Sometimes it’s easier to shove problems under the rug rather than doing anything about solving them.
And this is what happens with various countries responsible for huge carbon emissions, with their Politicians and Climate Change.
The pattern is as old as the failure of Washington to address the Realpolitik issues of Climate change and it’s effects on humanity’s stable future and not just focusing on yesterday’s economic benefits. Beijing now does the exact same thing. Same folly – same problem – same failure of Policy – same loss of civilization.
But lest this sounds like sour grapes, here is a new twist on the old blame the pianist musical chairs game. AKA pass the blame not the buck. So in that spirited political game, played by the best in an asynchronous environment, now comes China, to play it too. And they apparently play well.
Because same as the US, now China has arrived at the fulcrum of global Greenwash PR. They are very cunning at managing expectations through PR and offering a soft touch – while doing nothing and appearing to be busting their chops. Can’t blame them. They learn from the best, and they learn fast…
Because China’s climate negotiators are nobody’s fool and their greenwashing advisors are sharp, they have a three prong strategy.
First they fired off an “We are the Good Guys” campaign fluff PR piece on Tuesday, with the most cutesy and detailed report to date on the progress the country has made to ease greenhouse gases, and the overtly clean playing strategy it will adopt at next week’s climate talks in Durban — showing to the whole world that there is no need for any global climate deal really. Yet with the world’s biggest carbon emitter expected to come under intense pressure in South Africa, the government released the white paper to highlight its achievements on renewable energies, deforestation and industrial carbon efficiency, and thus set the stage for closer collaboration with Europe and developing nations without any binding global climate deal.
Second they plan to reinvigorate the climate action deniers bloc of BRIC countries to use as a roadblock in any climate negotiating breakthroughs. Only this time they added the climate stopping “boulder nations” to bolster their ranks and defuse blame in the crowd of reality refusniks.
And thirdly they partner up with the real baddies and the fossil fuel dirty boys. And they go on to use Greenwash Psych-Ops to lead the charge against any possible climate deal. Because Psychological warfare and Greenwashing PR are best used to muddy the waters and obscure the issues from any visibility. Same day as the white paper was released in a perfectly timed one-two punch psych-op, coup de grace, a fresh round of hacked climate science emails were leaked online. All emails were stolen from the East Anglia University’s climate research unit. The file containing 5,000 emails was made available online in a naked attempt to repeat the impact of 2009′s similar hacked climate science emails release that sunk Copenhagen’s chances at success. Yet it is now apparent that the people behind the email hack & release were “agents doing the dirty bidding of the fossil fuel industry and the countries buying their services, because they know they can’t contest the fundamental science of human-caused climate change. So they have instead turned to business and national greenwashing, to smear, innuendo, criminal hacking of websites, and leaking out-of-context snippets of personal emails in their effort to try to confuse the public about the science and thereby forestall any action to combat this critical threat.
And this is working Diplomacy? And is this rational international and national policy coming from wise and thoughtful China?
God damn, because to all of us this seems laughable, if it were not downright criminal.
Cause this is right out of the tried-and-true Greenwash PR playbook of climate change deniers all over the world.
And the much vaunted white paper is pure Bull. It is BS not only because it is a last-ditch attempt to kill the deal – any deal – but it is also seen as a Chinese Greenwash political insurance, aimed at minimising blame and deflecting it to the United States, the other big climate sceptic — when the Durban COP talks break down.
But no surprise here, because this is exactly what the United States has been doing successfully for ever. They did this in Rio, in Kyoto, in Amsterdam, in Bali, in Bonn, in Potsdam and most successfully in Copenhagen and beyond. It’s called managing expectations to the lowest level and getting people happy with pittances of hope instead of offering a clear path to solutions.
So here comes the smart Political Greenwash PR and arrives through a document released by China’s State Council that contained nary a spot of any new detail, but it spelled out the legions of meaningless measures the government has taken to meet the commitments made in Copenhagen. Commitments that were not binding and therefore are arbitrary and not verifiable. Just a few talking points and high fallutin unverifiable claims really. PR claims such as a projected reduction in carbon emissions relative to GDP by 40-45% ‘s between 2005 and 2020. The paper also spells out the steps that will be taken over the next five years to increase forest cover by 12.5m hectares and lift the non-fossil fuel share of energy consumption to 11.4%… And they forgot to put something cute in there about saving the mating bamboo forest for the pandas in Yunnan province… I would stick it in there because pandas are great for greenwash same as BP using the polar bears in their advertised concern to extract oil from the Arctic ocean safely and effectively for the polar bears. Tell that to the dolphins of the Gulf coast who washed up full of oil on the beaches from Texas to Florida.
Yet despite widespread pessimism about the prospects for a deal in Durban, the head of the Chinese delegation to Durban, said China wanted to overcome the impasse between rich and poor countries by getting Europe to commit to a renewal of the Kyoto Protocol, and other nations – who are unwilling to sign – to make comparable voluntary cuts or provide technology and financial assistance.
