Billions of dollars sneaks out the door through UN committees

There are billions of dollars of money sneaking out the door of Western Nations and being used to feed the monster bureaucracy, the UNFCCC and its cohort.

In The Carbon Tax that Ate Australia Tony Cox and David Stockwell point out the Australian contributions  fly so under the radar (despite being millions of dollars) that even the Australian government seems to have forgotten they agreed to pay them.   Greg Combet, the minister for Climate Change promises “every dollar of the Carbon Tax will be given back to the people”:

Every dollar raised by the carbon price will be dedicated to supporting households with any price impacts, and supporting businesses through the transition to a clean energy economy. Because we are a Labor government, we will support the most vulnerable in our community — the people who need help the most.

But Combet in Cancun promised  10% of the Australian carbon tax as a tithe to the UN. (And there’s the $599 million as part of the Fast Start Finance program over three years that is in the pipeline.) So which commitment will the Australian government break? Or, let me guess, in the world of spin, the government can give all the tax money back to Australians because the other 10% “of that” comes from … err… other taxes? (That’s how 100+10 = 100.) Well that’s all right then… let’s call it “tax-creep”. Could the carbon tax quietly be 10% bigger than advertised?

The Copenhagen Accord seemed like such an innocuous piece of face-saving wall-paper, but a river of money flows to its organizers and patrons.  The US — past the point where it can pay what it owes as its foreign debts mount — committed $1.7 billion last year.  The UK, facing mass riots over public spending cuts, has given even more per capita. The Scandinavians are punching far above their weight too.

From the Fast Start Program site:

(Note the values are in local currencies but if you “Click” on the calculator it will convert…)

total pledged total committed programmes
Australia AUD 599 million  5
Belgium EUR 150 million  EUR 42,0 million 
Canada CAD 400 million 
Denmark DKK 1 200 million  DKK 308,0 million  12
European Union EUR 150 million  EUR 50,0 million  8
Finland EUR 110 million  7
France EUR 1 260 million  EUR 1 260,0 million  24
Germany EUR 1 260 million  EUR 291,9 million  51
Iceland USD 1 million 
Japan USD 15 000 million 
Luxembourg EUR 9 million  EUR 9,0 million 
Malta EUR 1 million  EUR 0,1 million  2
Netherlands EUR 310 million  EUR 310,0 million  7
Norway USD 1 000 million  USD 382,0 million  20
Portugal EUR 36 million  EUR 12,0 million 
Slovenia EUR 8 million  2
Spain EUR 375 million  9
Sweden EUR 800 million  17
Switzerland CHF 140 million 
United Kingdom GBP 1 500 million  GBP 568,0 million  8
United States USD 1 700,0 million  (for 2010)

Ponder that this program manages some $5 billion USD (of committed funds) and 4 months after Cancun, (and 14 months after the Copenhagen Accord) the website documenting it appears to be the part time work of one man in the Netherlands. Perhaps I’m missing something, and the real official site is somewhere else. At least they are not wasting funds on  glossy graphics, but it’s disconcerting to say the least that there are so few details. Are they kidding? Is this really the official site for a program this size?

Remember, as you admire the empty cells and out-of-date information on the Fast Start site, that this is what “transparency” looks like from the closest thing we have to a world government.

The most generous interpretation is that these funds are merely rebadged foreign aid amounts that would have been used in foreign aid anyway. But why shuffle them through the UN or the UNFCCC — the kind of people who aim to try to hold back a tide that is barely rising at 2 or 3 mm a year. I mean, levees to stop the ocean rising must be low on the wish list for countries where children die of malaria every day. Are children lost because some bureaucrat hijacked foreign aid to build a sea wall that will probably never be needed?

Thanks to Tony Cox and David Stockwell.

Just to put a razor fine point on it commenter Lawrie writes on the last thread that the Canadian wheat crop cycle is being cut short just as David Archibald predicted (thanks to UN aid, those kids who will need wheat to eat are getting levees instead):

David Archibald is sure this SC24 [solar cycle] and possibly SC25 will both be short and weak leading to a Dalton Minimum type cooling. He also states that should such cooling occur the Canadian wheat crop would be seriously reduced. This is one of several stories coming out of the northern prairies: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-18/canadian-wheat-sowing-may-be-delayed-on-wet-weather-board-says.html

It seems late snows and melt are delaying sowing 10 to 20 days. The same region experienced a number of early frosts last year. Combine the two and the short growing season will see yield reductions. Maybe it’s La Nina and maybe it’s the solar cycle or maybe a bit of both. Either way cold weather equals less food.

7.5 out of 10 based on 15 ratings

109 comments to Billions of dollars sneaks out the door through UN committees

  • #
    DirkH

    The money is needed to organize the next junket. Send more!

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    For younger readers, see the fairy tale, “Jimmy and the Lump of Coal

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    DougS

    Greg Combet: “every dollar of the Carbon Tax will be given back to the people”

    Prompts the question; why bother taking it in the first place then?

    And: which people will be ‘getting it back’?

    And don’t forget that the bureaucracy that decides which of their pals to give it to will gobble up most of it anyway!

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    Nick

    Where can i buy Wheat and Grain shares?

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    It’s one final feeding frenzy before the whole show goes bust. The USSR feeding frenzy took 70 years to collapse because the free world kept propping it up. This frenzy has no free world behind it to hide the fact the UN is nothing but a cannibalistic fraud.

    The accumulated liquid and capital wealth of the world has been spent many times over. The bill is coming due and payable very soon. Reality will make sure the bill is paid in full one way or another. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

    There is a way back from the brink: the recovery of freedom and respect for individual rights on principle thereby releasing the productive to be productive. It can happen but it is a long shot. The odds don’t look very good right now.

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    pattoh

    Gee whiz!!

    I guess we can work out why all our pollies seem to be chanting the UN mantra; they want retirement gigs!

    & you thought you voted them in to represent you……….ha!

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  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    Lionell Griffith: #5

    The USSR feeding frenzy took 70 years to collapse because the free world kept propping it up. This frenzy has no free world behind it to hide the fact the UN is nothing but a cannibalistic fraud.

    I totally agree.

    The raison d’etre, for the UN, from a geopolitical perspective, was to ensure that the USA did not develop into a hegemony.

    People today do not appreciate that the amount of raw power unleashed by the USA, when they entered WW II, in terms of men and materiel in Europe and the Pacific, and in the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, was orders of magnitude greater than anything seen before.

    The smaller nations were scared stiff. The Atomic Programme had been a closely guarded secret until the bombs were dropped in anger. The psychological impact on leaders in the rest of the world was profound. Had America declared itself to be the world ruler on VJ Day, it would have been a done deal. What prevented that happening was the United States Constitution.

    The USSR was the only viable counterweight to the might of the USA, so the smaller nations in the UN “engineered” tension between the two, and thus the Cold War began.

    The UN also set up the various Aid Programmes, originally in an attempt to genuinely help, but later as a way of rewarding or punishing nations who did not go along with the UN “consensus”. The term “Rogue State”, is actually defined as a nation that does not toe the UN line.

    Now of course, the UN has moved into the area of managing “Global Issues”, of which climate change is the most visible. And it is these “Global Issues” that has taken our attention, and the attention of the world media. But in and of themselves these programmes are immaterial in the longer view.

    For now, some sixty years (and three or four administrative generations) further down the track, the UN is seeking to become the very hegemony that it was designed to prevent.

    And it will succeed, unless the United States, Russia, and a majority of smaller nations have the courage to become “Rogue States”.

    “The odds don’t look very good right now.”

