for implementing communist and socialist policies? Because they are the right thing to do? So, are we to say democracy should be overthrown because the people are not voting the right way?

Common good? Oh I see you get to define that do you and then we all have to follow along even though we do not agree or we are not concerned about the common good?

Where is the planet burning? And where is the urgency? I read the introduction and summary of the latest UN report and compared to previous versions, there has been a lot of backtracking and qualifications regarding what we ¨know¨about global warming. IF the United Nations no longer believes that the threat is as serious as it did 5, 10 and 20 years ago, how is that a sign that more urgent action is needed? The UN has backtracked not accelerated the need for urgent action. Why is this reporter then so concerned?

Is THIS what things have come to… at the United Nations sponsored climate change conference in Durban? Color me OH so SURPRISED!

Just what we needed… more victims of climate change… smirk…

Of course, with the lack of capacity in these two nations, one STRUGGLES to understand how handing them millions of dollars to fight and adapt to climate change will be beneficial.

Oh dear. Wretched? Would that be editorializing on the part of the Economist?

That sounds incredibly unfair, incredibly!

Buying votes at the UN? Wonder where certain posters are in this all-important discussion. After all, is it not the world body that will lead to the typical German hope of paradise on earth? Looks as if this Fourth Reich, too, will reach an unfortunate demise.

Success? Like the Kyoto Treaty?

OH? So Kyoto was NOT a success? Does this mean that the US, in hindsight, is to be granted recognition for voting down the same as not being feasible? Sorta kinda like Delors is recognizing Britain´s skepticism regarding the Euro?

Unwilling because they don´t want to solve the problem or because they recognize that the approach is failed? That does make a difference.

Given past history and lack of progress, I would say ¨rarely or never¨ here is certainly a mouthful.

So when did the Economist start sending the touch feely to conferences? I thought that they were there to report not feel gloomy. Facts are facts. Emotions are emotions. They do not mix well.

Party on Garth. For those of us who never expected anything from these conferences, the gloom and doom is mere confirmation that we were right all along.

Set up stalls to advertise themselves… why that is almost like a business! Where do they get the money to advertise themselves and participate in these conferences? I thought that the point of giving money to such NGOs was to further action to address climate change not to engage in advertising and host panel discussions that attract no one.

Harder to understand than others? Jesus. Given the incomprehensibility of this movement, one would struggle to imagine the inability to understand the worst. What that can be like, one can only imagine!

Dear me.

Germans being predictable? Really?

USA! USA! USA!

Only a surprise to those who do not understand how well paid many of these NGO types are and how much of a business they have become. I will crow success on my ability to see the motive under the green lining and engage in a victory lap.

But part of a congregation… How religious have they become to be so described?

faintly is NOT the adverb that I would use.

Be strong. Hold your head up. Survive. Be a survivor! You go girl!

Funny. The Occupy Wall Street thread is getting all the attention. Funny. People used to care about global warming and climate change. I never hoped that this would be the kind of change that Obama would bring but there you are! God works in mysterious ways. I wonder if my other hopes and dreams will be realized to!

So the UN Climate Change conference in Durban ended with the result that all agree to negotiate a binding treaty in 2020 when the Kyoto Treaty, which most nations have not signed onto or those that do are not meeting their treaty commitments, expires, except of course, we are still not sure (are we?) that India will agree to a legally binding treaty and waht legally binding will mean… so how is one to view this conference? as a successful accomplishment of what exactly? anyone?

[color=#008000]Moderator’s note: please avoid overwhelming “spamming” of a thread with long, multiple posts. It is to be hoped that the threads are reasonably accessible for many posters, and not just to be used by a few as a place to vent their opinions, without doing so in a manner that allows others to enter the debate on their own terms. [/color]

Yes, looking forward to feedback on this oh-so-important issue. Any comments from others?

Well, Fred, IMO, the most important result/conclusion to come out of this conference is the scheduling of the next conference! Hooray!

If you’re not part of the solution, you;re part of the problem.

還是越幫越忙! :laughing:

Yes, climate change is all about politics, not about serious changes to our world. Let’s all just imagine away what the majority of the world’s leading climate scientists say, based on our dislike of the left.

That is an extremely simplistic view. So, what is the solution? How much will it cost? How much can you guarantee that the solutions will lead to actual results? Remember according to the supporters of the Kyoto Treaty under the BEST scenario, it would stave off global warming by only six years during the next 100. So? Is this all about politics or is this not really about global warming or climate change or alternating weather patterns but ¨social justice¨and redistributive economics dressed up in its latest form of dog and pony show?

Again, all you have to do to convince any of us that this is not the case is to post some evidence to the contrary not just a simple sentence where you claim to have answered the question without doing so. Give us something to look at and we may believe you.

I think Taiwan need climate change right now.
It rain too much!

That is an extremely simplistic view. So, what is the solution? How much will it cost? How much can you guarantee that the solutions will lead to actual results? Remember according to the supporters of the Kyoto Treaty under the BEST scenario, it would stave off global warming by only six years during the next 100. So? Is this all about politics or is this not really about global warming or climate change or alternating weather patterns but ¨social justice¨and redistributive economics dressed up in its latest form of dog and pony show?

Again, all you have to do to convince any of us that this is not the case is to post some evidence to the contrary not just a simple sentence where you claim to have answered the question without doing so. Give us something to look at and we may believe you.[/quote]

Look Fred, your whole tone is very personal and borders on insulting. This is a theme with you that is becoming more pronounced. Please show some basic courtesy in your tone. And BTW, who is “us” in any of us?

If you have in the past posted a link to the above, I may have missed it due to the amount of material you post. If not, then such a claim needs a link or a quotation.

Happy to get one. In the meantime, is that going to be a new policy that you enforce for every poster? Just want that in writing… not that I don´t believe that you don´t have the best of intentions…

As to insulting… I am asking for solutions… I am asking for the plan from those who claim to believe that global warming is a major issue. WHAT are you going to do about it? HOW MUCH is it going to cost to do so? and WHAT results will you get? and how much probability can you project on attaining those aims? IF you feel that my asking for that information in a discussion such as this is insulting… well, I hope that the real world doesn´t not intrude on your pleasant little view of reality. This is the norm.

Happy to get one. In the meantime, is that going to be a new policy that you enforce for every poster? Just want that in writing… not that I don´t believe that you don´t have the best of intentions…

As to insulting… I am asking for solutions… I am asking for the plan from those who claim to believe that global warming is a major issue. WHAT are you going to do about it? HOW MUCH is it going to cost to do so? and WHAT results will you get? and how much probability can you project on attaining those aims? IF you feel that my asking for that information in a discussion such as this is insulting… well, I hope that the real world doesn´t not intrude on your pleasant little view of reality. This is the norm.[/quote]

Hi Fred, thanks for your response, I look forward to your link.