Inside COP21 – Another Missile from Paris

Guest Author Uncategorized

Here is Guest Author Thom Mitchell’s latest dispatch from Paris:

Bad coffee and the smell of rats, but looks like progress?

Dear NM Insider,

On Monday, 150 world leaders issued forth to the Paris climate talks with grandiose statements about saving the planet. Most have left, because, you know, saving the planet is a part-time job.

The negotiators tasked with giving affect to their words are now pouring over every word of every letter of what is currently a 50-page draft of the new international agreement on climate change. When the 11 December deadline for the end of negotiations comes, it will set out exactly how the world-saving will, or perhaps won’t, be done.

At the time of writing – the first Thursday night of the two week summit – it’s still half-filled with the infamous [square brackets] which indicate the wording still to be agreed on. They stand in for the sleepless nights that have already started in earnest. (I saw a guy literally sleeping standing up on the train back to Paris city centre at 6pm today).

It’s a pity French coffee is so bad.

Negotiators, non-governmental observers, and a serious media scrum are spinning off into all manner of informal meetings, often in the pricey cafeterias making a killing out of impending global disaster, to discuss the square brackets and what they mean for the world’s chances of avoiding dangerous climate change, and the interests and agendas of individual nations.

The 18-hectare conference centre where the negotiating’s being done is a total circus. So it’s fitting that a boulevard which separates two rows of massive warehouses at the site in Le Bourget, on Paris’ outer fringe, is lined with kitsch plastic animals, translucent and standing in for the one’s whose future is being determined.

Ditto for the skeletal trees just outside the airport-security entrance, which watch over hundreds of busloads of people ferrying in and out of the main site each day, and to and from the train station or various side events.

An overbearing sense of artifice permeates the whole show, as different countries, not-for-profits, academics and journalists scurry through the melee. There are people in elaborate turbans, saris, suits, and pāreus; speaking French, English, and dozens of other languages, and rushing off to meetings in side rooms, plenaries and cafe corners.

Some of them, like the Pacific Islander delegates, are trying to save their people. Others, rather selfishly, their economies. But the obvious disparity in negotiating power is largely hushed up, and for countries which are both poor and large emitters of carbon, the situation is a much more complex and delicate balancing act.

Because the process is run by consensus, every country, in a way, has the ability to bugger it up by refusing to sign on to the final text. But in these early stages people are treading carefully. The problem with, say, Pacific Islanders kicking up a stink about the fact that what’s being negotiated will sink many of their homes, is that for them any deal is better than none at all. And the problem with India demanding an ambitious deal which would save them huge money on their adaptation bill, is they have domestic demands to provide ‘electricity to all’ the 300 million without it by 2030.

At this stage, as the 196 countries involved work collaboratively on the climate pact, delegates are feeling out others’ negotiating positions, and getting ready for the political crunch that comes in the second week. But hopes are genuinely high that the talks will produce a document coherent, ambitious, and credible enough to kickstart the shift towards a lower carbon world.

The focus is largely on process – we know we’re not going to get even to a two degree goal, inadequate though the science tells us that is – so there’s a huge emphasis on setting up a system that will ratchet up over time, and leave the door open to greater ambition later.

But it could easily be another furphy.

Earlier today, renowned climate scientist and former head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James Hansen (pictured below), told me he’d come to his first ever climate talks because he smelt a rat.

He said he thought governments would come to the conference, and leave claiming they’d made serious progress. They’ve done it plenty of times before, but some estimates say emissions are up by more than 60 per cent since the first major climate conference.

“Unlike the ozone problem where the governments actually took some actions to solve the problem, in the case of the climate problem, they’re not taking action,” he said. “Young people and future generations are screwed if we stay on that path, [but] trying to communicate against this headwind of fossil fuel propaganda is very difficult.”

There will be an update on key bones of contention in the morning, and it should become a fair bit clearer how things are progressing. But history tells us that in spite of all the careful planning and soaring rhetoric, the real decisions will be made in a schism towards the end of the second week.

I’ll keep you posted.

Cheers, Thom

503 thoughts on “Inside COP21 – Another Missile from Paris”

  1. “The Troll sat there for a moment and said “I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m sorry. It was like a game thing.””

  9. Buzzfeed- everything you need to know about turnbull’s innovation thing today.

    The Government’s Innovation Launch Was Packed With Incredible Marketing Bullshit
    http://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/start-me-up#.ntwvKBZwP

    How nice – Waffles has an Apple watch and made damn sure everyone knew it. WANKER!

