Campaigns: December 2009 Archives

Left behind in Copenhagen.

on December 20, 2009 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Late on Friday I read a document linked to from Twitter, supposedly the near-final agreement at Copenhagen. It had flaws, but many of the key demands were still there, and was certainly better than the expectations at the time.

By Saturday morning it was clear that the good bits had been excised. What was left was a sham and a carveup, not a credible deal worth a signature. The expectations had been right after all.

It's not hard to see why. Almost two hundred governments met in Denmark, but not one was led by a Green*. Most thought they were in the negotiations throughout, but almost all were excluded at the end. The final document was instead delivered by a small cabal - the US, China, India, Brazil & South Africa - with the poorest states cut out, the island states cut out, and Europe itself entirely excluded.

This betrayal was therefore delivered by the most left-wing American president since FDR, a notionally communist regime (although more accurately an authoritarian capitalist one), the more left of the main Indian political blocs, the most left-wing Brazilian government in modern times, and a South African president promoted by the South African Communist Party over his predecessor.

Gordon Brown wasn't in that room, but no-one could imagine he'd have improved it. After all, he's part of that same market-obsessed post-left soggy consensus, and his Panglossian review claimed that:

"This is the first step we are taking towards a green and low-carbon future for the world, steps we are taking together."

Clearly none of the various forms of vague leftism on offer are going to save us. Last week they stood together as they abandoned the environment, they abandoned the planet's future, and they abandoned social justice too. They are not part of any progressive consensus worth supporting: they are just another of the obstacles to progress.

Incidentally, if you want to know what Obama's priority really was during Copenhagen, his Twitter account gives a hint. From the start of the summit to Saturday lunchtime, his staff (one presumes) posted twenty-five comments. Just two were about Copenhagen, and thirteen, a narrow majority, were about healthcare reform. An important issue, sure, but should selling out the public option really come ahead of saving the world?

Update: I just spotted this on Jon Snow's blog, predating the failure of the talks.

"Not one of these world leaders is an elected Green. These are all mainstreamers - Communists, Social democrats, Islamic Revolutionaries, Christian Democrats and the rest, conventional mainstream politicians with no environmental power base.

"And the issue that has brought them together, once the preserve of open toed sandal wearing green protesters and green politicians, is climate change. They have taken a collective decision for mankind to attempt to preserve the ecology of the planet we all live on."

Or so it would have been, if they hadn't taken a collective decision to shaft us.

* Pop quiz: which country was the world's first to have a Green Prime Minister?

The Three Degrees.

James

on December 17, 2009 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

The head of the IPCC says Copenhagen should consider a maximum temperature increase by 2050 of 1.5°C.

"Some parts of the world", he said, even at this level, "will suffer great hardship and lose their ability to lead a decent and stable form of existence. If we are going to be concerned about these communities, then maybe 1.5°C is what we should be targeting."

He then went on to say:

"But if we can find means by which those communities can be helped to withstand the impact of climate change with substantial flow of finances, then maybe one can go to 2°C."

How can this be acceptable in any way? Carbon offsetting has always been a joke, but allowing rich countries to pollute more just provided as they pay for flood defences in the developing world is an extremely sick joke indeed. The hardship he talks about is flooding, starvation, desertification, plus the rest of the four horsemen.

The rich countries should be ashamed of themselves if they make an offer of this sort. If they do, I hope Africa and the island states would have the courage not to have their future (and ours) bought off.

The objective of Copenhagen should be to agree a fair way to reduce emissions, not to compensate some for a failure by the rest to do so.

By the end of 2008 we'd increased the planet's temperature by 0.7°C. If the world stopped polluting tomorrow, the emissions already out there would take us to 1.4°C, so 1.5°C would clearly be extremely ambitious.

But even 2°C isn't on the rich countries' agenda. Their offers so far would give us an estimated 3°C rise by 2100, leaving one in ten of the world's population flooded out or facing starvation, and a staggering 50% of all the world's species under threat.

How anyone in politics can see this scenario as a price worth paying for airport expansion and road-building I simply do not know. How can anyone with a conscience in politics put this second, fourth, tenth or nowhere at all in their list of priorities?

Scottish politics hardly sets a good example. Our Ministers have come back from a week of telling anyone who'd listen (mostly the oil industry and other Scots, I hear) that they've got a tough emissions target.

With Parliament now closed until next year, the rumours continue to say that the SNP are getting ready for the next item of business: slipping out a massive expansion of the motorway network during recess. It ought to be a crime.

Who's local?

James

on December 15, 2009 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The North East's paper of record is undoubtedly the Press and Journal. It sells more copies in Scotland than the Mirror, the Times and the Telegraph put together. They have run pretty balanced coverage of the Trump development of recent times, but this weekend they decided to take sides. The sides available are as follows:

Left, Molly Forbes, 85, local resident, who doesn't want to get evicted from her home. Right, Donald Trump, 63, alleged billionaire from New York, who wants to evict her.

74% of Scots oppose these evictions, and just 13% support them. Yet the P&J has decided now to give only Mr Trump's side of the story. He's more local than some of the campaigners, such as those who are from Aberdeenshire but live in Glasgow. Even the P&J might have to concede Trump's not quite as local than Molly, though. Welcome, again, to Royston Vasey.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the P&J's excellent team of journalists have had this forced upon them from elsewhere: their instincts will hardly be to side with the remote and powerful against the local and vulnerable.

The paper hasn't yet printed any letters in response, although one would imagine they've been sent in, but it has for now allowed comments on those articles. One notable contribution turns the editorial around as follows (as noted above, I do disagree about the paper's prior record on this story):

"DONALD Trump's plans to build his golf course, hotel and housing complex at Menie Links, near Aberdeen, have been created and manipulated at every turn by the vociferous and very active Trump International Golf Links group. It has operated under a cloak of pseudo-concern for the area and cultivated the impression that it is concerned with the welfare and jobs of ordinary people and a sustainable future for Aberdeenshire. Now we know differently.

The group is orchestrated and financed by people whose home and work is largely well away from the north-east of Scotland. Its co-ordinator, though quoting his Scottish roots at every turn, now chooses to live in America, while its legal advisers, website designers and several leading executives also hail from far away. It relies on cash injections from its patron, a well-known and often-named millionaire financier, and vocal and thoroughly biased support from its poodles in the local "news" media.

It now becomes crystal clear why TIGL was so coy about its real plans, and its credibility is comprehensively blown apart. It is only right that those whose quality of life will be directly affected by Donald Trump's plans should have their say on the development, however, constant opposition and innuendo has been orchestrated against them by TIGL, who have little interest in the area other than making money out of it. Indeed, there is more than a hint of suspicion that many of its executives are those who will attach themselves to any money-making cause, regardless of its location and regardless of the wishes of the people it seeks to deprive of their homes. This newspaper has forthrightly failed to give a balanced voice to all those who have wished to become involved in genuine debate about Donald Trump's plans. That courtesy was extended to TIGL in the belief that it was bona fide group of businessmen seeking to benefit Aberdeenshire. Today, it has been found out."

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