New Economic aid promises from rich nations to cover their CO2 pollution debt to the world and to be used to help poor countries slow global warming, and adapt and mitigate it’s effects, are nowhere near reaching the $30 billion goal agreed in Copenhagen last December.
The governments of the developed world obfuscate the issue by using old funding, and repurposing it. And thus addressing it as new aid based on the Copenhagen pledges, they claim to have met their commitments.
Have they? Far from it….
Officially, the Copenhagen Accord stemming promises, total almost $29 Billion, as based on EP calculations. And apparently meeting the litmus pledge test rule, of “new and additional” funds “approaching $30 billion” for 2010-12 made at the U.N. summit in Copenhagen in December 2009 if the economic Aid Ministers are to be believed…
And after the meltdown, beliefs are in short supply: Money talks – bullshit walks…
And this is a serious case of bull….
Maybe because of the serious austerity policies to combat government debt problems in the developed world…
And maybe the re-labeling of past economic development and even food and medicine aid promises from North to South…
And maybe that Old promises dusted off and varnished and re-labeled now as climate aid…
And maybe the real strategy here is to undermine the inevitable movement to address Climate Change.
Maybe the plan all along was to stop the movement towards climate controls through global treaties that make CO2 emission reductions mandatory…
And if that is the plan -it’s succeeding.
As all this will surely undermine any real funding that is vital in unlocking the stalemate of global binding Climate talks for a treaty.
In the Mexico talks coming up year’s end, a new U.N. climate deal will surely fail. That much is certain.
Will fail because these actions of the industrialized world show a level of dishonesty unmatched in recent history, and are further showing that the developed world is not serious about taking a leadership role in assuming it’s responsibilities and acting on Climate Change.
In a Communique from the front lines of scientific research on these political and economic matters, there is none better than the advisor to Environmental Parliament Dr Joachim Scellnhubber, and he had this to say:
”I’m afraid the pledges of Copenhagen will not be realized”, is what Hans Joachim Schellnhuber said, as director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research on the issue of Aid funding for Climate Change.
He said that Germany, the biggest and strongest European Union economy, was unlikely to fulfill its promises even though it had fewer economic problems than most EU nations, struggling to plug huge budget deficits.
Climate aid is widely seen as a key to build trust between rich and poor in the run-up to the 2010 U.N. meeting of environment ministers, in Cancun,Mexico, from November 29-December 10.
The cash was meant as a “fast start” for action to slow floods, droughts, heat waves and rising seas. Donors say projects are starting, from Nepal to Mali but the supposed recipients claim otherwise.
Many poor nations say “new and additional” means cash above an unmet 1970 U.N. target for rich nations to give 0.7 percent of their gross national product in aid — OECD figures show that aid totaled $120 billion, or 0.31 percent of developed countries’ combined GNP, in 2009.
Developed nations have varying definitions of what counts.
THE PROJECT OF RENAMING AID IS ORGANIZED TRANS NATIONALLY – WITH BAFFLING COMPLEXITY TO HIDE THE NAKED ELEPHANTINE PROMISES
“It’s hard to know what’s really new and additional,” said Clifford Polycarp of the Washington-based World Resources Institute, which tracks pledges by all nations. Some funds were “restated or renamed commitments already made.”
Japan’s pledge of fast start funds is by far the highest — $15 billion — but much of the money stems from a “Cool Earth Partnership” agreed several years ago to run from 2008-12.
Among other big pledges, the EU plans $9.6 billion for 2010-12 and U.S. President Barack Obama plans $3.2 billion for 2010-11. But some money was committed before Copenhagen to climate funds, for instance managed by the World Bank.
Gordon Shepherd, leader of the climate initiative at the WWF International environmental group said it was vital that governments outlined strings attached and what they meant by “new and additional funding because as it stands now is designed to be horribly confusing and obfuscating reality.”
Rudy Wallace Chief Coordinator of the Environmental Parliament had said: ”Without truth and shouldering our own responsibilities first, we can’t get into honest transparent negotiations that will produce the desired global Climate Change Treaties, we need, to survive as a species”
WHEN IN DOUBT – BUILD A NEW WEBSITE – IT OBFUSCATES REAL ACTION
Switzerland, Mexico and the Netherlands are among countries that favour setting up a voluntary website to track promises. The portal may be unveiled at an informal meeting of about 30 environment ministers in Geneva next month and certainly before the Mexico talks.
The Environmental Parliament Science Media group say that any new Funds applied now, would help greatly in building trust after the Copenhagen Accord fell short of a new treaty. It set a non-binding goal of limiting a rise in world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times.