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    Tom

    There is now virtually no chance that Australia’s carbon tax will see the light of day, except possibly as a stillborn runt before a change of government (see link below). And Australia’s reckless government pledges to the UN are likely to to be repudiated before they are enacted. The lunatics in Canberra and at the UN almost took over the asylum, but not quite. There’s now reason to be optimistic that the Greens’ alliance of old hippies, young zombies and inner-city property millionaires will be disentangled from a mortally wounded Australian Labour Party and be sent back to Nimbin, Fitroy and Balmain with their 12% of the popular vote, after their attempt to hold up the national Treasury. Internationally, the IPCC has so damaged the UN that many countries, led by the US, will be reconsidering their financial commitments to the organisation, in my assessment. The climate is changing!

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/federal-labor-looks-dead-and-buried/story-fn56baaq-1226043466557

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  • #
    Jannes Kleintje

    Re; Tom@8
    The ALP is suffering a lot from this lot of money and power crazy puppets of the UN.
    Do they have anybody brave enough to do the same to this lying lawyer as she did to Kevin? Or is she going to be the ALP leader who goes into history as the one who singlehandedly managed to destroy the ALP and the whole of the Australian economy?

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  • #
    Bulldust

    Here’s another stellar example of how effective Government intervention in the market place can be (/sarc):

    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/solar-panel-industry-pleads-for-help-20110422-1drhv.html

    Yes, the poorly designed solar panel certificate scheme is unravelling … who’da thunk it?

    10

  • #
    Lawrie

    Tom,

    When Laurie Oakes starts agreeing with Andrew Bolt over the terminal sickness and imminent death of Gillard’s government we should take heart. The major worry now is the amount of destruction wrought in her death throes. Wayne Swan’s horror budget should be the final nail and should alienate the last of her supporters among swinging voters.

    A Godsend was the rise of the Greens to something approaching power. The MSM has started to take them seriously enough to ask embarrassing questions. Questions which the Greens are finding it hard to answer in a way that doesn’t spook some of their naive supporters. Their sudden power and outspokeness on many topics has been a wake up call for many who saw them as simply tree huggers trying to help the planet. Their socialist insides are now exposed and many don’t like what they see. That in turn affects the way in which voters perceive the ALP/Green/Independent coalition.

    There is still pain ahead and we need to remain vigilant but the signs are better now than at any time in the past four years. The seas are cooling too which will undercut the AGW hypothesis. As Graeme Connors sings “It’s all Good”.

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    cohenite

    Rereke@7; great analysis, and completely true; it is amazing that this corrupt institution, the UN, should be held in esteem by anyone let alone as a reliable source of information about such things as AGW.

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    davidc

    It looks like this could be real, strange though it looks. Australian govt progress report:

    http://www.climatechange.gov.au/media/whats-new/~/media/publications/international/australias-fast-start-finance-progress-report.ashx

    States near the end: “Australia has also provided
    information to the fast-start finance website
    http://www.faststartfinance.org and will update this as
    funding continues to be allocated and disbursed.”

    In my Googling I came across this beautiful sentence: “Target setting under the [Copenhagen] Accord is likely to be an iterative process and Australia will continue to work with others to maximise the level of global ambition.” Perhaps a competition for the best translation?

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  • #
    Damian Allen

    What is arguably the most important reason to doubt global warming can be explained in plain English.

    How Scientific Is Climate Science?

    http://www.informath.org/media/a42.htm

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    macha

    In relation to seeking some balanced reality in the CAGW farcical state of affairs, following the money, encouraging the ‘system’ to be more transparent is the right political thing to do.

    From a scientific viewpoint, its also worth highlighting that the “sceptics” ( which I am one), have not revealed anything new within the scientific field. see this link – which also contains some educational info too.

    http://scienceofdoom.com/2011/02/24/water-vapor-vs-co2-as-a-greenhouse-gas/

    Cheers and happy easter.

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    […] From Joanne Nova,Billions of dollars sneaks out the door through UN committees […]

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    wes george

    Tom,

    A failed carbon tax will empower Green justice mythology for the next decade and destroy federal Labor for about the same length of time. I wouldn’t doubt if by now that’s Bob’s new plan B. Not all bad for Australia, but we should go for a twofer…

    What the Labor/Green insane clown posse in Canberra deserves now is a really big victory in their Carbon Tax war against Australian prosperity. Why save them from themselves?

    There is no hope of getting a fair go in the Australian media anyway. Why not kick back, pop open a beer and enjoy the follies? Heck, we’re already paying for it either way. I want my money’s worth and won’t be satisfied with anything less than the total humiliation of both Labor AND the Greens… It might well be the carbon tax recession we have to have to wake our nation up to the dangerously morbid values of the Greens and Labor.

    The Libs and Nats should maintain a clear united front of consistent and rational argument against the carbon tax, but then only walk through the necessary gestures in parliament to stand against the tax. Let the Labor/Green regime have their carbon poison cake and eat it too.

    Unfortunately, I agree with Tom, a carbon tax might not come to pass.

    Instead, the Green myth-making machine will enshrine the lost holy carbon tax grail as a martyred policy on the altar of Gaia — sabotage by vile deniers funded by Big Coal and Tobacco and supported by evil suburbanites in their McMansions with their four-ute garages and IQ’s somewhat less than the octane rating of the petrol they swill like drunken sailors. It’s over-the-top contempt for the average Aussie punter that defines and motivate Green values.

    A FAILED attempt to save the planet with a carbon tax is really the best possible outcome for Bob Brown’s Greens, because it will utterly demolish Federal Labor while confirming Green radical righteousness to the eco-dazed, hate-Aussies-firsters who form the Green base. The government will implode (it’s going to anyway) Labor will shed middle Australia to the Coalition, but the Greens will pick up some newly outraged moonbat vote, what little of it they didn’t already have before. Best of all the Australian economy which hosts our Green parasites will continue to tick over healthy as ever and we’ll never know just how bloody destructive a carbon tax would have been…Win/win/win for the Greens!

    A failed carbon tax will form the core narrative of Green eco-injustice demogogy for years to come. Truth is, that Bob and his nutters are more than happy not to be part of government with all the hard yakka that entails. The less scrutiny of Green economic illiteracy, bigotry and anti-democratic values the better for Bob’s Greenie myths. The Greens know they’ll always be a fringe dwelling party who occasional burst forth from the back bench to wreck havoc in our polity then recede into the dark shadows of their comfortable delusions. Just like a recurring malarial fever on our body politic.

    Gillard, Rudd, Combet, Wong, Garrett, Windsor and Oaky, et al, dug their own grave and now Bob is going to lay them low in it with no love lost. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer mob of nincompoops.

    But shame on us if we let the carbon tax crisis go to waste by allowing comrade Bob’s watermelons to sidestep the political grave he’s cleverly planning for Federal Labor.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    You can have your goose or you can eat it. But you cannot have it and eat it at the same time.

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    Bruce of Newcastle

    We could actually see the Greens vote against the carbon tax: they know what happened to the Democrats when they compromised on the GST. It’d be different if it were a popular policy, but the carbon tax right now is stinking like bad fish on a hot day.

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  • #

    The Original Kyoto Protocol proposed by the UNFCCC in 1997 called for CO2 reductions to levels 5 to 8% lower than what they were in 1990. Needless to say, no Country on the Planet has achieved that, and in fact in nearly every Country emissions are going the other way.

    However, originally, for this Protocol,the UN, in its infinite wisdom split the World’s Countries into 2 Annexes.
    Of the 192 (first) signatories, 40 of them were culled into a group of Developed Countries, and the remaining 152 were classed as ‘Developing’, and all they needed to do was to report their emissions only.

    From that list of 40 Developed Countries, a further group of 23 Countries was culled, and Australia is on that short list.

    As long and involved as that Protocol was, ten words in brackets after those 23 Countries were the most important part of the whole deal.

