U.S. reverses stance in Bali

[Gman3ID]

I guess we finally are all in agreement now. So whether or not you believe in climate change, And we slowly receed our dependence on foreign oil, what will be the consequences for oil exporting countries?

If the largest consumers of oil around the world generally agree to get off the stuff, which has already begun in a number of countries, Will S.A. crumble in a matter of time?, not that I would shed a tear, But how volatile would the middle east become with it's main export being marganalized?



BALI, Indonesia (CNN) -- The United States made a dramatic reversal Saturday, first rejecting and then accepting a compromise to set the stage for intense negotiations in the next two years aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.
http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/12/15/bali.agreement/art.balikids.jpg Protesters gather outside the conference center in Bali as delegates discuss climate change.

The U.N. climate change conference in Bali was filled with emotion and cliff-hanging anticipation on Saturday, an extra day added because of a failure to reach agreement during the scheduled sessions.
The final result was a global warming pact that provides for negotiating rounds to conclude in 2009.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the pact "a good beginning." "This is just a beginning and not an ending," Ban said. "We'll have to engage in many complex, difficult and long negotiations."

The head of the U.S. delegation -- Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky -- was booed Saturday afternoon when she announced that the United States was rejecting the plan as then written because they were "not prepared to accept this formulation." She said developing countries needed to carry more of the responsibility.
While rhetoric at such conferences is often just words, a short speech by a delegate from the small developing country of Papua New Guinea appeared to carry weight with the Americans. The delegate challenged the United States to "either lead, follow or get out of the way."
Just five minutes later, when it appeared the conference was on the brink of collapse, Dobriansky took to the floor again to announce the United States was willing to accept the arrangement. Applause erupted in the hall and a relative level of success for the conference appeared certain.

Saturday's session, a roller coaster ride for delegates and the media, began with optimism after the European Union and the United States reached agreement on a compromise for their differences on a global warming pact.

The U.N. climate change conference had been scheduled to end Friday. But the delegates returned to the negotiating table early Saturday after talks went well into the night before. The new pact is meant as a roadmap for future climate talks, which will culminate in Copenhagen in 2009.
Humberto Rosa, a Portuguese environmental official, said the two sides had come to an agreement over wording about future emissions cuts that would not include specific guidelines. The United States objected to the specific guidelines, saying including them was moving the process too quickly and would preempt any future negotiations.
The EU wanted an agreement to require developed countries to cut their emissions by 25 to 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2020. The United States opposes those targets, along with Japan and Canada.
The latest draft of the agreement removes the specific figures and instead, in a footnote, references the scientific study that supports them.
While the EU and the United States appeared to have ended their impasse, India had objections to other parts of the agreement, notably the contributions developed nations would make to help developing nations clean up their emissions problems. Talks were expected to continue for several more hours.
Environmental groups said the new pact makes the agreement less forceful than it might have been, but agreed that it is probably the best that could be had given the staunch objections of the Bush administration.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who attended the conference earlier this week but left for a visit to East Timor, announced Saturday that he was unexpectedly returning to Bali to help shepherd the talks as they apparently neared a conclusion.
At one dramatic point Saturday, Ban took the podium to say urge compromise before adjournment.
"Frankly, I'm disappointed at the level of progress," he said.
Without specifics, however, some believed the final agreement would amount to failure.
"Let me underline once again that the Bali road map must have a clear destination," said Stavros Dimas, the EU environment commissioner.
But Rajendra Pachauri, who heads the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said such a stance would ignore the other progress being made at the conference. He said simply having a strong statement paving the way for future action would suffice.
"I wouldn't term that a failure at all," Pachauri said. "I think what would be a failure is not to provide a strong road map by which the world can move on, and I think that road map has to be specified with or without numbers. If we can come up with numbers, that's certainly substantial progress, and I hope that happens."

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change passed the Kyoto Protocol 10 years ago, with the goal of limiting greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
While 175 parties -- including the European Union -- ratified it, the United States has not.
CNN's Dan Rivers contributed to this report.

