NEWSFLASH! Action on climate change voted bottom of world’s priority heap

Back in March of this year, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) announced an “innovative initiative” in which participants from around the world are invited to vote on what the priorities should be in a post-2015 world.

When I first stumbled across the “For information media • not an official record” of a March 13 Press Conference (and standard photo-op and exhortation from Ban Ki-Moon), I was concerned that this might have been another opportunity missed. Here are some excerpts from the Press Conference (note the use of past tense … all emphases mine -hro):

PRESS CONFERENCE ON ‘MY WORLD’ INITIATIVE FOR POST-2015 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA

People from around the world had an opportunity to join the global conversation to shape the future development agenda by participating in an innovative initiative known as MY World, Olav Kjørven, Assistant Secretary General and Director of the Bureau for Development Policy at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said today at a Headquarters press conference.

“There’s been something really important missing in the way we at the United Nations and at the global level have been deliberating and deciding on issues over the last decade, and that something has been you — people all over the world,” he told correspondents, adding that the era of making decisions about global issues behind closed doors with little citizen involvement was coming to an end.

Whoah! No more decisions about “global issues” being made behind closed doors?! Has anyone sent this memo to the powers that be at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)?! But I digress … this non-official record continues:

[Head of Growth at the Poverty and Inequality Programme at the Overseas Development Institute's Claire] Melamed said MY World allowed people’s voices to be heard as they chose, in an interactive way, those issues that would make the most difference in their lives. Global citizens were being asked to vote on the six most important issues from a list of 16 options put together with the help of non-governmental organizations, United Nations agencies and a range of citizen opinion polls.

“We are collecting an incredibly rich source of information about what people want,” she said. “We’re able to look at what men want, what women want, what people of different ages want, how the choices people are making vary in all kinds of different ways. We can look at particularly what some of the poorest people think and compare that with richer people in their own countries.”

According to MY World’s website, votes can be submitted online, and in some countries, by mobile phone or through offline ballots. Ms. Melamed added that organizers of the survey were also going out in a traditional way, on bikes and on foot, in certain remote areas, gathering information from people who do not have access to the Internet or mobile phones.

[...]

As examples of civil society partnership, [Corinne Woods, Director of the United Nations Millennium Campaign] noted that boy scouts had been mobilized in several countries to spread the message and get people to connect and vote. In Nigeria, the Government was supporting many thousands in the national youth core as they visited villages to mobilize votes. Mass media companies such as Viacom, MTV, Nickelodeon, and BET were involved in a major online mobilization.

The text appended to Ban’s March 12 photo-op reinforced my initial impression of an “opportunity missed”:

Results from the survey will be shared with Mr. Ban, his High-level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, and world leaders.

[...]

Yesterday, Mr. Ban met with four youth volunteers who are capturing communities’ development priorities and called on the public to make a difference on the issues that impact their lives the most.

These inputs, along with those from across the UN system and beyond, including the outcomes of consultations going on worldwide and the voices of businesses, academia and the scientific community, will feed into the work of the Panel, which will present its report in May.

“Our goal must be a single, coherent global agenda that can be every bit as successful in inspiring and mobilizing people as the MDGs have been,” Mr. Ban noted in remarks today [...]

So we know that The Report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda was presented with much fanfare at the end of May; but I thought it would be interesting to see what the results of this “innovative initiative” might have been!

Much to my surprise, I found that voting is still open to all until 2015! From the Methodology page:

When and where will this all happen?

From now until 2015, we want as many people in as many countries as possible to be involved: citizens of all ages, genders and backgrounds, particularly the world’s poor and marginalized communities.

MY World will be available from early December 2012, so countries hosting national consultations can take it into account. However, the global launch of MY World is scheduled for late January 2013 (at that time a comprehensive communication toolkit will be available for all).

This page also lists the sixteen choices (from which a voter may select only 6), of which two in succession were quite interesting:

Reliable energy at home

Action taken on climate change

If you decide to vote, you’ll see that each of the choices has an explanation. There is good news and bad news on the “Reliable energy at home” front. They’re not talking “renewable”, but:

This means that all family members should have reliable and affordable electricity or other sources of energy at home for lighting, heating and cooking. More of that energy should be sustainably generated

but they slipped in “sustainable” (without defining it!) … And here’s the (somewhat predictable) explanation they provide for “Action taken on climate change”:

This means that governments should take on binding commitments to reduce carbon emissions to levels which can keep the global temperature rise below 2 degrees, and invest in adaptation measures particularly involving vulnerable communities

Here’s a screen-capture of the results after I voted:

Results* for All countries June 16, 2013

* Note: Customizing the results is a little fiddly – I had to select All a few times before the numbers changed from those for an apparently randomly selected specific country; and I’m fairly certain that the Total was actually 700K+ before I voted (as opposed to the 621K+ after I voted. Minor detail :-)

But in playing around with their interactive platform, I did notice that “A good education” consistently ranked in first place, followed by equally sensible choices. And “Action taken on climate change”, of course, for most parameters was 16th (or 15th).

Cast your votes and spread the word, folks; so that we can keep “Action taken on climate change” where it belongs: off the table (or at least at the bottom of the priority heap)!

And in other news … speaking of keeping “action on climate change” off the table …

It seems that U.K. Prime Minister, David Cameron (who was one of the three Co-chairs of the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons) may well have seen the writing on the virtual wall!

Cameron is the President of the June 17-18 G8 Summit; and his agenda includes no mention of “climate change” [H/T The GWPF]. OTOH, this may be a spoonful of sugar to help some bitter “global” taxing and reporting medicine go down:

UK’s G8 agenda – trade, tax, transparency

PM David Cameron is determined to achieve change issues which are critical for growth, prosperity and economic development across the world.

In an article for the Wall Street Journal, David Cameron explains that the UK G8 Presidency will focus on achieving action on tax, trade and transparency:

Britain and America have a proud history of working together to meet the great challenges of the day. Ours is a partnership without parallel, rooted in our values of freedom and enterprise – advancing not just Britain’s and America’s interests but the good of people around the world.

Today, our greatest challenge is to restore strong and sustainable growth to the world economy.