    Those ten words were:

    (Developed Countries which pay for all costs of developing Countries)

    The UN and Climate Change – Ten Fateful Words explains this in some detail, how the sites have been changed over the years in an attempt to ‘hide’ those ten words in plain sight, and why the UN is now desperately trying to replace what was always a flawed document, especially since they included a Sunset clause as part of that original document, now fast running out of time.

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    Tom

    @Wes George: Like your analysis, but don’t share your optimism that the Australian economy is strong enough to withstand an experiment where the Greens are allowed to fail to ensure they’re banished forever. The backdrop of the next 18 months, during which time Australia’s political future will be decided, is likely to include a renewed bout of global economic recession, during which, among other things, Australia’s overheated real estate delusion is reduced in value by about a third, taking with it much of the idle spending money of the watermelon commentariat, who won’t have as much time to attend Earth rallies if they have to work full-time.

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    pat

    some more info and links here:

    4 Nov 2010: British Embassy, Berlin: Fast-start finance for developing countries
    The seminar also included a presentation by Herman Sips from the Dutch Environment Ministry of the new fast-start website launched by the Dutch Government on 2 September 2010…
    http://ukingermany.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=News&id=23164529

    scroll down for this:

    2009: Eco-Investor blog: Thinking Long Term Pays Off: Green Plans Countries in the Economic Forefront
    I’ve been impressed with the “architects” of the Dutch Green Plan, Herman Sips and Hans von Zijst, who also were instrumental in developing the EU’s Green Plan. By the way, Holland’s green plan was the result of a McKinsey business consultant – Pieter Winsemius, who became the Netherlands’ Minister of Housing, Physical Planning and the Environment in the mid 80s before returning to run McKinsey’s environmental practice consultancy. Winsemius initiated Green Planning in the Dutch government precisely to make environmental policy sync up with private sector business investment cycles…
    http://eco-investor.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html

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    Louis Hissink

    For what it’s worth – my mining radar indicates were are headed for another bust cycle – AMEX has been waving a new credit card upgrade under my nose – a sure sign they have lots of money to lend, money that was initially printed under the guise of the economic stimulus. Trade union wages rises are also in the pipeline as is a rising cost of living.

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    Louis Hissink

    Ross, @22

    Yes, the basic physics is sound but don’t underestimate the power of mass belief maintaining the existing scientific paradigm. This game is far from over.

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  • #
    Bob Malloy

    Off Topic: Anthony Watt’s Australian antagonist gets outted at No Frakking Consenses.

    Ka-Ching! More Greenpeace Money

    April 22, 2011

    Oh dear, this is getting tedious. Another day another Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) author with ties to Greenpeace. This time the gent in the spotlight is an Australian marine biologist named Ove Hoegh-Guldberg.

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    pattoh

    I reckon the next gubment should consider a “retired fat cat pollie super profits tax” & make it GLOBAL BY TREATY!!

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  • #
    Bernd Felsche

    Bulldust,

    Re: the certificate factory

    Each certificate was originally to compensate for 1 MWh of averted emissions, based on the assumed capacity of the installation to produce energy. Driving around the suburbs, looking at the glinting solar panels, I’m astonished at the number of units that are installed with sub-optimal orientation. Installers apparently slap them onto any convenient roof face. Little effort being made to actually harvest solar energy.

    If a certificate is being issued according to the size of the panel and its location (not orientation), then the certificate has no relationship to the quantity of averted emissions. I have little doubt that the supporters of the “industry” will (ab)use the number of certificates issued as a measure of the “generating capacity” of “alternative energy”.

    A million certificates a week is simply flooding the market with “junk bonds”.

    Like all schemes to subsidise economically unsustainable products, this one will fail. The only question is the amount of damage that it does to the economy as a whole.

    The justification for subsidy; that it will encourage R&D; is ludicrous. Subsidies on production negatively impact on product development. Industry will react to subsidies by increasing its capacity to absorb subsidies at the lowest cost to itself. And that often means that the product doesn’t improve. At best, it doesn’t change.

    If governments want to encourage R&D, they can do so by providing tax breaks on real R&D; not product.

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    janama

    I agree Bernd – officially a panel should be mounted at the latitude + 10 degrees. So at 28 lat it should be mounted at 38 degrees and facing north. So Sydney panels should be at 43 degrees – I bet many aren’t and I see installations where the panels are facing east.

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    Jack Taylor

    Certificates: the company that puts up the most panels in the fastest time gets the most money. Sun incidence? What’s that? Someday a little child in the back row will say, “But the Emporer has no clothes.” and finally PV panels will be relegated back to their core markets and not the artificial goverment one. Let the PV companies fail. It won’t be pretty, but get it over and out of the way now before it costs a bomb.

    For 20 years now, successive Australian governments and government departments have been messing with a very successful capitalist model by manipulating supply and demand. Someone or some group needs to go through Canberra with a big stick and cause the various agencies to go back to administration and get out of trying to manipulate commerce. I look forward to the political party that acknowledges that the market-based economy may not be perfect, but it works a hell of a lot better than a government manipulated one.

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    […] JoNova presents this table from the United Nations-associated Fast Start Program site: […]

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    Mad Hatter

    Janama @ 29 and Bernd
    Let’s not forget the 20% effficiency boost available by having the panels track the sun. I’ve never seen a rooftop installation even look like attempting that!! The art of seeming ehh…

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    janama

    Let’s face it – the solar panel scheme is a joke. The classic example is a Storage Shed complex in my local town – the owner has mounted 2 rows of 20 panels on the shed’s roofs. That’s 7.2MW system, to supply storage sheds?? I think not but the return into the grid would be paying good dividends at 60c/kWhr.

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    Rereke Whakaaro

    cohenite: #12

    Thank you.

    It is always gratifying to get approbation from somebody you respect.

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    Rereke Whakaaro

    wes george: #17
    Bruce of Newcastle: #19
    Tom: #21

    Yes! – you guys are rocking.

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    Charles

    Does anyone have a more solid link for this “10% of carbon tax goes to IPCC (or (UN)”? I have read about it often enough but most of it goes back to a statement in an article in the West Australian.

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    Keith H

    O/T and thanks to Bob Malloy for the link in a previous post on the Heartland thread and I urge everyone to have a look at the two links he provided. Great ammo for arguments against any warmist!

    I have just posted this on the Greens blog where it’s awaiting moderation, but I very much doubt it will get through so here’s the cross-post. (In reply to a post by Sarah Hansen-Young.)

    What a pity your European tour wasn’t extended to take in Baotou, China, the “rare earth” capital of the world. You could then have seen first hand the disastrous damage caused by the Greens and others love and active promotion of the hugely uneconomical, visually and environmentally polluting bird-killing monstrosities known as wind turbines.

    I challenge all Greens supporters to read the full article and learn what is actually involved in this so-called Green technology. You have been grossly misled by the likes of Hansen-Young, Brown, Milne and all your other leaders in pursuit of the ridiculous, unattainable objective of “stopping” what is natural climate change, NOT alleged Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming!

    http://www.dailymail.com.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html

    In China, the true cost of Britain’s clean, green wind power experiment: Pollution on a disastrous scale
    By SIMON PARRY in China and ED DOUGLAS in Scotland
    Last updated at 10:01 PM on 29th January 2011

    This toxic lake poisons Chinese farmers, their children and their land. It is what’s left behind after making the magnets for Britain’s latest wind turbines… and, as a special Live investigation reveals, is merely one of a multitude of environmental sins committed in the name of our new green Jerusalem The lake of toxic waste at Baotou, China, which as been dumped by the rare earth processing plants in the background
    On the outskirts of one of China’s most polluted cities, an old farmer stares despairingly out across an immense lake of bubbling toxic waste covered in black dust. He remembers it as fields of wheat and corn.
    Yan Man Jia Hong is a dedicated Communist. At 74, he still believes in his revolutionary heroes, but he despises the young local officials and entrepreneurs who have let this happen.