[shocker1]

Global Carbon Tax Urged at UN Climate Conference
BALI, Indonesia – A global tax on carbon dioxide emissions was urged to help save the Earth from catastrophic man-made global warming at the United Nations climate conference. A panel of UN participants on Thursday urged the adoption of a tax that would represent “a global burden sharing system, fair, with solidarity, and legally binding to all nations.”
“Finally someone will pay for these [climate related] costs,” Othmar Schwank, a global tax advocate, told Inhofe EPW Press Blog following the panel discussion titled “A Global CO2 Tax.” Schwank is a consultant with the Switzerland based Mauch Consulting firm
Schwank said at least “$10-$40 billion dollars per year” could be generated by the tax, and wealthy nations like the U.S. would bear the biggest burden based on the “polluters pay principle.”
The U.S. and other wealthy nations need to “contribute significantly more to this global fund,” Schwank explained. He also added, “It is very essential to tax coal.”
The UN was presented with a new report from the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment titled “Global Solidarity in Financing Adaptation.” The report stated there was an “urgent need” for a global tax in order for “damages [from climate change] to be kept from growing to truly catastrophic levels, especially in vulnerable countries of the developing world.”
The tens of billions of dollars per year generated by a global tax would “flow into a global Multilateral Adaptation Fund” to help nations cope with global warming, according to the report.
Schwank said a global carbon dioxide tax is an idea long overdue that is urgently needed to establish “a funding scheme which generates the resources required to address the dimension of challenge with regard to climate change costs.”
'Diminish future prosperity'

However, ideas like a global tax and the overall UN climate agenda met strong opposition Thursday from a team of over 100 prominent international scientists who warned the UN that attempting to control the Earth's climate was "ultimately futile."

The scientists wrote, “The IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions." The scientists, many of whom are current or former members of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), sent the December 13 letter to the UN Secretary-General. (See: Over 100 Prominent Scientists Warn UN Against 'Futile' Climate Control Efforts – LINK (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=d4b5fd23-802a-23ad-4565-3dce4095c360))

‘Redistribution of wealth’
The environmental group Friends of the Earth, in attendance in Bali, also advocated the transfer of money from rich to poor nations on Wednesday.
“A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources,” said Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth. (LINK (http://www.climatenetwork.org/bali-blog/ngo-bustle-in-bali))
Calls for global regulations and taxes are not new at the UN. Former Vice President Al Gore, who arrived Thursday at the Bali conference, reiterated this week his call to place a price on carbon dioxide emissions. (LINK (http://uk.*******.com/article/oilRpt/idUKL1066862520071210))
In 2000, then French President Jacques Chirac said the UN’s Kyoto Protocol represented "the first component of an authentic global governance." Former EU Environment Minister Margot Wallstrom said, "Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide." Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper once dismissed Kyoto as a “socialist scheme.” (LINK (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/01/30/harper-kyoto.html))

'A bureaucrat's dream'

MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen warned about these types of carbon regulations earlier this year. "Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control life," Lindzen said in March 2007. (LINK (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=b4f81115-802a-23ad-4e54-f0137d7a406f&Issue_id=))

In addition, many critics have often charged that proposed tax and regulatory “solutions” were more important to the promoters of man-made climate fears than the accuracy of their science.

Former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth reportedly said in 1990, "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing — in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=d5c3c93f-802a-23ad-4f29-fe59494b48a6&Issue_id=

[Buckeye67]

And here is why Walter E Williams calls many in the environmentalist movement "watermelons" (because they're green on the outside and red on the inside):


The environmental group Friends of the Earth, in attendance in Bali, also advocated the transfer of money from rich to poor nations on Wednesday.

“A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources,” said Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth. (LINK)

No thanks.

[Gman3ID]

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=d5c3c93f-802a-23ad-4f29-fe59494b48a6&Issue_id=


I suppose no progress would ever be made without govt's profiting from the solution. I also forsee the funds also being allocated to R + D for future "green technologies", Agree.

[I can't think of a name]

It is a shame, I have no problem with a clean environment and smart energy policy but it is hard to support it when most environmentalism is thinly veiled Marxism. Global Warming is a bunch of crap too.

[DaGreatRV]

I think you're reading to to much into it.
The point is that the rich countries share the technology that they developed for clean power, recycling, etc.

Technology = wealth

[Gman3ID]

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=d5c3c93f-802a-23ad-4f29-fe59494b48a6&Issue_id=



I guess we finally are all in agreement now. So whether or not you believe in climate change, And we slowly receed our dependence on foreign oil, what will be the consequences for oil exporting countries?