    I just loved this bit –

    Perhaps one of the more enjoyable moments was that the “Ideas Boom” launch at CSIRO HQ – Australia’s ground zero of high-tech and science – could not be beamed live on the ABC

  13. Not sure this is a good idea –

    Businesses will be given the freedom to fail and get back up on their feet quickly under new US-style bankruptcy laws announced as part of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s innovation statement.
    The changes will allow companies to trade while insolvent and cut the period in which bankrupts cannot run other businesses to just one year

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/free-to-fail-in-new-11-billion-innovation-plan-20151206-glgzll.html

    Maybe Turnbull doesn’t know we already have laws which cover this sort of thing and the system has been working well for a long, long time.
    https://www.afsa.gov.au/debtors/debt-agreement

  15. “Turnbull’s tax reform aims to boost corporate profits ”
    .
    It has been a surprise recently to hear that increasing company profits is assumed by economist types to automatically lead to higher wages .For sure they will have an increased capacity to pay more but I’ve a bridge to sell you if you believe companies can’t wait to rush out and share those extra profits with the workers.

    Fatter bonuses for executives and board members on the other hand. While at the coal face it will more of their version of “productivity” and “efficiency” .

  16. Kaffeeklatscher,

    Some economist types are naïve and/or gullible.

    Others are complicit with the big end of town.

    A very few understand which way is up.

  17. ” Waffles has an Apple watch and made damn sure everyone knew it. WANKER”
    .

    Apple’s tax “minimisation” methods makes it the perfect choice for our Malcayman.

  18. Clementine Ford and the case for exposing online abuse against women.
    https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/clementine-ford-and-the-case-for-exposing-online-abuse-against-women,8463

    And there’s this –
    Day to Day Politics. Why is the right so feral?
    http://theaimn.com/day-to-day-politics-why-is-the-right-so-feral/

    This country needs leadership. Abbott was a thug himself, during his time as LOTO he condoned violence and abuse aimed at women by his treatment of Julia Gillard. He failed to condemn or speak out against racism and religious intolerance. His silence was telling. Turnbull continues in the same way. allows Julie Bishop to continue with her personal vendetta against Tanya Plibersek, while he merely sits and smirks. He treats female Labor politicians as if they were children, ‘mansplaining’ in the most condescending manner to any question from a woman in QT. These actions tell us he has a 19th century attitude towards women, seeing them as just silly little creatures who should be at home with the kids.

    It gets worse. Turnbull has not said a word about Reclaim Australia or the feral offshoots of that organisation. He has not condemned their rallies or spoken out against their racism and hatred of Islam. His silence allows these feral nutters to believe they must have his approval.

    Australia needs a strong leader who will speak out against the increasing abuse and violence we see around us, a leader who will put a lid on it all before we start having US-type shootings in our streets. Reclaim Australia encourage their members to carry weapons and to use them Is that what this lousy, corrupt government wants? War on the streets, uncontrolled violence? It certainly seems so. But all we have is a smug, grinning fool who says and does nothing. Even his plan to address domestic abuse was not his own, it was a much-delayed Abbott plan. Turnbull just announced it and didn’t even have the wit to throw in a bit of extra funding to make up for Abbott’s budget cuts.

  21. Truffles has done it arse about. Why the fcuk get “business” into the unis when THEY are the problem ? Get science into business ffs. Time and time again and at a cost of untold billions to the economy scientists have seen the commercial potential but are forced to go overseas because the bloody useless “business community” can not.

    So yeah get the failures in to fix the lack of commercialisation of ideas.

  23. I am off on a unexpected but enjoyable drive to Karumba Tomorrow. Haven’t been there for a while so will be interesting to see the place again. Last time I was there no mobile reception and a very very very slow dial up internet . As I am now pretty lazy the return trip will probably take about a week. Should be Fun.

  33. Latest message from Puffy (she can’t comment because she only has her phone, which doesn’t have passwords stored):

    My stay in Perth has been extended to Friday. I get to spend more time with GD.

    GD is 16 months from birth date which was 10 weeks prem. She has passed all her milestones except speech. She knows some things have names. She says dad light cat etc. But she is in a bi- or trilingual household. English, 2nd language, and and maybe one other. Son, DIL and GD live with DIL’s family. Apparently this can slow speech development. [NB: The potential slower speech development is related to bi/multilingualism, not to living in an extended family. F.]