    ‘Chairman Mao was a hero and saved us,’ he says. ‘But these people only care about money. They have destroyed our lives.’
    Vast fortunes are being amassed here in Inner Mongolia; the region has more than 90 per cent of the world’s legal reserves of rare earth metals, and specifically neodymium, the element needed to make the magnets in the most striking of green energy producers, wind turbines.

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    Bob Malloy

    Off topic, A follow up on Keith H,s above post on China’s Wind Farm manufacturing.

    This is a little old (2009), however it gives us ammunition to fight Gillard’s outright lies about China’s leaving us behind when it comes to green energy.

    Weaknesses In Chinese Wind Power
    China has shown it can build wind farms, but can it connect them economically to the grid?

    HONG KONG — Seeking to rein in its emissions of greenhouse gases, China is on an ambitious spending spree in wind power. The government is working on plans to shell out 1 trillion yuan ($146 billion) to build seven massive wind farms with a combined capacity of more than 120 gigawatts, roughly equal to the world’s total installed wind power plants last year.
    The world’s largest producer of carbon emissions has been doubling its wind power capacity every year since 2006; it was the world’s second-largest buyer of wind turbines in 2008. Yet, about 30% of its wind power assets are not in use–much of that not even connected to the transmission grid–a result of Chinese power companies turning to wind as the cheapest, easiest way to satisfy on paper government requirements to boost renewable energy capacity. Whether the massive new building push will be any more efficient is an open question, given that much of it is slated for out of the way places, mainly in the north, making it uneconomical to build the lengthy extensions to China’s grid that would be required to transmit the power to distant population centers.

    Citigroup estimates China’s wind power capacity could easily grow to 130 gW by 2020. “Yet, the most important question is whether wind energy in China is efficient,” said Pierre Lau, Head of Asia-Pacific Utilities Research with Citi.

    So far, the answer has been “no.”

    China’s wind turbine installation boom kicked off in 2006 as a result of a law that required power companies with over 5 gW of production capacity to build enough non-hydro renewable power sources to make up at least 3% of their installed capacity by 2010, and at least 8% by 2020. However, the regulations do not stipulate how much energy must actually be generated from renewable power sources.

    To construct wind turbines in Inner Mongolia to capture the strong winds from the Mongolian and Siberian steppes seems logical at first glance. “However, most of the wind farms in Inner Mongolia are erected in remote places too far away from the transmission network and thus uneconomical for the grid to extend the cables to collect the wind power,”

    Read it all here: http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/20/china-wind-power-business-energy-china.html

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    Bob Malloy

    And this as well:

    Lomborg: China Not So ‘Green’
    April 21, 2011 7:15 A.M.
    By Greg Pollowitz

    Bjørn Lomborg smacks down the “China is awesome” crowd in today’s Washington Post. A must read:

    As the world’s factory floor, China is not an obvious environmental leader. It is beleaguered by severe pollution and generates more carbon emissions than any other nation. Yet many have trumpeted it as an emerging “green giant” for its non-carbon-based energy production and its aggressive promises to cut carbon emissions. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman described China’s “green leap forward” as “the most important thing to happen” at the end of the first decade of the 21st century.

    But the facts do not support this “green” success story.

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    Keith H

    Update to my post at 35.

    The Greens have me listed in their recent comments column (Polluting Wind Turbines/KV) but have made sure no one can access it. A “click” starts to load but then just takes one back to the Green article !!Am I surprised? No! Can’t have our Green supporters exposed to a bit of truth you know!!

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    Tim

    The Carbon Tax has been rushed through with incredible haste. Discussion on the detail has taken over from discussion of the NEED for the tax and enveloped it with a HOW TO. It presumes that the whole argument behind CO2 as a major pollutant is fait accompli. What a stroke of marketing brilliance.

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    Joe Lalonde

    Jo,

    Is it a wonder that the UN wants to be the agency with the most power?
    Bankrupting countries in doing so.

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    […] of reasons for Climate Alarm Joanne Nova lists the billions of dollars flowing to the UN, thanks to Climate Change alarm advocated by… no other than the UN’s high authority on […]

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Bob Malloy @38, 39,

    More jousting at windmills? Why am I not surprised? The wind farm fiasco here in the San Gorgonio and Tehachapi passes would make anyone with an ounce of brains stop and think. But no, Don Quixote must rush on to the next windmill and save the damsel in distress. Now if only the current crop of Don Quixotes had the heroic character of the original…but we don’t even get that much!

    It looks like your carbon tax may not happen, simply because of political ineptitude. But one way or another I hope you dodge this one as you did the ETS.

    Roy

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  • #

    Bob Malloy @39: But the facts do not support this “green” success story.

    The facts are not in the script used by most of the talking heads. They stay on message without regard to the facts or their real world consequences. It is full speed ahead no matter what. They think it is of no concern of theirs if their words result in mankind encountering reality as a bug encounters the windshield of a speeding car.

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    Jeremy C

    Cohenite states the following on his ABC Drum piece:

    “Under the “Fast Start Finance” commitment from Cancun, which Combet announced, $599 million will be given to the IPCC under Australia’s combating AGW obligations. This $599 million is on top of the commitment made by Australia at Cancun to give 10% of revenue raised from a carbon tax to the IPCC.”

    I can’t find any reference to the IPCC being given money of this sort (599 million whoppers!!!) under the FSF commitment let alone 10% of any revenue raised in Australia from a carnon tax.

    Can anyone supply references for this because Cohenite negelected to do such a thing in his article.

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  • #
    TrueNews

    @TonyfromOz: #20

    Tony, an absolutely brilliant Post and Link.

    I didn’t realise at first, that you were the Author of the article, at your link to “The UN and Climate Change – Ten Fateful Words”.

    My reading of your article is that, under the Kyoto protocol:
    Countries like China, GET MONEY (from countries like Australia, via the UN) because China was, in 1997, listed in Kyoto as a Developing Country, even thought it is now the LARGEST EMITTER of CO2-e on the Planet.
    AND
    Australia has to PAY MONEY (to the UN) because it is listed in Kyoto as a ‘Developed’ Country).
    (No wonder the USA didn’t sign the KYOTO agreement)

    In your own words Tony.
    “Kyoto protocol is a legally binding document, and why would China especially want to now be included in those Countries that have to pay, instead of being one who is a net recipient, if you can see what I mean.”</em
    .
    .
    … A second, and probably the major point is the money, and as I have said all along, this argument is not about the Environment, but is really only about the money.

    OTTMAR EDENHOFER, (UN IPCCC Official and Lead Author of AR4) seems to agree with you Tony.

    Amazing insight, saying that you wrote this article before Cancun.

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  • #
    TrueNews

    Jo
    Backup Article from the LNP

    UN Green Climate Fund

    02/03/11

    The Prime Minister today failed to answer a question about the proportion of her carbon tax revenue that will be set aside for the United Nations Green Climate Fund, as agreed by the Australian Government at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference and reconfirmed at the 2010 Cancun Conference.

    In contrast ALP backbenchers have been primed to mislead the public to say that all the carbon tax money will be spent on Australian families. For example Deborah O’Neil, the Member for Robertson, stated this morning that “ … the main message is that every cent that is raised by a carbon price is going to go back into assisting households with their household bills and that’s what really matters to the people in my electorate.”