According to the Copenhagen Accord, aid is meant to surge to $100 billion a year from 2020 to help the poor curb dependence on fossil fuels and help adapt, for instance by improving defenses against floods like those devastating Pakistan.
Alden Meyer, of the Washington-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said progress in raising $30 billion and confidence that the $100 billion “is more than vapid rhetoric is essential to the prospects of anything getting done in Cancun.”
CAN WE PRODUCE A GLOBAL BINDING TREATY ?
The Cancun talks are unlikely to agree and create a new U.N. treaty for climate change.
The evidence is overwhelming that the world is being overcooked.
Societies and whole nations are shot to pieces and it is essentially because much less than a third of the world’s human population – the global North – are developed, wealthy, and consuming much more than the natural world can supply sustainably.
And at the same time we are polluting the planet faster than the natural world can deal with. We are creating a huge Ecosystem imbalance and a debt of CO2. All though the science is crystal clear, the leaders are hazy about it. Unconvinced and uncommitted are uncomfortable to act. Much less to pay up for their CO2 debt and illogical consumption.
These good folks – ostensibly ruling the world while encouraging the consumption and pollution at will – aren’t willing to pay the bill for their consumption. SImple as that. Contending apparently that the atmosphere is an open sewer, that we should dumb all that we wish into, without any costs, not fearing overflowing, blowback or any unintended consequences to us and others. Their love of the Economy is such that it drowns all reasonable voices of science.
The other half of the problem and representing human populations much more numerous at that – the global South - is being trapped in the different problem of growing numbers. Yet this is a slower-burning fuse and would seem to be more open to relatively straight forward solutions.
For reality’s sake, let’s focus on the over-consumption issue first.
There are those who argue that all that is required is to move technology up a few notches and we can have all the conveniences provided by our present economic system whilst living much more lightly in environmental terms. There little evidence to support this possibility and further, any such ‘mega-transformation’ will take many decades even if it isn’t just a pipe-dream and, unfortunately, we’re running out of time. We’ve already pumped enough CO2 into the atmosphere to take us to somewhere we don’t want to be.
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES AND SCHADENFREUDE
So the main thing to focus on, is scaling our economieS on a massiveLY SUSTAINABLE PATH of a scale that is generally only experienced in wartime. We have engaged in global scale Geoengineering of the most horrible variety for one hundred and fifty years and presently with renewed vigour. And the result is that the victims are already floating downstream.
Pakistan for example and it’s biblical floods, show us what is currently being taken beyond anyone’s control, and the whole nation will only be saved from ‘economic drowning’ with outside help. Help that isn’t forthcoming…now. Not as old economic AID or as new climate AID either. It simply isn’t there.
The western developed country folk – mainly good Christians – relishing the misfortunes of their Islamic enemies and hoping that the floods will wipe out the Talib aren’t helping the flooded victims. This in turn creates a far greater polarization of the sort our crusading for oil, wars against the other Abrahamic faith followers haven’t helped any.
Do you get the connections?
Globally, the elusive goal of minimizing temperature increases to 2C has been overpassed already in most quarters. Ask how has your summer been and You shall get the answer.
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT
The Environmental Parliament supports the Centre for Alternative Technology which has recently demonstrated HOW we can reduce our carbon emissions of the UK, all the way down to zero by 2030 utilizing technology, austerity measures and making much better use of our land. Still what the Centre for Alternative Technologies has ignored completely, [being outside of it's purview] is where is the political and public will, are going to be mustered from, in order to bring forth these really major changes in how we conduct our affairs and live our lives in the rich context of a healthy and balanced Ecosystem.
And that is squarely the purview of the Environmental Parliament. A community of elected MPs and other leaders, focused on harnessing the total sum of available leadership will, and repurposing it towards meaningful Climate Actions. Because there are many of us out there vying for this Change – yet very few willing to pay the price of the Lifestyle – we’ve made it possible to do so without donning the hair shirt…
WALK THE WALK
But rest assured, there are a a whole lot of brave people who’ve already jumped the boat heading for the falls, and are swimming upstream to spawn a new age.
Yours,
Pano
PS:
Still the Cancun talks are a must to attend and work hard on making real progress on the peripheral issues.
We can have Progress on the basic nature Biota survival issues.
We can work for progress on the multitude of issues for protecting Biodiversity and speciation.
We can work on issues such as protecting the Amazonas and other tropical forests.
We can work and share, on open sourcing and globally sharing all new and inexpensive green technologies with the others…
And we can work on paying our debt and thus sharing the burden of curbs on greenhouse gases between rich and poor.
Between the ones most responsible and the ones most affected by the onslaught of Climate Change ravaging consequences.