    GD is a problem solver. Recognises cause and effect. Light switch turns light off & or but the other switch does not. She has memory. Good coordination skills and responds to word jump with jumping up and down. She walks down stairs. Eats solids like apples etc. Make sounds as if she is talking sometimes. DIL is worried because she was prem but i told her she has a smart little dragonette (she loved the story of the name!)

    I am so happy.

    I’ve done my best to reassure Puffy that Grand Dragonette’s receptive language (comprehension) sounds developmentally normal, as does her productive (in her case spoken) language. I’ve also suggested a couple of strategies regarding the bi / multilingual household.

  34. http://www.ajc.com/news/news/carter-cancer-is-gone/npdFQ/

    http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/annastacia-palaszczuk-announces-cabinet-reshuffle-20151207-glhmzs.html

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/07/ideology-runs-rampant-at-rupert-murdochs-australian-newspaper

    http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/paris-cop21-australia-ignoring-energy-transition-as-emissions-soar-62857

  36. Re the price of renewables. A piece on Al Jazeera about a wind farm in Sth Africa said that the cost of power from it is half that from coal fired power stations over there.

    From Leroy’s link Truffles is another whose name should be on a giant granite monument listing the pollies and Koch Bros. types who fcuked the planet.

  37. Kaffeeklatscher,

    I vote that when the koch bros etc., die they should be processed into blood and bone, and sold as fertiliser.

    Except they might be too toxic . . .

  38. Ah, blood and bone.

    I think it was mid December 1970.

    Me mum had decided it was time to give the garden a good feed, so she, my dog Imp, and I piled into the VW fastback (approx, but different colour)

    and headed off to the Queanbeyan abattoir.

    Me mum wrangled a huge sack of B&B onto the back seat, and we started the drive home.

    Thirty seconds in, and every window was wound down. I was in the passenger seat, with Imp purportedly on my lap. In reality, I was hanging on to her right rear leg – the rest of her was out the window desperately seeking fresh air. To be honest, my head and shoulders were right behind her.

    How my mother managed the 15 minute drive home without asphyxiating I do not know.

    Needless to say, once the B&B was spread onto the garden, Imp became very interested in the exciting aroma.

  40. This maritime deregulation things is working out sooooo welll……

    Call to revoke licence for Alcoa’s foreign ship as captain’s bribes revealed

    The captain of the foreign-flagged ship chartered for the aluminium company Alcoa to replace its Australian vessel paid bribes to drug enforcement and immigration authorities in Nigeria and a shipping inspector in Argentina early this year, the former captain’s own documents show.
    The international seafarers’ union has forwarded the documents to the Australian Federal Police for investigation.
    Maritime unions have also called on Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss to suspend immediately the federal government’s special licence allowing Alcoa to replace its Australian ship and crew with the Singapore-registered vessel, the Strategic Alliance

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/call-to-revoke-licence-for-alcoas-foreign-ship-as-captains-bribes-revealed-20151207-glhids.html

  41. Leone,

    If things are about to get down and dirty for Mr Shorten – where (probably) at most it would be guilt by association, it’s up to the 5th estate to get seriously noisy about st malcolm’s noisome past.

    Good for one gander? Good for the other gander!

  42. Fiona

    Absolutely. But the MSM have not said one word about his very shady past, not a squeak. Nothing must get in the way of the media’s adoration of the saintly Malcayman.

  44. St Malcayman being an absolute boorish pain on 7.30 tonight. Good on Ms Sales for this line – ‘I ask the questions in this program’.

    Following on from comments I made earlier today – Turnbull tried to get Ms Sales to talk about innovation, didot want to answer her questions, talked over her, was condescending and rude, as he is to female politicians on the Labor side.

    This is not a ‘charming’ man. This is a pig.

  47. This is not a ‘charming’ man. This is a pig.

    Then why does an apparently intelligent woman like Lucy put up with him?

  48. But Turnbull’s taken a big hit in the approval stakes, down 8 on approval and up 8 on disapproval.

  49. Why does Lucy put up with him?

    Money?
    She needs someone to take out the bins on garbage night?
    she keeps him as a sort of pet, to entertain the grandkids, now his stud duties are over?
    It’s all a front for the media?

  50. Seriously though, I think Lucy is very much the boss in the Turnbull household. Malcolm’s nasty attitude to women is some sort of reaction to his home circumstances, the way he would like to behave there but can’t, because he is very much under the thumb. In public he acts out his dominant male fantasies because at home he is submissive and then some.

    I’ve noticed that Lucy is always with Malcolm and travels everywhere with him. She doesn’t let him out of her sight. Control freak in action.

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