    In reality, the fact is that in the Report of the Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing released on 5 November 2010, but written earlier in the year with the assistance of then Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance – Bob McMullen MP – on behalf of the Australian Government (page 4), it was recommended that: “Based on a carbon price of US$20-US$25 per ton of CO2 equivalent, auctions of emission allowances and domestic carbon taxes in developed countries with up to 10 per cent of total revenues allocated for international climate action could potentially mobilize around US$30 billion annually.” (pages 5-6)

    The High-Level Advisory Group was co-chaired by the Prime Ministers of Norway Jens Stoltenberg, United Kingdom Gordon Brown (originally) and Ethiopia Meles Zenawi.

    It is important to note that this proposal would only partially meet the target set by the Copenhagen Conference of $100 billion per annum.

    The question remains. How much of the carbon tax revenue will be contributed to the UN Fund?

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  • #
    TrueNews

    @Charles #36
    “Does anyone have a more solid link for this “10% of carbon tax goes to IPCC “

    I could link you to an Andrew Bolt article on the 10% Charles, but that would be just as incorrect as the article above.

    WHY, because the UN would only LIKE (up to) 10%, it is on their wish list, and it is not a mandatory commitment. BESIDES the $100 Billion they want to raise every year, from ‘Developed Countries’ has a Target year or 2020.

    I am no fan of the UN, in fact I am concerned that they are trying to be a ‘Global’ replica of the EU.
    I do not support their therory on Climate Change, and I think it is the biggest ecomonic rip off ever attempted.

    NOW, before you all ‘Thumbs Down’ this response, think of the words “research” and “peer review”, they don’t just apply to science.

    1.

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  • #

    […] reports how ‘billions’ are sneaking out of the back door to the United Nations and has discovered this fine table pictured here on the […]

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  • #
    TrueNews

    Jeremy C: #46
    “Cohenite states the following on his ABC Drum piece
    “Under the “Fast Start Finance” commitment from Cancun, which Combet announced, $599 million will be given to the IPCC under Australia’s combating AGW obligations. This $599 million is on top of the commitment made by Australia at Cancun to give 10% of revenue raised from a carbon tax to the IPCC.””

    For the 10% – which is incorrect – see my post @49. and the ‘PROOF:’ below.

    As for Fast Start Finance, it is in the ‘Increased’ Foreign Aid Budget, which I believe has been quarantined this year, I wonder why.

    PROOF:
    Japan ‘pledged’ $15 Billion (USD) to Fast Start (50% of Fast Start) They won’t do that for the $100 Billion Green Climate Fund.

    Australia’s $599 Million(AUD) contribution to Fast Start represents 2.06% of all Developed Countries contributions to Fast Start.

    Based on all Developed Countries contributing exactly the same percentages (as they did to Fast Start – including Japan at 50%) to the new $100 Billion Green Climate Fund.
    Australia would pay ($100B @ 2.06%) = $ 2.06 Billion per year. (A lot more than 10% – even at $26 per tonne Tax)

    If Japan only paid the same percentage as the USA, to the $100 Billion Green Climate Fund, then. for the UN to raise the $100 Billion, Australia would need to contribute 3.54%, or $3.54 Billion per year.

    My Figures are based on exactly the same figures as in the chart in Jo’s article, except for my updated USA contributions of $3.2 Billion (10.91%).

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  • #
    MadJak

    I have nothing to Post, wes george summed up my views perfectly at 17.

    Wes, Have you considered getting that post a wider audience somewhere? It is as succinct as it is true in it’s apt precision.

    As the penguins in Madagascar said “Just Smile and wave boys, just smile and wave”…

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  • #
    cohenite

    JC@46; is that really the best you can do? The links are in the article; why don’t you ask Bob McMullan, the ALP man on the ground at the UN/IPCC?

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  • #
    davidc

    To see what a total government-sponsored scam this is, follow a few links (or better, save time by taking my word for it):

    Here’s a clue as to what they (presumably the Dept of Climate Change, or perhaps a team of consultants) actually do:

    http://www.climatechange.gov.au/media/whats-new/~/media/publications/international/australias-fast-start-finance-progress-report.ashx

    At the end of the report under the heading Transparency is the link

    http://www.reddplusdatabase.org

    which is a single page (with lots more links) stating that this is a “voluntary” database, although the only “data” I could see was a map of the world with some dots. But for the insiders there’s this statement:

    Donors and recipients agree certain activities to be undertaken, within a certain timeframe and with an optional budget. This is in the database called an “arrangement”. It is the central reporting channel in the database. Many donors can join forces in given arrangement. Recipients can be countries or institutions. Institutions can themselves also be donors when working as intermediates between donors and final recipients. Recipients can finally be either a country or an institution.

    I think this is saying that there’s a heap of money here and it’s available to anyone who asks. And reporting what you did is voluntary.

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  • #
    Jeremy C

    Cohenite,

    I followed your links. They didn’t end up at the IPCC. Do have better references?

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  • #
    Ross

    In the UK they’ve had lobby groups for AGW funded by the Govt. What next ?? I think some of the politicians really do believe money grows on trees.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8469883/Lobbyists-who-cleared-Climategate-academics-funded-by-taxpayers-and-the-BBC.html

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  • #

    Re Australia’s contribution in Joanne’s article above, see YouTube: Combet’s Con meets Julia’s Magic Pudding

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  • #
    Damian Allen

    I just found this disturbing article…..

    British Council spending millions recruiting 100,000 “international climate champions”:-

    http://www.climategate.com/british-council-spending-taxpayers-money-on-the-recruiting-of-100000-international-climate-champions

    This can’t be allowed to continue !!!!!!!!!!!

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  • #
    Damian Allen

    MORE CLIMATE ALARMIST LIES DEBUNKED – “Past Alarm. World’s Coral: 40% gone by 2010 ”

    http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2011/04/past-alarm-worlds-coral-40-gone-by-2010.html

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  • #
    pat

    re solar panels –
    everyone i know who has asked for a quote has been told they have to cut down a tree or number of trees if they want them to work properly. i keep wondering how many trees have been cut down around the country to date?

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  • #
    cohenite

    If anyone is interested they should vote in this poll which asks whether you support Sharon Grierson’s [the local fed memeber] opinion that Newcastle’s future depends on the carbon tax:

    http://www.theherald.com.au/polls/?page=

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  • #
    Damian Allen

    global warming Alamists running out of TV friends – The “climate institute” interview………..

    The global warmists are running out of havens when the Climate Institute gets a monstering even on Channel 9 breakfast television. Mind you, there’s still a home for the alarmist on Channel 7’s breakfast TV…

    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/alamists_running_out_of_tv_friends/

    BHP and KPMG both sponsor this COMMUNIST “climate institute” because they stand to earn BILLIONS of dollars from DESTROYING the Australian economy though this carbon trading based on the FRAUD of global warming !!!!!!!!

    SCUMBAGS !

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  • #
    manalive

    It is in Australia’s interest to assist developing countries to take urgent adaptation actions and to build their capacity to reduce emissions… Combet.

    Evidently our billions are to be wasted on solar panels, windmills etc., when what is needed is abundant base load power which, at this stage, only the established sources can provide.

    Foreign aid sounds to me like charity and to quote John D. Rockefeller “charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it”.

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  • #
    Jeremy C

    Cohenite,

    I had already read the West Australian link you provided in the article. The problem is that the IPCC is not mentioned once in the article.

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  • #
    TrueNews

    @manalive: #64
    “Evidently our billions are to be wasted on solar panels, windmills etc., when what is needed is abundant base load power which, at this stage, only the established sources can provide.”

    I read somewhere yesterday that new ‘Coal Fired’ Power Stations were on the agenda for the “Green Climate Funds’ Developing Countries. !!!.

    When I find the link i will post it.

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  • #
    cohenite

    JC; what is your point? This idea that the IPCC is used instead of the UN as the beneficiary of Fast Start and consequently 10% of any carbon tax proceeds is a distinction which would preoccupy only the most foolish of minds.