When times are tough, some want to put the barriers up, to look inwards, and to protect themselves from the world. But Britain and America stand for a better way. We have a precious opportunity to transform the global economy—not by less openness and less free trade, but by more. And we must do everything possible to seize it.
[...] (emphasis added -hro)

Do read the whole thing but in the meantime, here are some word-counts to consider:

Climate – 0
Green – 0
Sustain* – 2
Transparen* – 7
Global – 9
Tax* – 21

And don’t forget to vote so that we can keep “action on climate change” where it belongs:-)

Of (CO2 driven) climate fears and the UNEP’s “transformative changes”

In a recent series of essays, Bernie Lewin has shed considerable light on the early days of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC, of course, is The Delinquent Teenager …, sired by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP, official promulgator of increasingly scary stories since 1972) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). But I digress …

Lewin has done us all a great service by compiling and sharing this fascinating history, which he has entitled, Enter the Economists: The Price of Life and how the IPCC only just survived the other chapter controversy

Over at Bishop Hill, yesterday, Lewin had a guest post in which he summarized some of his findings – including the roles of Economist, Richard Tol and Aubrey Meyer, a “violinist and composer, [whose] activist career was launched after he experienced a remarkable life-changing epiphany upon hearing of the death of an Amazonian rubber tapper called Chico Mendes.”

Lewin’s guest post has generated an interesting discussion, in which both Tol and Meyer are actively participating.

From my perspective, the key to the mess in which (to varying degrees, depending on our country – or province/state – of residence) we now find ourselves, lies in Lewin’s (all emphases that follow in this post are mine):

Moreover, behind the very push to re-constitute Working Group III for the 2nd Assessment – so as to cover the economic and social dimensions of the problem – was an attempt to incorporate the broader sustainable development goals of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit into the IPCC assessment processes. The tensions that developed in this Working Group, and which erupted in this controversy, can only be understood by recognising that this was always more than about the climate. Just as with the Toronto climate conference of 1988, here we find another bold attempt to channel the aspirations of the sustainable development movement towards realisation in policies driven by climate fear.

If nothing else, the United Nations has proven to be very adept at engineering “mechanisms” (to use one of the UNEP’s favourite words!) which employ the concept of “lets you and him fight”.

If you think about it, has there ever in the history of the UN been a more divisive issue than the purported perils of human-generated carbon dioxide – and its “contribution” to variously-called global warming, climate change and (the latest and greatest scare) “extreme weather events”?

Towards this end, the UN’s army of unaccountable (and about as far from transparent as one can possibly get) bureaucrats invariably appear to have an uncanny knack of producing seemingly innocuous – but lengthy and sleep-inducing – documents. Thereby virtually guaranteeing that few – if any – of those who approve/accept/adopt them, will ever read in their entirety, that in which is planted the seeds of future disagreements.

No wonder their COPs are such flops! And in the meantime, we’re all distracted by a dispute that centres on the merits (demerits?!) of human-generated C0₂ – a trojan horse if ever there was one – while the “dark horse” of “sustainable development” gallops towards the finish line. But I digress …

The “executive summary” (of sorts) of such documents is usually contained in a UN General Assembly (UNGA) “Resolution” percolated and filtered via the maze, so that the abbreviated and oh-so-innocuous wording (unanimously adopted “by all the nations of the world” of course) does not tell the full story. Truth be told, it doesn’t even tell half an eighth of the story!

The UNEP and its “flagship” Agenda 21/Sustainable Development (not to mention its ever-increasing stable of acronymic offspring) are a case in point.

Consider the recently “Adopted” UNGA Resolution 67/213. This was Agenda Item “20 (g)”, evidently reviewed by “Committee 2″ and advertised as Draft “A/67/437/Add.7” [hyperlink helpfully added by Hilary who happened to stumble across it elsewhere] . The record appears to indicate that it was adopted “without a vote”. The “Topic” is described as:

Report of the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme on its twelfth special session and on the implementation of section IV.C, entitled “Environmental pillar in the context of sustainable development”, of the outcome document of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development

According to the UN’s Department of Public Information’s News and Media Division document (distributed “For information media – not an official record”), on December 21, 2012:

Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review, Implementation of Rio+20 Outcome Draw Attention

as General Assembly Takes Up Second Committee Reports

Delegations Adopt 41 Texts, Including 2 Plenary-generated Draft Resolutions

The Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review of United Nations operational activities for development, and implementation of the outcome document of the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, were among the most prominent concerns today as the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) recommended its draft resolutions for adoption by the General Assembly.

[...]

With the bulk of draft resolutions falling under the sustainable development cluster, many were linked closely to the Rio+20 outcome document, “The future we want”. In all, the Assembly adopted 17 texts on sustainable development, including a draft decision.
[...]
Another draft stressed the importance of the continued substantive consideration of disaster risk reduction, and encouraged Member States and relevant United Nations bodies to take into consideration the important role of disaster risk reduction activities for sustainable development. Two related texts stressed international cooperation to reduce the impact of the El Niño phenomenon and to protect the global climate for present and future generations.

By a text on implementation of Agenda 21, the Assembly stressed the need to develop the post-2015 development agenda. Also under the sustainable development umbrella were two annual texts stressing, respectively, the need for continued substantive consideration of the promotion of new and renewable sources of energy, and of biological diversity. Other sustainable development texts concerned the International Day of Forests and the Tree; Implementation of the International Year of Water Cooperation, 2013; Harmony with nature; Convention on Biological Diversity; and the report of the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on its twelfth special session.

Taking up globalization and interdependence, the Assembly adopted two texts by recorded votes. The first, titled “Towards a New International Economic Order”, reaffirmed the need to continue working to integrate the principles of equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, common interest, cooperation and solidarity among all States into global economics.

And here are a few of the pertinent (and duly noted “unofficial”) … uh …”details”:

The Assembly then adopted, without a vote, the draft resolution titled “Implementation of Agenda 21, the Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21 and the outcomes of the World Summit on Sustainable Development”. By its terms, the Assembly stressed the need for synergy, coherence and mutual support among all those and other processes that were also relevant to the post-2015 development agenda. It also reaffirmed “The future we want”, the outcome document of the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, and urged its speedy implementation. [Sorry, didn't have time to track down the actual "draft resolution" on this "text" -hro]

[...]

