Climate conference appears unable to agree on binding treaty; African nations demand direct payoff

A. Zarkov writes:

According to the London Times, the Copenhagen climate change negotiations have stalled, and put off a decision for six years! The Third World (as usual) is furious as they won’t be getting those reparations for our sin of industrializing. I had not realized that leaders of 50 Africans countries were demanding—get this—$722 billion per year from the US alone! From Cop15 News:

In a draft text quoted by Danish daily Politiken, the group of 50 countries proposes that rich countries pay five percent of their GDPs to developing countries in support for their fight against climate change.

Asking for five percent would be a very ambitious demand, compared to the funding so far mentioned at the climate negotiations. Five percent of the United States’ GDP alone amounts to 722 billion US dollars (2008 figures). In comparison, the EU has calculated the developing countries’ total need for climate funding to 130 billion dollars (100 billion euro) annually by 2020.

No wonder the talks are going nowhere. American Thinker provides a number of details here. Assuming all this get confirmed, it looks like African greed and other factors killed any chance of a deal.

LA replies:

The London Times article linked by Mr. Zarkov is so badly written it’s incomprehensible. The American Thinker article, which is a commentary and explanation of the American Thinker article, is more understandable, but can its dramatic characterizations of what the Times is reporting about Copenhagen be trusted? (I’ve copied the AT article below.)

LA continues:

As for the report from Cop15 News, it appears to be saying that in addition to the African countries getting all those expected carbon credits under Global Cap and Trade, which the industrialized countries (meaning essentially the white countries plus Japan and Korea) would have to buy from them in order to keep functioning economically (and by the way, is that not the most brilliant leftist ploy ever conceived, that the productive must PAY the unproductive for the right to go on producing and existing?), the Africans are also demanding (or at least demanding in a draft demand, which may be the same thing) a straight-out wealth transfer as well. And this money is not for economic development, sewage systems, schools and such like, but for the fraud of fighting climate change. It comes down to saying, YOU OWE US, GIVE US YOUR MONEY.

I do not know, but the draft text appears to be more than a draft that its authors are working on. It appears to be a proposal being circulated among the delegations at Copenhagen for their approval. If it is approved, then it becomes part of the binding treaty which is the aim of the conference. In other words, the draft text constitutes the demand that the African nations are making on the industrialized nations; if the draft is approved, then the demand has been accepted.

In my article, “The Centrality of Jihad in Islam,” I noted that all 57 Muslim majority countries had signed the Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, which declares that all human rights, such as the right of speech, must be understood according to the sharia law. On the basis of such a fundamental act of political and spiritual self-expression by Islam acting as an organized community, I concluded that the Islamic community as such and at its highest level believes in sharia and jihad, which sharia commands.

By the same type of Voegelinian analysis, by which we understand the nature of a political community on the basis of its official and organized expressions of itself, the fact that the governments of 50 African countries, acting in political unison, have put forth the demand that rich countries give them five percent of their GDP, shows that Africa as such and at its highest level is a continent of thieving and parasitic nations. It is not I who am saying that about Africa. That is the way Africa is now representing itself to the world. Or, to use a concept from law instead of from political science, res ipsa loquitur, the thing itself speaks.

Further, let us understand that this position is essentially the same as that outlined in Barack Obama’s March 2008 race speech. If people would actually read this highly praised speech, as I have done, they would see that its message comes down to the idea that blacks’ significant deficit of wealth and civilizational achievement relative to whites’ is whites’ fault, and whites therefore have the moral obligation to equalize blacks’ material condition with their own, or face the continued deserved hatred of blacks.

With the African nations’ demand for wealth transfer, the Obama position that guilty whites must equalize victimized blacks has become the position of black Africa. Of course the Africans are not demanding literal equality, say, 50 percent of the industrialized world’s GDP, but “only” five percent. They are demanding as much as is compatible with not outright destroying the egg-producing capabilities of the goose that lays the golden eggs.

The good news, if the news is correct, is that the goose is not going along.

