So exactly how many people have spent how much money and made how many more carbon footprints at yet another climate change gabfest? That is the real story of Cancun, the UN international conference being held from November 29 to December 10 in a very spiffy, up-market resort in Mexico.
Given how much debate there is about whether in fact human activity really has much to do with climate change, it is unlikely this meeting will actually achieve anything, except waste a lot of time and tax-payers’ money. Indeed, one writer rightly calls this the “Cancun Wealth Redistribution Conference”.
Paul Driessen is worth quoting at length: “A climate ‘crisis’ generated by computer models and ClimateGate/IPCC data manipulation is now equivalent to the Great Depression and World War II. And rich nations are somehow supposed to fork over $100 billion annually in ‘climate change reparations’ and ‘mitigation and adaptation’ funds, on top of other aid, after they have shackled their economies and become ‘formerly developed countries.’
“We are witnessing the global warming, green energy, ‘environmental justice’ and wealth redistribution equivalent of kamikaze air attacks. Desperate times do indeed require desperate measures. The assumption and assertion that humans are causing a climate catastrophe must be perpetuated at all costs.
“Make no mistake. Cancun and its predecessors are not about saving the planet or protecting poor nations from the ‘ravages of dangerous manmade global warming.’ This battle is, and always has been, about two things: money and power. Who gets how much money from whom? Who gets to control energy systems, economic growth, and people’s opportunities, living standards and futures?
“It all comes down to a past and impending unprecedented redistribution of wealth – from taxpayers and consumers (rich, middle class and poor alike) in developed nations to:
– Political leaders and bureaucrats in poor nations that were enticed to sign the Kyoto and other agreements, by promises that they would receive billions, year after year; and
– Scientists, activists, bureaucrats, carbon traders and corporations responsible for the ‘consensus’ and ‘settled science’ about catastrophic climate change and cheap, eco-friendly renewable energy.
“Their careers, reputations, institutions and cash flows are heavily dependent on keeping citizens alarmed by climate hobgoblins, and hence clamorous to be led to safety. Far worse, they are proposing that the world spend trillions combating global warming, and completely upending hydrocarbon-based economies, in favor of costly, unproven, unreliable, land-intensive ‘renewable’ energy.”
Yep, it’s all about money, and power – forget about the science. Andrew Bolt is also bemused by the goings on at Cancun. This is how he opens his latest article on this charade:
“The great global warming scare is dying not with a bang, or even a whimper. Try a great horse laugh. Right now, 20,000 activists, politicians and carpetbaggers are meeting in the Mexican resort city of Cancun. They are there for the latest United Nations conference on how to make everyone else cut the emissions caused by, for instance, flying a population the size of a small city to a Mexican beach.
“These are the emissions we’re told are heating the world so dangerously that Europe is now gripped by one of the coldest winters of a generation. Indeed, it’s so bad that Vicky Pope, a warming pundit from Britain’s Met Office, was trapped in London by the snow that the Met’s climate models failed to predict, and so couldn’t fly to Cancun to explain how very hot the world in fact was.
“This kind of thing dogged the UN’s climate mega-summit in Copenhagen a year ago. The heavens dumped 10cm of snow on the city in one night, while blizzards threatened to shut airports in Washington, forcing US Speaker Nancy Pelosi to fly home early while she could.
“It’s driven prominent warming propagandist George Monbiot to sigh that God is on the side of Big Oil: ‘Every time anyone gets together to prevent global climate breakdown, He swathes the rich, densely habited parts of the world with snow and ice . . .’ Or, in our case, with torrential rain that our own warmist Bureau of Meteorology didn’t see coming, either, having predicted a drier spring.
“Never mind. Fresh off their jets, and cooled by the tropical resort’s air conditioners, the Cancun evangelists are learning of cheery plans to put the rest of us on rations to restrict our use of such things as planes and coolers, and salsa bands flown in from Acapulco.”
Yes it is a good life for government bureaucrats and climate panic mongers. They get to spend most of their time traipsing around the world attending gabfests like this, all the while living a life of luxury, thanks to the good ol’ sucker taxpayer.
Bolt continues, “To put the Cancun warmists in the right spirit, the UN’s top official there, Christiana Figueres, introduced them to a new god of this neo-pagan faith, the ancient Mayan jaguar goddess Ixchel. ‘May she inspire you,’ Figueres cried to the crowd, which says it has science on its side.
“Meanwhile, back home, we’re counting the cost of this green frenzy. The Queensland Government, for example, has just mothballed its $1.13 billion desalination plant, which it was persuaded to build by warmists who swore warming would dry the rain. As then premier Peter Beattie explained, the ‘likely impact of climate change’ included ‘lower than usual rainfall’ and dams would not do.
“But now Brisbane’s dams are full to overflowing, and Victoria’s own $5.7 billion desal plant, also built by a government claiming ‘we cannot rely on this kind of rainfall like we used to’, has been delayed for months by rain. Other countries are also tempering the madness. Spain last week slashed the lavish subsidies for solar and wind power that was driving it broke.
“France at the same time put a cap on solar power to cut costs, and Germany said it might also cut solar subsidies, as NSW did this year to save $2.5 billion. But how did we ever succumb to the madness? Actually, WikiLeaks may help you to understand, having now published leaked US diplomatic cables revealing Big Government finances whole nations to give in to the warming faith.
“In February this year, an ambassador from the Maldives told US deputy climate change envoy Jonathan Pershing that if the US handed over ‘tangible assistance’, other nations would realise ‘the advantages to be gained by compliance’ with the accord agreed to at the Copenhagen summit. He mentioned a figure of $50 million.”
Yep, it’s all about money, and power. But secular religions always need a big scare to get people to cough up big bucks to line the pockets of big bureaucrats. The sky is falling climate change panic has worked very nicely in this regard. If it peters out, you can be sure a new panic will be found and hoisted upon a hapless populace.
http://townhall.com/columnists/PaulDriessen/2010/12/06/the_cancun_wealth_redistribution_conference/page/1
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion-old/cancun-could-be-the-last-resort/story-e6frfifx-1225967323384
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