The Assembly then adopted, without a vote, the draft resolution titled “Report of the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme on its twelfth special session and on the implementation of section IV.C, entitled ‘Environmental pillar in the context of sustainable development’, of the outcome document of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development”, which urged donors to increase voluntary funding for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), including to the Environment Fund.**

It then adopted, without a vote, the draft titled “Harmony with nature”, which called for holistic and integrated approaches to sustainable development that would guide humanity to live with nature, leading to efforts to restore the health and integrity of the earth’s ecosystems.

** As per above noted Draft

Oh, and in case you’re interested one of the two “plenary-generated draft resolutions” was billed as “Promoting New Global Human Order“. For the record, it was adopted “without a vote”. The “details” evidently can be found in “document A/67/L.49″ – for which, unfortunately there was no hyperlink. So who knows where one might find ‘em.

YMMV, however, I cannot say that I’m particularly thrilled about the thought of a “New International Economic Order”, a “New Global Human Order” – or of being “guide[d]” by an unseen text which (presumably) urges “Harmony with Nature”.

But the bottom line is that no one would have a clue from any of the above “resolutions” that the United Nations has just given its blessing to “strengthening and upgrading” the UNEP. There are, however, indications that the actual outcomes from Rio+20 last June have been transmogrified into far more than could possibly have met the eye at the time.

This, of course, conveniently paved the way for UNEP head honcho, Achim Steiner (and his “team”) to re-write history in a way that is more to his liking (and that of his Big Green “partners” drawn from “civil society”).

I haven’t done so yet, but it will be interesting to compare Steiner’s “Policy Statement” – delivered at the “historic” opening of “the first universal session of the Governing Council of UNEP” in Nairobi, on Feb. 18 – with the IISD’s summary of these “historic” proceedings, which I had reported on previously (here and here).

For now, though, dear readers … a few numbers to ponder:

44 sustainable/sustainability. Quelle surprise, eh?!

14 green economy. Ditto.

7 climate change – a “sub-programme” which “aims to strengthen the ability of countries, particularly developing nations, to integrate climate change responses into national development processes. Alas, it seems that “climate change” might be losing its status as the “greatest threat to the future of the planet”.

3 CO₂ – Here is the context of the first mention (p. 5):

The challenge of achieving not just incremental progress but transformative changes that can deliver absolute reductions in CO2, a halt to the loss of biodiversity, or a reversal of land degradation and the loss of arable land represents an unprecedented challenge – both to environment ministries and societies in general.

Here is the context of the second honourable mention:

The En.Lighten iniative, backed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), implemented by
UNEP and supported by industry partners Philips and Osram, unveiled 150 country strategies to
phase-in more energy efficient bulbs.

The assessment indicates that a total of five per cent of global electricity consumption could be
saved every year through a transition to efficient lighting, resulting in annual worldwide savings
of over USD 110 billion.

The yearly savings in electricity of the phase-out would be equivalent to avoiding the
emissions from over 250 large coal-fired power plants, resulting in avoided investment costs of
approximately USD 210 billion. Additionally, the 490 megatonnes (Mt) of CO2 savings per year is
equivalent to the emissions of more than 122 million mid-size cars.

And last but not least, just a hint of “fear” for good measure (p. 10) :

In respect to cutting-edge science, UNEP’s third Emission Gap Report has become a key reference for governments negotiating towards a new agreement by 2015 at the Doha UN climate meeting.

It showed that if the world does not scale up and accelerate action on climate change without
delay, emissions could rise to 58 gigatonnes (Gt) by 2020 far above the level scientists say is in line with a likely chance of keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius this century.

It also pointed out policies and actions that can bridge the gap between ambitions and reality. Indeed the ‘gap report’ — which convened 55 scientists from more than 50 institutions in 20
countries — estimates that there are potentially large emissions reductions possible in a mid-range of 17 Gt of CO2 equivalents from sectors such as buildings, power generation and transport that can more than bridge the gap by 2020.

What’s this I do not see before me?! Look ma, no “carbon credit” mentions!

But … Whoah! … Wait a minute! Is the UNEP’s “Emission Gap Report” – along with the “environmental governance” sub-programme’s “Fifth Global Environmental Assessment (GEO-5)” – stealing the thunder of the – conspicuously unmentioned – “gold standard” IPCC?!

Compared to this big fat 0 for the IPCC (a mention score matched by that for Kyoto, btw), one finds …

5 IPBES (IPPC’s younger, waiting-in-the-wings, sibling, the Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services)

Hmmm … talk about “transformative changes”, eh?!

Shifting sands of watercourses and lakes

Just in case you might have missed it, due to all eyes being on the Doha non-negotiations (or diverted elsewhere), there was a meeting of yet another UN body, albeit of shorter duration, that has just concluded.

This was a confab of a body of The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) which (all emphases in quotes below are mine -hro):

was set up in 1947 by ECOSOC**. It is one of five regional commissions of the United Nations.
[...]
UNECE’s major aim is to promote pan-European economic integration. To do so, it brings together 56 countries located in the European Union, non-EU Western and Eastern Europe, South-East Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and North America. All these countries dialogue and cooperate under the aegis of UNECE on economic and sectoral issues. However, all interested United Nations member States may participate in the work of UNECE. Over 70 international professional organizations and other non-governmental organizations take part in UNECE activities.

As a multilateral platform, UNECE facilitates greater economic integration and cooperation among its member countries and promotes sustainable development and economic prosperity.
[...]
UNECE contributes to enhancing the effectiveness of the United Nations through the regional implementation of outcomes of global United Nations Conferences and Summits. It gives focus to the United Nations global mandates in the economic field, in cooperation with other global players and key stakeholders, notably the business community.

UNECE also sets out norms, standards and conventions to facilitate international cooperation within and outside the region.

What’s not to like, eh?!

** You will, of course, remember ECOSOC and the hockey-stick of its ever-increasing stable of accredited NGOs which I wrote about some months ago.