Here is the American Thinker article:

December 14, 2009
Climategate TKO in Copenhagen?
By Jane Jamison

Will “cooler heads” prevail in Copenhagen? Have the scientists who have been working overtime in the past two weeks to make “climate sense” out of the global warming nonsense carried the day? Or is the idea of cutting back drastically on industrial production as we know it and transferring billions of dollars from rich nations to poor nations as “reparations” for the “sins” of carbon emissions and drowning polar bears simply so stupid that it is finally failing for lack of merit? Is global warming getting a technical knockout in Copenhagen?

The good guys may have won. Deep breaths, everyone. We won’t know for sure until Friday.

Today’s London Times carries what might eventually be considered the most important headline in the world for the last twenty years—and the most hopeful news for the next twenty years if it is correct:

Copenhagen Stalls Decision on Catastrophic Climate Change for Six Years

The key decision on preventing catastrophic climate change will be delayed for up to six years if the Copenhagen summit delivers a compromise deal which ignores advice from the UN’s science body.

World leaders will not agree on the emissions cuts recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and are likely instead to commit to reviewing them in 2015 or 2016.

The Times says that industrialized countries have not been able to agree to the draconian 25%-40% cuts in carbon emissions by the year 2020 demanded by the poor nations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

President Obama has reportedly agreed to only a 4% reduction from the 1990 levels by 2020.

Leaders of the industrialized world are set to arrive on Friday, the last day of the summit. It is speculated that if an agreement is not worked out in the next few days, some of the leaders may not bother to come.

The bad news “messenger” in Copenhagen is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who spoke at the climate conference yesterday and then gave newspaper interviews.

The Times says that Blair admits that recent developments of leaked e-mails from the leading climate change research institution in the world have caused doubt about when world temperatures might be rising and by how much: “When you come to very precise dates, percentages and so on … then the figures are somewhat more fudgeable.”

The Times goes on with its exclusive report:

A source close to Britain’s negotiating team said Britain would continue to press publicly for a deal in line with the IPCC’s recommendation, but acknowledged that the targets emerging from the summit would need to be reconsidered at a later date.

How does the careful parsing of the Times’ source piece translate? “To acknowledge the mighty pressure—to at least appear to be ‘signing something’—the industrialized nations might agree to a set of admission standards that can’t realistically be met with the intent to review standards in six years”?

If this is true, it must still be considered a body blow, even a “technical knockout,” for the global warming theory and its effect on future world economics.

To hear a former head of state and global warming proponent finally admit to the “fudge factor” of this discredited climate catastrophe theory is remarkable.

“Fudgeable” figures are what the past twenty years of scientific furor is about. In the past weeks, the evidence showed conclusively that leading global warming researchers had e-mailed each other about removing certain results and changing others to achieve the desired “hockey stick” rise in global temperature predictions. They have refused to divulge their original data to experts for peer review.

Lord Christopher Monckton of the Science and Public Policy Institute was uninvited to the “big show” at the United Nations climate change conference. Monckton held a “counter-conference” of his own in Copenhagen with a contingent of sixty scientists and climatologists. He issued a 34-minute video statement where he named each global warming scientist and expert who had been involved in the alleged “fraud” of global warming research and to what extent.

If the London Times is correct about the conference going bust, the biggest losers in Copenhagen will be the various and sundry contingents of “undeveloped” countries who have spent the last week asserting their entitlement to ever-increasing “reparations” from wealthy nations.

Leaders of fifty African nations came to Copenhagen asking $400 billion for the next three years to “offset” carbon credit “damages” which they claim to suffer. Inexplicably, two days ago, that demand was increased to an eye-goggling 5% of GDP (gross domestic product), estimated at $722 billion from the United States alone. There never was a response from the industrialized world.

The London Guardian reports today that the disgruntled Africans may boycott the rest of the climate summit. The conference’s own web page quotes the Ethiopian prime minister as saying he will “scuttle” talks unless there is discussion of “real money” and “not an illusion.”

If indeed Copenhagen finishes without the intended climate “treaty” climax this week, there will be major, and probably loud, disappointment in “Hopenhagen Nation.” Approximately 100,000 protestors created the “side-show” at climate change’s temporary world capital over the weekend, with about 1,200 of them ending up in jail.

Some global “warners” paraded in their skivvies in the brisk Denmark breezes, ostensibly to show us how warm it is at the Arctic Circle in December. The protestors who were arrested were allegedly throwing bricks and breaking windows while chanting about “saving the world.” The group is threatening to “take over” the summit this week unless their demands for something or other are met. They might want to conference with the Africans.