    Are you saying that Fast Start is not part of the IPCC’s ambit and not determined by the IPCC’s science? Are you saying the UN and the IPCC are not effectively one and the same on this? Are you saying the IPCC is independent of the UN? Are you saying that describing the IPCC as the recipient of Fast Start funding is a a misrepresentation of the facts? Perhaps this will help you:

    http://www.un.org/wcm/webdav/site/climatechange/shared/Documents/AGF_reports/AGF_Final_Report.pdf

    Clauses 40 and 94 are particularly revealing.

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  • #
    Damian Allen

    “manalive” (64),
    Australia is set to have a Foreign Aid Budget of $8 Billion Dollars.

    What the Hell is this money being used for and why should we give even more to these despot third world regimes via a carbon DIOXIDE (Plant Food) Tax?????????

    No Way !!!!!!!!

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  • #
    Damian Allen

    This might be of interest……..

    World Bank spends billions on coal-fired power stations:-

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6836112.ece

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  • #
    Damian Allen

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts. The UN General Assembly endorsed the action by WMO and UNEP in jointly establishing the IPCC.

    http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.shtml

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  • #
    rukidding

    Cohenite @ 67
    I think if you have a look through that document you linked to you will find no mention of the IPCC.The organisation that runs this scam is the UNFCCC The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.They are the ones who use the science of the IPCC to determine how much shmucks like Australia are going to have to pay up and they are the ones who have laid the framework of a one world government.That was what the treaty at Copenhagen was supposed to achive but it didn’t.One bullet dodged.But don’t think that was their only shot in the locker.Having been defeated in a frontal assault they are working on a flanking maneuver.We need to get out of this before we are traped.

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  • #
    Jeremy C

    Cohenite,

    Its not what I’m saying, its what you stated in your ABC online piece, i.e. that $599 million tax dollars will be going to the IPCC. Nowhere in the document you linked to above is that mentioned, either in 40 or 94 as you suggested, the only time the IPCC is mentioned is on page 68, Section III Lessons for Spending Wisely.

    Its just not me pointing this out Cohenite, a number of people have pointed this out in the blog section attached to your article. So where did you get the information that $599 million and 10% of carbon taxes will be going to the IPCC?

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  • #
    Keith H

    Ross @ 57. Remember the old adage – follow the money.

    From the site of IIGCC.

    “The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change is a forum for collaboration on Climate Change for European investors. The Group’s objective is to catalyse greater investment in a low carbon economy by bringing investors together to use their collective influence with companies, policymakers and investors. The Group currently has 72 members representing assets of around 6.5 trillion Euros!”

    Have a look at the members and see what we’re up against. BBC Pension Fund, many Churches Pension funds, Boroughs etc. Frightening!

    http://iigcc.org/about-us/members

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  • #
    cohenite

    Jeremey, I’m glad it is not you pointing it out; the fact that someone posting under your blog name, who did point out this vanishingly small distinction is what threw me at first but that disavowal by you sets the record straight.

    As I say @67, what is your point? Whoever is the nominated UN sock puppet, The IPCC, the UNFCCC, the point will be the same; the scam of AGW will be the dues ex machina of the UN’s plan to redistribute the world’s wealth and fulfill every bureaucracy’s wet-dream, achieve financial independence, with the money from that financial independence distributed amongst all the UN’s multifarious forms, including the IPCC.

    I repeat, do you have a point other than meaningless and irrelevant pedantry? Do you think the IPCC will not get any funds from Fast Start and the 10% carbon tax tithe; please answer that?

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  • #
    Jeremy C

    Cohenite,

    $599 million dollars of my tax payers money to the IPCC is not meaningless pedantry….. and as I said it wasn’t just me pointing out your mistake on the ABC’s website. This statement about the IPCC is the first plank in the argument of your article, so pointing out problems with it cannot be pedantry.

    Its not up to me to answer you about what the IPCC’s sources of funding are as you are the one who has made this particular claim.

    Look if you made a mistake, just fess up and correct it on the ABC’s website and everybody will accept that.

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  • #
    cohenite

    Fess up yourself to being peurile; there is no mistake, no distinction; it is not the first plank in mine or any other argument. You answer the question: will the IPCC profit by any such fund-raising?

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  • #
    Speedy

    Damien @ 63

    You can be assured that whatever the “Big Australian” is doing, it’s not in the interests of Australians!

    The sinister thing is that the BHP management is not so dumb as to believe otherwise – they just don’t care! The government needs to deny them their money-printing licence to the Pilbara mine sites. Stuff em (both).

    Cheers (except you, Marius)

    Speedy.

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  • #
    John Brookes

    Go on Cohenite – just say you made a little miskate… Ist not taht hrad…

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  • #
    Jeremy C

    Cohenite,

    Getting upset and lashing out wont correct your mistake. Neither will asking me about what moneys goes toward funding the IPCC, that was your assertion, you have to justify it.

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  • #
    TrueNews

    We are being RATFU..ED (to quote Kevin Rudd) PART 1

    Thanks to an excellent link from @cohenite #67, I am now able to join all the dots, and prove that, to the UN, Climate Change is a secondary issue, and that a ‘Carbon Tax’ might not be the only Tax we have to face.
    The link was to a UN document titled ‘Report of the Secretary-General’s High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing’.
    .
    THIS IS A TWO PART POST:
    In PART 1, I will outline all the additional Taxes the UN would like us all to pay to their ‘Green Climate Fund’, to get to their $100 Billion budget by 2020.
    In PART 2, which will be my next post, (because it’s late and I need to do more math), I will use the UN’s own ‘example’ from ‘the document’ to show their ulterior motives.
    .

    This is a ‘Cut and Paste’ directly from the UN document at @cohenite’s link.
    (Items in Bold Italic are my comments)

    UN ADDITIONAL TAXES:
    (iv) … taxes on international aviation and shipping: this would either involve some levy on maritime bunker/aviation jet fuels…, or a levy on passenger tickets of international flights;
    (A NEW AIRLINE & SHIPPING TAX)

    (v) Revenues from a wires charge: this involves a small charge on electricity generation…
    (ANOTHER ELECTRICITY CHARGE)

    (vi) Revenues generated by removing fossil energy subsidies in developed countries: …
    (NO COMPENSATION FOR COAL FIRED POWER STATIONS – ANOTHER ELECTRICITY CHARGE)

    (vii) Revenues from fossil fuel extraction royalties/licences:…
    (JUST ANOTHER MINING TAX)

    (viii) Revenues from carbon taxes: this is based on a tax on carbon emissions in developed countries raised on a per-ton-emitted basis;
    (WE ALL KNOW ABOUT THIS ONE, DON’T WE)

    (ix) Revenues from a financial transaction tax:…
    (A NEW TAX ON BANK / FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS)

    (x) Direct budget contributions: this involves revenues provided
    through national budgetary decisions;
    (CHECK OUT OUR FOREIGN AID BUDGET – WE JUST DOUBLED IT).
    .

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  • #

    To TrueNews at Number 66

    This article is from The Times, and note the date, September 2009.
    They are spending Billions in Developing Countries constructing, of all things, coal fired power plants, because they say that developing Countries have, er, no alternative!

    World Bank spends billions on coal-fired power stations

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  • #
    TrueNews

    @Keith H: #73
    ““The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change is a forum for collaboration on Climate Change for European investors. The Group’s objective is to catalyse greater investment in a low carbon economy bybringing investors together to use their collective influence with companies, policymakers and investors. The Group currently has 72 members representing assets of around 6.5 trillion Euros!””