He said that an extension to the Kyoto Protocol – the first emissions reduction commitment phase which is currently set to end in 2012 – was crucial. How to solve this problem is actually a very central, very key problem at the Durban meeting, was China’s retort.
But what China and the other fossil fuel industry beholden governments failed to say is why the sinister alliance of national dirty policies, national climate negotiators, state departments, climate skeptics and fossil fuel interests, come together under the guise of greenwashing PR and anonymous email hacks who want to derail fully the last few hopes that Durban might deliver a deal… And why the email hacks started again at the exact same time as the Chinese release and just a week before the COP talks are set to begin?
Because in case you haven’t heard, a fresh batch of private emails from the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University, was now released on cue to derail the Durban negotiations. This new hack attack rivals the damaging release just before the most hopeful climate meetings in 2009 in Copenhagen. And this is an email cache of correspondence, exchanged between leading climate scientists throughout the last decade and it was all released online this Tuesday. The unauthorised publication is a naked greenwash PR attempt to repeat the impact of a similar release of emails on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit in late 2009 that took the discussion to where the climate skeptics wanted and pre-empted a climate deal.
The initial email hack and release was perfectly timed to coincide and disrupt the Copenhagen climate talks. It prompted the Copenhagen failure and was followed by a real disinterest in the Climate deal from governments and politicians alike. It also caused untold loss of energy and time and even prompted three official inquiries in the UK and two in the US into the working practices of climate scientists. Although these were critical of the scientists’ handling of Freedom of Information Act requests and lack of openness they did not find fault with the climate change science they had produced.
The University of East Anglia said the “sheer volume of material” meant it was not yet able to confirm that they were genuine. One of the emailers, the climate scientist Prof Michael Mann, has confirmed that he believes they are his messages. The lack of any emails post-dating the 2009 release suggests that they were obtained at the same time, but held back. Their release now suggests they are intended to cause maximum impact before the upcoming climate summit in Durban which starts on Monday.
And thus a comprehensive deal looks impossible for this round of COP talks in Durban. Much more Greenwashing will follow and now that all the wealthy countries of the developed world have admitted that no new global climate agreement will be reached before 2020 at the earliest, the field is open for business as usual to claim victory. This is defeatist, but some of our hopes have been rekindled by signs that Europe, China and the G77 group of developing nations have been meeting and working constructively in recent months. The Sherpas say, that there is a faint possibility that Europe may agree to a new commitment period if China and the G77 promise to accept binding cuts by 2020.
Yet it appears this new white paper and email hack comes at a time that shows China’s new policy towards climate change is more constructive, more flexible and more conciliatory – on pater at least. But is this true? Certainly this PR greenwash paper will help to release the pressure if China is accused of blowing up Durban. But reality speaks volumes…
Other observers saw hints of a more fundamental shift, including a recognition by the government that its existing approach is insufficient because the economy is growing so fast that even if China achieves its carbon intensity goals the overall amount of emissions will surge and keep growing inexorably in a perfect J curve for the next century. A continuous growth describes nothing but the perfect failure in the bubble of all times.
The Carbon bubble that is.
Yours,
Pano
PS:
There is a silver lining as always: China talking openly about the need to control total energy consumption, rather than just its intensity relative to GDP is good. And this is what Green Capital Index measures. Carbon Capital intensity is crucial according to Green Capital, the New Energy Investment Bank of the Environmental Parliament. Because China’s energy structure is the big problem for China’s accelerating carbon emission. Yet controlling the use of coal energy is key to control carbon emissions. And since the central government ostensibly has the policy, the problem is how to implement it fully and allow it to reach deep inside the economy.
And is also worth noting that China has done a lot in recent years. Especially when compared to the US and other so-called “climate sceptic boulder nations” that are increasingly seen as obstacles to a global Climate deal and human progress in general.
The future will be merciless with such whiners and history will send them soonest in the dustbin to rest.
PS2:
This hack & release differs from the original 2009 release in that the persons responsible have included a message headed “background and context” which, for the first time, gives an insight into their motivations. Following some bullet-pointed quotes such as “Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day” and, “Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels,” the message states:
“Today’s decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on hiding the decline. This archive contains some 5.000 emails picked from keyword searches. A few remarks and redactions are marked with triple brackets. The rest, some 220.000, are encrypted for various reasons. We are not planning to publicly release the passphrase. We could not read every one, but tried to cover the most relevant topics.”
The use of points instead of commas to mark the thousands when writing a number – highly unusual in both the UK or US – is sure to lead to speculation about the nationality of those responsible or about their attempts at further disinformation…
PS3:
Whatever happens lets fight in Durban against Greenwashing both at the Business and at the national level. The Climate Camp has to set up on the crucial weekend of Dec 3rd and 4th at the Snell Parade road Roundabout and at the front complex of the negotiating complex…