Here’s the quasi-official word on this particular MOP (Meeting of the Parties):

The sixth Meeting of the Parties (MOP6) of the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention) met from Wednesday, 28 to Friday, 30 November 2012 at the Chambers of Deputies in Rome, Italy. The meeting was attended by more than 320 people, including parties, non-party states, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

MOP6 addressed many substantive issues related to the work of the Convention, such as: its opening to all members of the UN beyond the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) region; support for implementation and compliance; transboundary groundwater; a thematic assessment on the water-food-energy-ecosystems nexus; water and adaptation to climate change; cooperation with other multilateral environmental agreements and international partners; vision for the future of the Water Convention; and the programme of work for 2013–2015.

At the closing session:

In her concluding remarks, Chair [Sibylle] Vermont [of Switzerland] highlighted the future generations of the Convention through a compilation of photos of all the meeting participants’ children. She thanked the government of Italy and the Chamber of Deputies for their hospitality and the UNECE Secretariat for their hard work and support. Vice-Chair Cozzone recognized the participation of 18 countries from outside the UNECE region, noting that expanded participation represents the future of the Convention. He looked forward to future progress on the Convention. Andrey Vasilyev, Deputy Executive Secretary, UNECE, congratulated participants on a successful meeting and wished parties success in their work.

I’m sure that this compilation of kiddie pics will have a tremendous impact on future deliberations of this apparently soon to be expanded body – in keeping with the earlier report from the:

OPENING SESSION OF THE HIGH-LEVEL SEGMENT

Rocco Buttiglione, Vice-President, Chamber of Deputies, on behalf of Gianfranco Fini, President, Chamber of Deputies, Italy, thanked participants for accepting his government’s invitation to attend MOP6,and welcomed the opening of the Convention to non-Economic Commission for Europe countries. He said water resources are a common good for all people and that, therefore, an international governance system is needed to manage them.

Of course Ban Ki-Moon had dipped his toes in the waters via:

Delivering a message on behalf of Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General, Andrey Vasilyev, Deputy Executive Secretary, UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), encouraged countries outside the UNECE region to join the Convention. He stressed that the Water Convention and the UN Convention on Watercourses are complementary to each other and called for coherent implementation. Vasilyev then highlighted key achievements of the Convention, namely: strengthened implementation and compliance; the Second Assessment of Transboundary Rivers, Lakes and Groundwaters; adaptation to climate change; national policy dialogues; and projects on the ground.

Well, if the world votes for “implementation” then “coherent implementation can only be a good thing, right?! And moving right along while keeping on message, we find …

MAIN ACHIEVEMENTS AND REMAINING CHALLENGES FOR THE CONVENTION

[Vermont] highlighted three achievements of the Convention: the Convention as a model for bilateral and multilateral treaties on shared waters; the role of the Convention in driving national water legislation; and the globalization of the Convention. She recognized that climate change is presenting new challenges for the Convention.

Ah well, I suppose we should be thankful that climate change has not achieved the status of “greatest threat to the future of our waterways and lakes” – at least not yet, she says somewhat skeptically! But consider the following word counts in the body of the text:

climate change 34
adaptation 23
mechanism 12
sustainable 11
funding 7
science 1
mitigation 0
green economy 0
global warming 0

Look at that, folks! Adaptation 23, mitigation 0. Hmmm …. I wonder if they’ve redefined “adaptation”?! Oh, well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough, since 2013 has been designated as the “International Year of Water Cooperation“.

Maybe the world’s waters will cooperate more readily than the world’s climate has to date ;-)

Of coffee beans and CBC climate hypochondriacs

Canada’s “national” broadcaster, the CBC continues to practice its longstanding habit of controlling the climate message. There’s an article (with no byline, so it was probably churned from a press release) in their “Technology & Science” section, dated today, which begins:

Coffee beans in danger of extinction

Climate change could kill off prized Arabica plants by 2080

A cup of morning coffee could be much harder to find, and much more expensive, before the century is out thanks to climate change and the possible extinction of wild Arabica beans.

That’s the warning behind a new study by U.K. and Ethiopian researchers who say the beans that go into 70 per cent of the world’s coffee could be wiped out by 2080.

Researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew and the Environment and Coffee Forest Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia looked at how climate change might make some land unsuitable for Arabica plants, which are highly vulnerable to temperature change and other dangers including pests and disease.

[and concludes:]

The study goes on to note that its results are “conservative” because it did not take into account the large-scale deforestation of the Arabica-suitable highland forests of Ethiopia and South Sudan.

“The models assume intact natural vegetation, whereas the highland forests of Ethiopia and South Sudan are highly fragmented due to deforestation,” the researchers wrote. Pests, disease and other factors were also not considered.

The authors of the report say certain “core sites” capable of yielding Arabica until at least 2080 should be set aside for conservation. [emphasis added -hro]

Of course, there’s no link from the article to the actual paper, the abstract of which begins:

Precise modelling of the influence of climate change on Arabica coffee is limited; there are no data available for indigenous populations of this species. In this study we model the present and future predicted distribution of indigenous Arabica, and identify priorities in order to facilitate appropriate decision making for conservation, monitoring and future research. Using distribution data we perform bioclimatic modelling and examine future distribution with the HadCM3 climate model for three emission scenarios (A1B, A2A, B2A) over three time intervals (2020, 2050, 2080). The models show a profoundly negative influence on indigenous Arabica. [emphasis added -hro]

So the authors have no data, but they have computers to play with. And we should all be duly alarmed by the prospect of possible coffee deprivation several decades down the road. I wonder if it has occurred to the authors that there are agricultural scientists who’ve been very successful at developing all kinds of produce that is resistant to the perils of nature, should any actual data ever materialize which indicates that their greatest fears are likely to be realized!

Amazing. Simply amazing.

Mid-agenda warm period detected in biodiversity hockey stick

Not sure about you, but I always thought of a “pavilion” as being a physical structure. However, as you can see, in United Nations (UN)-speak it obviously means something completely different!

The “Rio Conventions Pavilion” (RCP) was evidently dreamed up to:

raise awareness and disseminate information on best practices and scientific findings on the benefits realized from joint implementation of the three Rio Conventions: the CBD [Convention on Biological Diversity]; the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the UN’s quasi-official rapporteur, has been dutifully reporting on the proceedings of the RPC; the above quote is taken from their introduction to the Summary Report [pdf version available here], dated Sunday, October 21.