    It is frightning, sometimes you look at the amount of money lining up behind the ‘Warmists’and think, how can we defeat this, there is the UN, the Governments, the Banks, the Pension Funds, and even Marius Klophead at BHP.

    THEN:
    Along comes Tim Flannery, who, in his infinate wisdom, decides to do an interveiw with Bolt.

    The UN, the Governments, the Banks, the Pension Funds, and even Marius Klophead at BHP can’t compete with that.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Instead of crossing verbal swords with Cohenite, best get up and start the fight you need to make to kill the CO2 tax!!!

    I’ve never seen smoke rising out of the middle of a lake. I hope the metaphor isn’t lost on anyone.

    You have a problem and one way or another the UN is at the bottom of it. But the only thing you can fight is your own government. There is no point in arguing among yourselves. 😉

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  • #
    TrueNews

    @TonyfromOz: #81
    “This article is from The Times, and note the date, September 2009.
    They are spending Billions in Developing Countries constructing, of all things, coal fired power plants, because they say that developing Countries have, er, no alternative!”

    .

    Many Thanks Tony, (I knew I had read it somewhere)

    Could the ‘World Bank’ in the article, be the very same ‘World Bank’ that has been invited to serve as the interim trustee for the UN’s Green Climate Fund.

    OOPS:
    .

    I wouldn’t be surprised if they were involved in this too.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html

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  • #
    pattoh

    I guess what it really boils down to is whether the worlds communities see themselves first as societies of individual nations or primarily as citizens of the world.

    This whole scam is some kind of creeping New World Order paradigm installed mostly by subterfuge under the guise of “pressing global crisis requiring global solutions” (see Agenda 21 , Fabian ideals etc.)

    On a day when it is very timely to consider the great historic cost & human sacrifice made to protect & maintain national sovereignty & way of life, it is appropriate to remember what we hold dear & never, ever take it for granted.

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  • #
    Another Ian

    Jo, delete if posted above, but there might be be more leakages

    “Fruits of a tangled web

    Posted on April 24, 2011 by Verity Jones

    The Sunday Telegraph, under the headline today: “Lobbyists who cleared ‘Climategate’ academics funded by taxpayers and the BBC“ describes

    “A shadowy lobby group which pushes the case that global warming is a real threat is being funded by the taxpayer and assisted by the BBC.”

    The funding and links of Globe International (“The little-known not-for-profit company works behind the scenes at international conferences to further its aims“) and a related run wide and deep. Such are its connections and influence that we see the hand of the organisation working to ‘protect its own’ in the investigation into the Climategate emails:

    “Lord Oxburgh, the organisation’s director, was called in to head an internal inquiry into the leaked emails which included one infamous message referring to a “trick” to “hide the decline” in global temperatures.

    The peer’s investigation cleared the scientists of malpractice. But critics claimed the report was a whitewash and Lord Oxburgh also failed to declare his involvement with Globe before he began his investigation.” Full story here”

    More at

    http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2011/04/24/fruits-of-a-tangled-web/#more-1870

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    janama

    “In June 2010, Australia announced it would contribute A$599 million to fast-start financing for climate change. I’m very pleased to report that we’re delivering on this commitment,” said the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, at the United Nations Climate Change negotiations in Cancun.

    http://www.climatechange.gov.au/minister/greg-combet/2010/media-releases/December/mr20101210.aspx

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    cohenite

    John Brookes@78; “Go on Cohenite – just say you made a little miskate… Ist not taht hrad…”

    Very witty; I make mistakes, glad to admit it, I once thought I’d get a decent discussion at Deltoid, I’m happy to admit I was mistaken.

    But saying Fast Start money and a %10 carbon tax tighe will also go to the IPCC is not a mistake; the fact that those funds will go to other UN agencies is besides the point; all those UN agencies, including the IPCC are fingers on the same hand which holds the gun of AGW policies; but I think it is appropriate to focus on the IPCC because it is where the momentum for the policies to raise funds to combat AGW began; the IPCC is the foundation and raison d’etre of every policy developed by the UN to raise funds to combat AGW.

    JC has ignored all that and typically focused on what no doubt he thinks is a ‘major’ mistake by me in nominating the IPCC rather than the UNFCCC or the UN itself as the recipient of the funds; as I said this is a peurile distinction; but I am happy to admit another mistake and that was taking JC seriously; he is slipped in my estimation to, say, about your level in this debate.

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  • #
    Jeremy C

    Cohenite,

    You made a slip up, you won’t admit it and now you are trying to spin things so making it worse turning it into a cock up.

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  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    Another Ian: #86

    Posted on April 24, 2011 by Verity Jones

    Ah, but the delightful Verity is merely parroting Jason Lewis, the “Investigations Editor” of the British Sunday Telegraph, and his story relates to information that is over a year old.

    The story was originally broken by Andrew Orlowski, writing in The Register, on 24 March 2010, was then picked up almost immediately by Dr Richard North’s EUReferendum blog, and then three days after that, as an opinion piece, by Christopher Booker at the Daily Telegraph.

    In the “intelligence trade”, such a flurry of belated interest in a subject, on the part of the media, is known as “Olds”, for obvious reasons. 🙂

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  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    Jeremy C:

    Try adding, “Nah, Nanna, Nah, Nah!” to the end of your comments to see if that increases the effect.

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  • #
    brc

    Regarding solar panels : I went to a home show recently. Every third booth was a display by a small solar-panel company. Opening my local paper on the weekend every second page has an ad for a solar panel company. They’ve all got slightly different names but the underlying message is the same : get free money from the government, now, before it is too late.

    This is just another insulation debacle. Hopefully no deaths or property destruction will result, but you can be sure a lot of economic destruction is underway. There is a branch of my extended family who are not know for their financial acumen, but who are known for their fad-following ability. Every single one of their houses is adorned with solar panels, and any gathering is replete with stories of free-money from the sun. I grit my teeth and try not to snap that their free money comes from my pocket with higher power costs, and that money that might have been spent in my local community now goes into their solar panels – perfectly good wealth trapped in a useless piece of eco-bling.

    In ten years time I wouldn’t be surprised if the companies now trying to flog solar panels start offering services to have them removed. Because after they get covered in a layer of grime and dirt, shaded by trees, angled the wrong way, I suspect the result will be that they become far more trouble than they are worth.

    Kitchens are meant to last 25 years, but the fads embodied in each installation rarely survive that long. If progress is made in solar technology, currently installed panels will be out of date in 10 years or less.

    Make no mistake, the people who have currently invested time and money into building solar panel companies are about to start crying unfair when they realise that the demand for the next 10 years has been brought forwards, and the entire industry is about to collapse. They will descend on Canberra and cry and moan, and just like Rudd with the insulation debacle, Gillard will have to come and address them. But I say : let them collapse. It’s sad, but small business owners need to understand that as the government creates industries, it also takes them away.

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    Abysmal Spectator

    brc: Very true. Government subsidies, especially large front loaded ones like this, skew markets horribly and create problems.

    Having said that, current solar technology still just about makes economic sense at the individual level even without the subsidy, provided one is using capital and not borrowing to pay for the installation (if one makes reasonable assumptions about marginal tax rates, annual changes in energy costs, deterioration of panels etc.). With the government subsidy, they are a no brainer from an individual perspective up to 3kw.

    Although you may not agree with the subsidy in the first place, given that it exists and you can’t do anything about that fact, you’d be a fool not to benefit from it and take some solace in the fact that, unlike a lot of inefficient government spending across the world in the past 3 years, this is at least improving infrastructure.

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    pat

    the solar panels are definitely not for all, but only for property owners.
    a friend told me yesterday about pensioners he knows who had enough panels put up to reap a return from their electricity company, but that money is now considered to be income and their pensions have been reduced.