If the largest consumers of oil around the world generally agree to get off the stuff, which has already begun in a number of countries, Will S.A. crumble in a matter of time?, not that I would shed a tear, But how volatile would the middle east become with it's main export being marganalized?

[DaGreatRV]

I guess we finally are all in agreement now. So whether or not you believe in climate change, And we slowly receed our dependence on foreign oil, what will be the consequences for oil exporting countries?

If the largest consumers of oil around the world generally agree to get off the stuff, which has already begun in a number of countries, Will S.A. crumble in a matter of time?, not that I would shed a tear, But how volatile would the middle east become with it's main export being marganalized?


They do have one natural recource they could harness, invest in(with this high oil price there is enough money) and export in one way or the other.

Hint: It's big, bright and the world literally revolves around it.

[NuckmasterJ]

They do have one natural recource they could harness, invest in(with this high oil price there is enough money) and export in one way or the other.

Hint: It's big, bright and the world literally revolves around it.

We petty surfs would have to foot a massive bill to keep any solar collection system in working order. We wouldn't be able to afford our 60" LCD T.V.'s and Xbox360's. Good luck passing that off.

A global carbon tax is utter rubbish as China and India will plead third world when they are massive contributers.

Bah this is all utter rubish. No planet altering change in emissions or energy production/use will happen as long as opec has trillions of dollars and sway with every big buisness the world over. If they don't want something to happen, it wont happen.

Move along hippys, nothing to see here.

[Andrew Chalmers]

Global Warming is a bunch of crap too.

It would be one thing to say that you didn't believe humans contributed significantly to global warming - but to say global warming is a bunch of crap??? I'm guessing all the weather measurements are just falsified for a political agenda?

[Mu-Meson]

But offsetting the estimated 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide the 15,000 politicians, lobbyists, journalists, actors and other assorted Gore groupies from 190 nations and their private jets and SUV's will unleash on the resort island wouldn't be the only trouble in paradise.
In reality, planting 79 million CO2 hungry trees across Indonesia (which has been gutting its forests at a rate faster than any other country) while providing 200 mountain bikes and recycled paper to attendees are mere symbolic gestures which hardly mitigate all those carbon footprints in the Bali sand.
---------------------
Arriving on the resort Island of Bali last Monday, Australian delegates pledged their country's immediate action on Kyoto. And for their sins, they received a standing ovation. But green hopes faded quickly as the clock ticked. A great divide still existed between the developed nations of the Northern Hemisphere and those developing in the South. And, while not quite Union versus Confederate in contrast, their differences emerged equally insurmountable.
The north stood essentially unified in pressuring both China and India to jump aboard the mandatory cap wagon. After all, nearly 70% of China's electricity originates from coal-fired power plants, of which they are now building as many as 2 weekly. Add India's growing demands and any plan for greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction without the involvement of both would be doomed to failure before it ever began.
------------------
As it happens, last week also saw astronomer and Sun expert Dr David Whitehousefurther (http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3223603.ece) the case for Solar forcing's majority influence. Whitehouse reported that it's been months since any sunspots have been observed:
"After a period of exceptionally high activity in the 20th century, our Sun has suddenly gone exceptionally quiet."
The significance of which might become quite evident quite quickly. You see, whenever presented with the obvious (and logical) correlations between solar activity and Terran climate in the past, Solar Deniers claimed that continued elevations in global temperatures after 1998 somehow disproved any direct connection. While insignificant in long-term analysis, Whitehouse nonetheless attributed this to the rapid increase between 1978 and 1998, after which average temps have held their high, but steady, level:
"Almost everyone agrees that throughout most of the last century the solar influence was significant. Studies show that by the end of the 20th century the Sun's activity may have been at its highest for more than 8,000 years."