Considering the context, one might expect all three “pillars” of this “Pavilion” to be given equal treatment in the proceedings and report thereof. Let’s take a look at the word-counts in the IISD’s Summary Report:

There can be little doubt that, in the grand scheme of things, consideration of CBD unequivocally outweighs that of both the UNFCCC and the UNCCD. I wonder how the experts ooops … sorry, “objective, transparent, inclusive talent” who are busy compiling the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) feel about the conspicuous absence of any mention of the IPCC.

This must be somewhat galling in light of the fact that the IPCC’s younger “sibling”, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the ascendancy of which I wrote about two years ago (here, here and here), was granted no less than nine mentions.

That CO₂ rates only one mention in this Summary Report – and “greenhouse”, two – may prove to be somewhat, well, alarming to the “non-policy prescriptive” IPCC’s stable of “objective, transparent, inclusive talent” … as well as to the “climate hypochondriacs” [h/t Eduardo Zorita] whether they are “Regional” [20 mentions], “Global” [58 mentions] or “Local” [72 mentions]. Incidentally (as noted below), like its progenitor, the IPCC, “global warming” rates a big fat zero mentions.

Just for the fun of it, let’s take a look at the BIG word picture in this Summary Report:

* Includes 4 “bioeconomy”

 

For the graphically-inclined, the above word-counts demonstrate overwhelming evidence of a clearly emerging signal: “Biodiversity”, “Ecosystem” and “Sustainable/Sustainability”. Alas, “Climate Change” and “Science” appear to have been relegated to what might be appropriately dubbed the Mid-Agenda Warm Period, while “Green” and “Model” are very much on the lighter side of pale.

Ladies and gentlemen … drum-roll please … welcome to the Age of The Biodiversity Hockey Stick ;-)

Note that “climate change” and “science” appear to have been relegated to the Mid-Agenda Warm Period, while “global warming” has dropped out of the statistical picture.

 

Survey participation invited: Does fear of CO2 cause extreme voting?

Please note updates below

A few weeks ago, U.K. writer, James Delingpole declared that he would be running as an independent “anti-windfarm” candidate in a forthcoming by-election. He recently summarized his position:

If there were a single plausible argument in favour of wind power, my task would be a much harder one than it is. But there isn’t. The wind industry is so wrong in every way that to be against it ought to be no more contentious than being against paedophilia. Where wind is concerned we need to stop being Nimbys and learn to be Niabys: not in your back yard, not in my back yard, not in anyone’s back yard.

Delingpole is an eminently readable writer whose irreverent tone might not be appreciated by all. While his popular book, Watermelons is sometimes over the top (as are some of his blog posts), I found it to be an enjoyable read. But in the over the top department, Canadian climate modeller, Andrew Weaver beats Delingpole by a country mile.

In 2007, Weaver declared that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Fourth Assessment Report would reveal climate change to be a “barrage of intergalactic ballistic missiles”. Very “conservative” and a perfect illustration of the “evidence-based” science on which his preferred policies, i.e. the urgent need for a war against Carbon Dioxide (CO₂), should be implemented.

Weaver, who has rarely chosen to hide his political activist lights under bushel, has now declared that he will be a Green Party candidate in British Columbia’s spring 2013 provincial election.

Not surprisingly, Weaver failed to correct the reporter at the Victoria Times-Colonist who mistakenly conferred on Weaver and his fellow IPCC authors the “Nobel Peace Prize”. In reality, the actual recipients of this increasingly devalued award in 2007 were Al Gore and the IPCC.

The IPCC is quite amorphous. This “Panel” is supposed to be comprised of the governments, not the scientists and modellers who do the much exalted “work”.

Although, in support of this particular “redifinition”, no doubt Weaver would heartily endorse fellow IPCC-nik Myles Allen’s November 2011 slip of the tongue:

The IPCC or us scientists, so to speak

Weaver has a long history of high-ranking authorship of IPCC reports, including that of Lead Author of the forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). In this latest edition of the “climate bible“, Weaver’s contribution will be to Working Group 1 Chapter 12: Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility.

In light of his declared very green-striped political candidacy one wonders if he will have the decency to declare his obvious bias and conflict of interest and withdraw from participation in AR5 authorship. Any bets?!

For all that the general public have clearly indicated that “climate change” is very, very low on the priority totem pole, activist “scientists” such as Weaver – and more recently “psychologists” such as Stephan Lewandowsky – (not to mention anti-free-speech acolytes and lesser lights whose fear factory is currently in overdrive as a consequence of PBS having had the temerity to interview Anthony Watts) [Edit: completing this thought/sentence] continue to delude themselves that if they could only find the right communication path, the public will fall into line.

It is also worth noting that the MSM have been dutifully churning reports in which “climate change” is declared as the “cause” of the recent spate of “extreme” weather events. What is not mentioned in such reports (nor in the copious profliferation of “scientific” papers over the last twenty years) is that – apart from computer simulations and projections (which can hardly be considered as “evidence” for anything except a reflection of the modellers’ inputs) – there has been no empirical evidence provided which would even begin to suggest that human generated CO₂ is the primary cause, driver – or in CliSci-speak “forcing” – of climate change aka global warming aka the greatest threat to the future of our planet.

I would be extremely surprised if Weaver would ever declare that human generated CO₂ is anything less than the equivalent of a “barrage of intergactic ballistic missiles”. I would be equally surprised if Delingpole would ever declare that CO₂ – whether generated by humans or mother nature – is anything less than crucial for the survival of our planet.

What I’ve always found extremely annoying about election run-up political polls is that if at first they don’t succeed in getting you to declare your preferred candidate, they always insist on following up with well, OK … but if you might lean towards a candidate who would you choose (OWTTE).

If an election slate were to be limited to Delingpole vs Weaver, it’s probably not too much of a stretch to suggest that those who might favour one or the other would consider the opponent as “extreme”. But I wonder if there is a correlation (if not causal relationship) to be found in fear of CO₂ and “extreme” voting.

So, with all of the above in mind, and inspired by Lewandowsky’s (highly unscientific) survey techniques …

I invite you to step outside the earth bound voting booth and imagine a virtual constituency for which an election is pending. Your slate of candidates is limited to James Delingpole and Andrew Weaver. But – unlike any other pre-election poll in which I’ve ever been asked to participate – you may also choose “neither”. Please select the option that most closely resembles your views.