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    Abysmal Spectator

    pat: Yes, as a pensioner you have to be careful, however the “earnings” that paid for the power bill up to the point of profit aren’t considered “earnings” with respect to the pension, whereas interest on term deposits (where that capital would likely otherwise been deployed) would be. Provided you don’t slip into profit and given current life expectancies, recently retired pensioners whose savings are reducing their pension are in a better position than a worker to profit from the solar panel rebate.

    In our case, a 3kw system had an expected pretax annual return on capital (assuming no change in electricity price) of 19%. The thing would pay itself off in 7 years. Due to front loading of the benefits, the 1.5kw systems would earn their keep in 3 years (back when one could be had for $2000 or so.) These figures of course pertain to my family’s circumstances, and would be changed if you were on a low marginal tax rate, used a different amount of energy during the day, lived in a different part of Australia, had to borrow the capital etc. etc. etc.,

    (Btw, I have no vested interest in solar panels other than having built a financial model for my parents who were trying to work out whether they wanted to install a system on their shed or not. Without the rebate, the prospect becomes rather marginal, unless you expect serious inflation in energy prices…perhaps not an unreasonable assumption given how various governments are dealing with the GFC.

    On a complete tangent, one thing I haven’t seen discussed much is the grid stability problems load balancing the input of a nation’s housing stock’s worth of solar panels will create. I wonder whether the government has thought much about that or whether this rebate scheme just seemed like a “really good idea(tm)” with no downsides?)

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    I know it’s off the original topic, but for those of you who have an interest in Household Solar Power, I can direct you to this link, one of my own, sorry, but it details how something like this is not all it’s cracked up to be, on so many fronts, original cost, subsidies, feed in tarrifs, ability to actually supply household power, life expectancy of the system, and other aspects as well.

    Household Solar Power – Don’t Believe The Hype

    It’s from January of 2010, but is as relevant now as it was then.

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    Tel

    What the Labor/Green insane clown posse in Canberra deserves now is a really big victory in their Carbon Tax war against Australian prosperity. Why save them from themselves?

    Yes I quite agree, we should be supporting the carbon tax (or at least not obstructing it). Let things roll forward where they roll, and see what happens. Easy enough to get rid of it later on down the track if everyone turns out to hate it.

    May I point out that oil is currently taxed many ways right now, including tax on the oil itself and tax on petrol and tax on motor vehicles, and road tolls as well.

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    Richard C (NZ)

    A challenge was issued by (not so) Silent under the Climate Conversations post “Now Gluckman wants evidence too”

    Why dont you guys team up and draft up a precis and send it to him?

    Sir Peter Gluckman is NZ’s Chief Scientist and adviser to the PM on science including climate change. Because I think the challenge is very constructive I’ve suggested that the challenge be run in the form of a competition. I’ve drafted the following to get the ball rolling, my approach being to keep it simple and to distill the issue to the one defining factor that either supports or disproves the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming e.g.

    To Sir Peter Gluckman,

    The theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming relies entirely on the notion that increases in the minor greenhouse gas CO2 result in increases of the major greenhouse gas water vapor, thereby supposedly increasing global warming to alarming levels of 2-5C per doubling of CO2 levels. Without this assumed and unproven positive feedback from water vapor, there is no basis for alarm.

    The IPCC states in their 2007 report:-

    “The average atmospheric water vapour content has increased since at least the 1980s over land and ocean as well as in the upper troposphere. The increase is broadly consistent with the extra water vapour that warmer air can hold.”

    The 2005 paper “Water vapor trends and variability from the global NVAP dataset” by Thomas. H. Vonder Haar, John M. Forsythe, Johnny Luo, David L. Randel and Shannon Woo based on the NASA water vapor data set [called NVAP] showed that water vapor levels had instead declined (with 95% confidence) between 1988-1999. The paper states,

    “By examining the 12 year record [1988-1999], a decrease of TPW [total precipitable water vapor] at a rate of -0.29 mm / decade is observed. This relationship is significant at the 95 % but not at the 99 % level [since when do climate scientists insist on a 99% confidence level?]. A downward trend would be intriguing since there should be a positive slope if a global warming signal was present.”

    While most NASA data is made available on the internet within a few months of collection and analysis, for some reason NASA NVAP water vapor data -which could either support or undermine the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming- is not going to be officially released for up to 12 years since collection. Dr Roger A. Pielke Sr.(Senior Research Scientist, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado in Boulder Professor Emeritus of the Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins) asks:-

    “Since this is such a fundamental climate metric to compare with the IPCC multi-decadal global model predictions (which project a continued increase in tropospheric water vapor), the achievement of an updated (through 2010) accurate analysis of the NVAP data should be of the highest climate science priority.”

    Should not also, the NZ government via the Office of Climate Change be pursuing this data as the most important (and only) action that the office undertakes because it is the one metric that either supports or disproves the CAGW hypothesis?

    If a downward trend in total precipitable water vapour (TPW) has continued since 1999, no further action needs to be taken in respect to man-made climate change as a result of fossil fuel emissions and the ETS can be repealed.

    Richard Cumming

    Professor Ian Chubb AC was appointed to the position of Australia’s Chief Scientist on Tuesday 19 April 2011. He will commence in the position on Monday 23 May 2011

    For general enquiries, please contact the office on:
    Ph: +61 2 6276 1727
    Email: [email protected]

    http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/about/

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    Albert

    The early years of these schemes through the UN left no paper trail. Those poor countries that were promised money are still waiting.
    Countries that contributed to the funds are still trying to find out what happened to their money.

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    Jack Taylor

    An oldie, but a goodie…

    Driver in Canberra was stuck in a huge traffic jam. A police officer was going window to window down the line of cars. The driver finally got his chance to ask what was happening up ahead. The police officer replied that a band of terrorists had taken the top labor party leaders hostage and was threatening to pour petrol on them and set them alight unless paid a ransom of $10 million. The police officer was asking for donations to help in the cause. The driver, searching for a suitable donation, asked what the average donation was from the other drivers ahead of him.
    Came the reply, “About five litres.”

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    cohenite

    Richard C@99; I would add in respect of water vapor decline the Soloman paper:

    http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1219.abstract

    The Paltridge paper:

    http://www.theclimatescam.se/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/paltridgearkingpook.pdf

    The Pierce paper:

    http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/papers/Pierce_et_al_AIRS_vs_models_2006GL027060.pdf

    Of possibly more interest is the fact that in the overlapping spectrum CO2 reduces the emissivity of H2O:

    http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2011/EGU2011-4505-1.pdf

    http://thesis.library.caltech.edu/2809/1/Lapp_m_1960.pdf

    This is well shown in a graph of H2O and CO2 in the overlapping spectrums:

    http://scienceofdoom.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/spectra-h2o-co2-15um.png

    This decline in the emissivity of H2O in the presence of CO2 means the dependency of AGW on climate sensivity from positive feedback from H2O is severely restrained and must be problematic.

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    […] Billions of dollars sneaks out the door through UN committees […]

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    Richard C (NZ)

    Thanks Cohenite #102, a much stronger case when there’s “multiple lines of evidence” (according to the AGW proponents that is).

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    Liz

    I see that the EU is contributing, as are individual member states, which means that we poor suckers are, in fact, paying twice for this con

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    […] taxes already: Billions of dollars sneaks out the door through UN committees – governments paying UN […]

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    […] health system.Australians do not need yet another tax. We have enough of them already.Billions of dollars sneaks out the door through UN committees, JoNova, 23 April 2011 The carbon tax that ate Australia, The Drum [ABC], 21 April 2011 10% of […]

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    […] desalination plants, “green” education programs, carbon taxes, carbon trading, and UN payments and who knows what else.  If the AGW theory is incorrect, then this is just money blowing in the […]

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