He suggests we're actually in a period of solar activity low enough to not only counteract any GHG increases, but, as proposed by Russian Academy of Sciences members, actually cause temperatures to drop 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2020. Whitehouse dubs this new Solar season, which may even usher in another Little Ice Age, the Modern Solar Minimum. The good doctor also lists it with previously correlative periods the greenies completely ignore:
Modern Solar Minimum
(2000-?)
Modern Climate Optimum
(1890-2000) - the world is getting warmer. Concentrations of greenhouse gas increase. Solar activity increases.
Dalton Solar Minimum
(1790-1820) - global temperatures are lower than average.
Maunder Solar Minimum
(1645-1715) - coincident with the 'Little Ice Age'.
Spörer Solar Minimum
(1420-1530) - discovered by the analysis of radioactive carbon in tree rings that correlate with solar activity - colder weather. Greenland settlements abandoned.
Wolf Solar Minimum
(1280-1340) - climate deterioration begins. Life gets harder in Greenland.
Medieval Solar Maximum
(1075-1240) - coincides with Medieval Warm Period. Vikings from Norway and Iceland found settlements in Greenland and North America.
Oort Solar Minimum
(1010-1050) - temperature on Earth is colder than average. If current trends continue, 2007 will be the coolest year this century, perhaps the coolest since 1995.

Of course, should temperatures continue to drop off precipitously while CO2 levels continue to rise, those intent on wielding both political and economic power through junk-science know they will have missed their opportunity to do so.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/12/how_green_was_my_bali.html


And to cap it off, a little Steyn:


Lest you think the above are "extremists," consider how deeply invested the "mainstream" is in a total fiction. At the recent climate jamboree in Bali, the Rev. Al Gore told the assembled faithful: "My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here." Really? The American Thinker's Web site ran the numbers. In the seven years between the signing of Kyoto in 1997 and 2004, here's what happened:
•Emissions worldwide increased 18.0 percent;
•Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1 percent;
•Emissions from nonsigners increased 10.0 percent; and
•Emissions from the United States increased 6.6 percent.

[shocker1]

I suppose no progress would ever be made without govt's profiting from the solution. I also forsee the funds also being allocated to R + D for future "green technologies", Agree.


I guess we finally are all in agreement now. So whether or not you believe in climate change, And we slowly receed our dependence on foreign oil, what will be the consequences for oil exporting countries?

If the largest consumers of oil around the world generally agree to get off the stuff, which has already begun in a number of countries, Will S.A. crumble in a matter of time?, not that I would shed a tear, But how volatile would the middle east become with it's main export being marganalized?

That stuff is the engine of life in the grand civilization we have. I have plenty of first hand knowledge of what we have and are doing to get off that stuff. We have everything we need to do so. In knowing that why do we need to be taxed like sheep sucking at the tit of some international agency, handing out carbon credits you can buy? Let the market drive innovation, if carbon is taxed it will hit me hard and billions of others as well. Just so we can say we are doing something. At this rate a greenhouse tax will be placed on medicines such as gasx and foods like spicy burritos. Methane is a monster compared to carbon in it's effects. One cow at a time. Is beef taxation next? What about Coca Cola? What about production of NiCd batteries, sealed gel batteries, platinum, palladium, aluminum, lead, copper, boron ect......? How much carbon do those new technologies produce themselves?



This has nothing to do with environment and everything to do with World Control, government, taxation, mineral rights ect...

As far as the middle east. If nobody is buying oil then maybe they will change the manner in which they deal with each other.

[Rictor]

As far as I can understand, the United States agreed to conduct preparations for a series of meeting which may, if the stars align correctly, eventually produce a compromise treaty that won't come into force for another four years.

Well bust out the party hats, this is great news!

[Calanen]

The press here is saying that Australia helped strongarm the US into compromise. Who knows if that is true or not, but we do have a fair bit of sway with the Eagle. I'm surprised that we are cashing in our goodwill chips with this stuff however, as to my mind, it's small beer.

[2Sheds_Jackson]

Lest you think the above are "extremists," consider how deeply invested the "mainstream" is in a total fiction. At the recent climate jamboree in Bali, the Rev. Al Gore told the assembled faithful: "My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here." Really? The American Thinker's Web site ran the numbers. In the seven years between the signing of Kyoto in 1997 and 2004, here's what happened:
•Emissions worldwide increased 18.0 percent;
•Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1 percent;
•Emissions from nonsigners increased 10.0 percent; and
•Emissions from the United States increased 6.6 percent.



Bah you beat me to it. This is all about the money on the front end - and no results on the back end. And of course the asshole who's stupid enough to throw up a red flag to point that out, gets shouted down by those with their hands out. Disgusting.