You may only “vote” once and you may only choose one option.

This poll will remain open until September 29**. By all means please don’t take my word for any details about the candidates and (unlike Lewandowsky) please do your own due diligence prior to casting your “ballot”.

** UPDATE 09/22/2012 05:06 PM PDT: Now that I’ve read the PollDaddy fineprint (and since I am using their “Free” account) the above should read “September 29 or 200 responses, whichever occurs first”.

But please vote, and invite your friends (and even some of your favourite enemies) to do likewise. No pressure ;-)

UPDATE: 09/29/2012 12:40 AM PDT OK, so when I looked at the PollDaddy fineprint (please see UPDATE above) I may not have noticed that I even had a “Survey” option. Poll results passed my anticipated auto-closure at 200 responses, which was exceeded earlier yesterday. In order to preserve my integrity (and that of my poll data) I have now closed the poll (sorry to disappoint those who arrived late and would have voted).

Analysis of the poll results is now underway … Details coming soon to a monitor near you.

Climate change gaps in “ambition” … and in credibility

Believe it or not, yet another series of “informal climate talks” under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has just concluded in Bangkok.

According to the September 5 Press Release issued by the “United Nations Climate Change Secretariat”:

Bangkok climate talks make concrete progress on key issues ahead of Doha

(Bangkok, 5 September 2012) – A week of informal climate talks in Bangkok ended today with concrete progress on key issues across all three negotiating groups, setting a firmer base for decisions that will be made at the UN Climate Change Conference this year, in Doha.

“The investment in Bangkok has paid off. Government negotiators have pushed forward key issues further than many had expected and raised the prospects for a next successful step in Doha,” said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“There are still some tough political decisions ahead, but we now have a positive momentum and a greater sense of convergence that will stimulate higher-level political discussions ahead of Doha and set a faster pace of work once this year’s conference begins,” she said.
[...]

Yet, for some strange reason, David Thorpe, News Editor of the U.K. Energy & Environmental Management blog had a somewhat different impression of the outcome of these talks [h/t GWPF via Twitter]:

Bangkok climate talks make little progress

The UN climate talks featuring delegates from 190 nations, that have been ongoing for the last week in Bangkok, Thailand, and which conclude today, have produced few concrete results.

The talks were happening against a backdrop of record Arctic ice melt, recent flooding in the Philippines, Asam and other areas, recent drought in the US, and an ongoing food crisis in the Sahel.

[...]

However, after one week of talks in Thailand, not a single country has made a fresh commitment, and US negotiators stunned delegates by calling for any new treaty to be ‘flexible’ and ‘dynamic’ rather than legally binding, representing a complete U-turn on its previous position.

[...]

At the summit, the UN released a report showing that several rich nations will not even meet their existing pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade, made at Copenhagen in 2009.

These nations include Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea and the US.

The report, from the UN Environment Program, adds that even if all nations do meet their existing pledges, emissions of greenhouse gases will still reach between 50 and 55bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, that is 11bn tonnes, or 20%, more than what is needed to try to keep temperature increases below 2°C.

“It’s still possible to meet a 2°C pathway, if there is sufficient political will,” commented Niklas Hoehne, and author of the report on Tuesday. “We’re not facing a participation gap here – it’s an ambition gap.”

Meanwhile, developed countries want the industrialised developing countries such as India, China and Brazil, to take more responsibility for cutting their emissions.

They say that if this was resolved, it would allow the issues of technology, finance, intellectual property lies and emissions from aviation and shipping, which are stymied, to be set aside while the responsibilities of the emerging economies are increased in the short and long-term and the rich countries take stronger action after 2020.

But this is unlikely to happen without further commitments from developed countries. Depressingly, it seems the stalemate continues.

Perhaps Thorpe got his story from a different Press Release?! But his article gives no indication of his source(s).

But back to the word according to the UNFCCC … It may (or may not) be worth noting that this particular press release is prefaced by the following:

For use of the media only

and that in lieu of the customary “For further information contact …” details, one finds (my bold):

About the UNFCCC

With 195 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by 193 of the UNFCCC Parties. Under the Protocol, 37 States, consisting of highly industrialized countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to a market economy, have legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments. The ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.

See also: <
http://unfccc.int/press/items/2794.php
>
Follow UNFCCC on Twitter: @UN_ClimateTalks
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres on Twitter: @CFigueres
UNFCCC on Facebook: facebook.com/UNclimatechange

Oh, my! Look how au courant with communication technology they’ve become! The only hyperlinked item in the above, btw, goes to another UNFCCC page called “Press News”. There one finds a link to a Final press release (also prefaced by “For use of the media only”). It seems to be all about … finance. Just in case you missed it the first time, this “Final” press release, is actually about the:

Transparent, interactive UNFCCC workshop on long-term climate change finance Bonn, 9-11 July

Governments, private sector and civil society work towards developing common understanding of how to scale up mobilization of long-term climate finance

Some excerpts from this three-day July Bonn meeting press release (my emphasis):

The three-day event, which ended today, was the first of two transparent, interactive UNFCCC workshops on long-term climate change finance this year. They were requested by governments as part of a work programme on long-term climate finance agreed at the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban at the end of 2011 (COP 17/ CMP 7).

“It is clear that we cannot continue to tackle climate change with old solutions, and that no one single source is going to be appropriate or sufficient to mobilize climate finance at a speed and scale that would allow people in developing countries to build their own climate-resilient futures. This event has allowed all stakeholders to think outside the box, to explore options in highly creative ways, and to pave
the way for stronger climate action,” said UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres.
[...]
The event was made accessible to all interested stakeholders with the help of live webcast, social media and an online platform on the UNFCCC website by which stakeholders could send in material and put questions to the two Chairs. More than 1,000 messages, comments and questions relating to the workshop were sent via Twitter using the #LTFchat hashtag or posted on Facebook.

Look at that, folks! This was the first of “two transparent, interactive … workshops”. I wonder when they will hold the second; after all, more than “1,000 messages, comments and questions” is nothing to sneeze at! Btw, I know you will be as disappointed as I was to find that #LTFchat has only four Tweets and that <very deep sigh> “Older Tweet[s] … are unavailable”.