One unusual traveling “exhibit” at the Copenhagen climate change summit is a small group of fasting students (at 36 days so far). They fascinate for their increasingly sticky-mouthed webcast news conferences. Very few people are ever in the audience to hear their updates on what they are not eating, but even so, the food deniers for “climate justice” invite everyone “in the world” to fast with them on Thursday as they await the “final announcement” on Friday.

The shameful thing about the London Times story is that if it is true, the liberal American news media have either missed or studiously ignored the story of the century: “global warming fraud” and the aborted attempt to craft a worldwide, economy-busting treaty based on fake science.

And if the London Times’ sources are right, one wonders how those “fasters” will feel about going without food for a month for…nothing. Cheeseburger, shake, and fries to go?

Jane Jamison is publisher of the conservative news/commentary blog UNCOVERAGE.net.

[end of AT article]

- end of initial entry -

Evan H. writes:

“It is a punitive measure of military proportions—to which one might subject a defeated enemy nation—for the purpose of collective penal subjugation.” This is a quote from Mencius Moldbug’s latest post, and I think it fits this situation very well. Although he uses it in the context of the warmists’ demand that carbon output be reduced to 80 percent of 1990 levels, I think that it’s an accurate way of describing the African nations’ demand for these massive wealth transfers. Indeed, under the War Guilt clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was responsible for paying “132 billion marks ($31.5 billion, £6.6 billion) in 1921, which inflation adjusted, is roughly equivalent to $400 billion U.S. Dollars as of 2007.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TreatyofVersailles). And now Africa wants more than that, every year!

LA replies:

Sorry for the dumb question, but just to make sure I have this right, is their demand for five percent of industialized nation’s GDP not just for one year, but for an ongoing annual payment?

Evan replies:

Good eye—I had taken the “per year” part from A. Zarkov’s initial comment, but that does not appear to be substantiated in the linked articles—they all say the $722 billion number without mention of its being an ongoing payment. So it would appear that they want a one-time payment. Luckily, the point still stands in relation to the amount Germany was required to pay after WWI. Thanks for spotting my mistake.

A. Zarkov writes:

Evan writes,

“Good eye—I had taken the “per year” part from A. Zarkov’s initial comment, but that does not appear to be substantiated in the linked articles—they all say the $722 billion number without mention of its being an ongoing payment.”

I believe it is per year. From the link to Cope15:

“Asking for five percent would be a very ambitious demand, compared to the funding so far mentioned at the climate negotiations. Five percent of the United States’ GDP alone amounts to 722 billion US dollars (2008 figures). In comparison, the EU has calculated the developing countries’ total need for climate funding to 130 billion dollars (100 billion euro) annually by 2020.”

Note the EU counter-proposal calls for 100 billion annually. Also remember GDP is a flow quantity and has the units of dollars per year. So 5% of US GDP would be $722 billion per year. The writing is not clear and the $722 billion could be a one-time amount, but after reading the text, I decided it must mean per year from the context.

LA repies:

May I say, “wow”?

And think how much better this is than reparations. Reparations would have been a one-time deal. This is perpetual.

A. Zarkov writes:

I suspect there is a time cutoff on the yearly payments, something like 2020. Remember this is my best judgment of the text. I could easily be wrong. In any case Africa is not going to get anything like $722 billion from the U.S., on a per year or any other basis. If they have a tantrum, they might get nothing.

LA replies:

It will ended the same time that Sandra Day O’Connor said Affirmative Action will be ended, 25 years after the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision … around the same time as O.J. Simpson finds the real killers of Nicole and Ron.

December 16

Gintas writes:

You wrote: “It comes down to saying, YOU OWE US, GIVE US YOUR MONEY.”

Why not? Remember the old E.F. Hutton commercials? “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.” You could make a list:

• When non-white immigrants talk, Liberals listen;

• When criminals talk, Liberals listen;

• When third-worlders talk, Liberals listen;

• When anti-Christians talk, Liberals listen;

• When Africa talks, Liberals listen;

• When non-liberal whites talk, the SPLC attacks.

And while Liberals listen earnestly, they are reaching into our pockets so they can show how generous they are.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 15, 2009 08:48 AM | Send