That’s all folks!

A quick scan of their Facebook page does not do much for the credibility of this “More than 1,000 messages …” either. OTOH, if UNFCCC head honcho, Christiana Figueres (whose 667 Tweets are still visible) can be believed, there were far more than “1,000″:

Oh, well … I suppose one must keep in mind that these Press Releases are intended “For use of the media only”. And as we have seen members of the media are not known for conducting due diligence and fact-checking. So I’m sure that such discrepancies – and missing evidence – cannot possibly matter.

Then, again, perhaps one should consider the immortal words of the University of East Anglia’s Prince of Spinners, Neil Wallis – whose June 13, 2012 “witness statement” to the U.K. Leveson Inquiry (launched on the heels of last year’s News of the World phone-hacking scandal which saw Wallis being among those arrested for their involvement) suggests that others should do as he says (but probably not as he does!) In response to the Inquiry’s exploration of:

views on the specific benefits and risks to the public interest arising from relationships between senior politicians, at a national level, and the media. What does the public stand to gain from this relationship? [...]

Wallis had opined (pp. 3 & 4):

It is essential for the public to receive a more rounded impression of those elected in their name, as distinct from the one politicians would want them to accept. This rounded impression is not derived from the PR machines assembled by the Governments and other political parties. The views promulgated by the omnipresent PR machines are highly partial and contrived. In other words, propaganda. It is through the press and media speaking directly to politicians, civil servants and party officials that the true picture is teased out and emerges. [emphasis added -hro]

On the matter of “Role in Holdinq Politicians and the Powerful to Account”, Wallis had further opined (p. 5):

Holding politicians and the powerful to account is the single most important obligation of a free press. The major obstacle to the process of holding to account is that the politicians and the powerful do not want it to happen. The press even against the background of stringent libel and privacy laws has exposed the infidelities of countless corrupt practices of MPs and members of the House of Lords, and public figures. [emphasis added -hro]

In the past month, Wallis has been quite diligently acting as his own … uh …”highly partial and contrived PR machine” via Twitter and offering up a few self-serving whines via the Huffington Post in the U.K.

He’s not very keen on answering questions pertaining to the “true picture” of his involvement in the emergence of the “Poor Phil” propaganda he and his former colleague(s) had dished up for the University of East Anglia:

No answers from Wallis … quelle surprise, eh?

Which output from which “highly partial and contrived PR machine” are we to believe?! The UNFCCC? David Thorpe and Energy & Environmental Management? Figueres’ July account of the (now sadly missing) 1496 Tweets? The jury, of course, is still out on Wallis; however, his own reluctance to be held accountable strongly suggests that his words are to be taken with a very hefty grain of salt.

Ah, well that’s “climate change”, I suppose! So much “ambition” … so many “gaps” … so little credibility … and so many unanswered questions, eh?!

More on BC’s carbon tax “review”

A few days ago, I had commented on a recent CBC news item announcing that the government of British Columbia was embarking on a “review” of BC’s Carbon Tax. The CBC’s record of providing useful links to back up its stories is far from sterling – and at the time of my original post, I was unable to find such a link. However, I am now able to remedy this:

British Columbians now have the opportunity to make written submissions to the Minister of Finance from July 1, 2012 – August 31, 2012.

The Minister of Finance and Deputy Premier is Kevin Falcon. Reader Morley Sutter has made a submission, which he has kindly permitted me to publish here. I have taken the liberty of slightly reformatting for ease of blog-reading.

**************

From: Morley C. Sutter [mailto:xxxxxx]
Sent: July-01-12 7:58 AM
To: ‘kevin.falcon.mla@xxxxx’
Subject: Carbon Tax

Dear Sir:

The Carbon Tax should be scrapped. It ostensibly was introduced based on two premises: the belief that increasing CO₂ in the atmosphere produces dangerous man-made global warming and the belief that we should reduce our dependence on fossil fuels (particularly oil produced by OPEC). The first premise is false; the second has been mitigated by the North American use of frakking to increase the availability of both oil and natural gas. The Carbon Tax is therefore both unnecessary and useless except as a revenue-earner for the Government. It is simply a cost to the populace.

There is little doubt that the average surface air temperature has increased – approximately 0.8 degrees Celsius since 1850 or 0.05 degrees per decade but the cause of this is unknown. CO₂ also has increased over that period so there is a rough correlation between the rise in CO₂ concentrations and temperature.

But correlation between two events never proves that one causes the other. The lack of correlation between two events indicates that they are causally unrelated.

The graph shown below shows the lack of correlation between atmospheric CO₂ and temperature.

Temperature records versus atmospheric CO₂

From the Norwegian blog http://www.climate4you.com

Superimposed plot of five different global monthly temperature estimates shown individually elsewhere. As the base period differs for these estimates, they have all been normalised by comparing to the average of their initial 120 months (10 years) from January 1979 to December 1988. Click here to go to the associated comparison of these five temperature records.

The heavy black line represents the simple running 37 month (c. 3 year) mean of the average of all temperature estimates (before 1979 only the three surface records). The blue graph shows the amount of atmospheric CO₂ (Mauna Loa station, Hawaii, see also above). The heavy blue line represents the simple running 37 month (c. 3 year) mean of the monthly CO₂-values.

The scale for atmospheric CO₂ (right) is adjusted to display the CO₂-graph roughly parallel to the 1975-2000 temperature increase. For the first two decades in the 21st century a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios according to the 2007 IPCC Summary for Policymakers (p.7 and Fig.SPM.5). Last month shown: May 2012. Last diagram update: 29 June 2012.

It is from the Norwegian blog “Climate4you” accessible at the following URL:
http://www.climate4you.com/
.

As you can see, there has been no significant warming since the year 2000. How can CO₂ be the driver of temperature when the CO₂ concentration rises without an accompanying temperature rise?

Yours truly,

Morley C. Sutter, MD, PhD.

**************

A related footnote … in a subsequent story, apart from dutifully quoting a spokesman for the Suzuki Foundation (who, of course, contends that this tax is the greatest thing since sliced bread), the CBC chose to “balance” this view with that of Mark Jaccard:

a professor of environmental economics at Simon Fraser University, [who] believes it will take 20 years before the province can speculate on the success or failure of the tax.

“It would be shocking if a carbon tax had made a difference in a couple of years and it hasn’t,” he said.

It could be that Jaccard was attempting to atone for his silly antics earlier this year – not to mention his (previously) undisclosed conflict of interest, as noted by Donna Laframboise.

Hmmm … I wonder if Jaccard and his co-author Nic Rivers would care to debate the “findings” of Stewart Elgie’s latest fiefdom, regarding BC’s Carbon Tax. As I had noted, the Globe and Mail had dutifully reported (inter alia):

But in its report on the levy, Sustainable Prosperity says it has led to substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are linked to climate change, but has had no negative impact on economic growth, as some critics feared.

Rivers, a co-author of Jaccard’s 2007 book – and then one of Jaccard’s grad students – provided “comment and review” on Elgie’s “report”, and is now evidently at the University of Ottawa and is also a member of Elgie’s “Research Network Committee” where he serves as “Co-Chair, Low Carbon Economy”.

Or perhaps Jaccard is merely a little behind on the apparent shifting of the sands of the environmental-activist paradigm from amorphous “climate change” – on the heels of Rio+20 at which it was barely mentioned – to the more conveniently encompassing (but equally ill-defined) “sustainable development”?!

Rio – the final score: climate change 22, sustainable 400

Well, it’s all over but the shouting, and I’m sure we’ll hear lots of it in the months ahead! I don’t know how many of the “High Level” participants actually read and comprehended this 283 paragraph “outcome document“. It will certainly take a few days for me to translate from Bureaucratese into comprehensible English.

But in the meantime …

There are a few paragraphs that set my alarm bells ringing. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has been a manufacturer and promulgator of scary stories since 1972. It has the highest flying carbon footprint of any UN agency. And of course it is the parent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Gaia knows how many acronymic offspring. Yet on p. 17, we find (emphases mine -hro):

87. We reaffirm the need to strengthen international environmental governance within the context of the institutional framework for sustainable development, in order to promote a balanced integration of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development as well as coordination within the United Nations system.

88. We are committed to strengthening the role of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment. We reaffirm resolution 2997 (XXVII) of 15 December 1972 which established UNEP and other relevant resolutions that reinforce its mandate, as well as the 1997 Nairobi Declaration on the Role and Mandate of UNEP and the 2000 Malmö Ministerial Declaration. In this regard, we invite the General Assembly, at its sixty-seventh session, to adopt a resolution strengthening and upgrading UNEP in the following manner:

[...]

(c) Enhance the voice of UNEP and its ability to fulfil its coordination mandate within the United Nations system by strengthening UNEP engagement in key United Nations coordination bodies and empowering UNEP to lead efforts to formulate United Nations system-wide strategies on the environment;

(d) Promote a strong science-policy interface, building on existing international instruments, assessments, panels and information networks, including the Global Environment Outlook, as one of the processes aimed at bringing together information and assessment to support informed decision-making

And here are some word-counts to ponder.

sustainable/sustainability 400
environment 123
women 58
framework 48
finance/financial 39
poverty 65
inclusion/inclusive 35
stakeholders 28
biodiversity 27
gender 26
climate change 22
green economy 23
equity/equitable 23

equality 20
civil society 13
governance 13
Agenda 21 12
children 10
adaptation 4
carbon 3*
greenhouse gases 3
mitigation 2
global warming 1
footprint 0
IPCC 0
IPBES 0

*two of which were contained in “hydrofluorocarbons”

Well, that’s a quick ‘n dirty analysis. But it does give some indication as to what they’ve decided the “priorities” will be – and where the power will lie. At least until the next meeting of some High Level Committee or Panel somewhere on the planet! In the meantime the emphasis seems to be on “voluntary commitments” towards the Future [they haven't quite been able to convince us] We Want.

Big Green are less than thrilled with this outcome document. Sooooo – perhaps the future won’t be quite as bad as we thought. Well, at least until the UNEP acquires its “enhanced voice”, and we find out who all these “stakeholders” might really be.

UPDATE: See also Peter Foster’s assessment in the Financial Post, in which he concludes:

The Rio future we avoided

There remain calls to tie down a set of Sustainable Development Goals, which should be good for another hundred reports and a dozen conferences. An Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is also on the drawing board. This will reportedly do for biodiversity what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) did for climate science: pervert it for political ends.

The Rio+20 text was originally sold as promoting “The Future We Want.” However, the “We” in question was always a self-selected group of UN bureaucrats, alarmist NGOs, corporate rent-seekers and main chancers whose interests were sharply at odds with those of ordinary people. Rio+20’s failure should be celebrated as The Future We Avoided.

New breed of action heroes, new buzzword: Sustainia

In my last post, I had written:

I definitely agree that we need to brace ourselves for another line of attack from the “sustainability playbook”. There are already a number of indications that the jargon is shifting (being reframed for the umpteenth time?!)

Well, it’s happening faster than I thought … And Pachauri is helping to lead the charge of this new, improved blight brigade. Hot off the UN PR machine:

Schwarzenegger: Time for a New Breed of Action Heroes

(Geneva, 7 March 2012) – The former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announces today that he will serve as Honorary Chair for the Sustainia Award alongside EU Commissioner Connie Hedeggard, IPPC Chairman Dr. Rajenda K. Pachauri and former Prime Minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland. The Award is part of a new initiative to develop the world’s first realistic model of a sustainable world in 2020 – and identify the companies and persons who can make it real.

As long as we can’t see or feel what a sustainable society is, we will never succeed in convincing decision makers to make the changes necessary. The sustainable private and public solutions must be recognized and scaled up – and we need a tangible idea of how it will improve quality of life for people and communities around the world.

This is the rationale behind a new, ambitious award and collaboration – “Sustainia” – launched today in Geneva, Switzerland. The initiative is led by former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is joined by three of the world’s most prominent sustainability leaders:

o European Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard

o Chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri

o Former Prime Minister of Norway and Former Director General of WHO, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who founded the global sustainability agenda 20 years ago at the first Rio conference in 1992 on sustainable development

[...]

Sigh.

UPDATE: When I first saw this new line of attack, Sustainia, all I could think of of was ….

Oh, Sustainia!