EVEN before he gets to Bali for crucial climate change talks, Kevin Rudd has found himself embroiled in the complex world of global warming politics.
The Prime Minister yesterday attempted to clarify a statement from the Australian delegation in Bali, which said Australia “fully supports” an earlier decision for developed countries to examine cutting greenhouse emissions by between 25 per cent and 40 per cent by 2020.
That stance suggested Australia was prepared to radically cut its emissions, forcing Mr Rudd and his Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, to issue statements stressing that Australia was not yet committing itself to any 2020 targets.
Mr Rudd said some countries had indicated “they do not necessarily accept those targets, nor do they accept those targets as binding targets for themselves”. He added: “That is also the position of the Australian Government.”
Canadian media broadcast widely about the new Australian government “signing on” to Kyoto. This, not so much.
*
ya, but so what.
I was hit by a piece of falling sky today so that just proves global warming is real. And the tide was high today and I didn’t need to wear mitts and the people of Toronto don’t need the Army to shovel snow and . . . .
Winter is coming fast. Please make global warming come faster.
And, Rudd has muzzled his minister of the environment, former Midnight Oil front man Peter Garret.
Via Tim Blair:
Australia’s environment minister may be the only politician on earth charged with such responsibility who is banned (by his own party!) from talking about climate change:
Peter Garrett has campaigned heavily on climate change in the past, but Opposition MPs won’t get a chance to question him when parliament resumes next year.
In a move that has baffled some, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is ensuring his new Environment Minister keeps his mouth shut on such sensitive topics.
Having already been stripped of the Climate Change portfolio, Peter Garrett will also lose his climate change voice; with Kevin Rudd making Treasurer Wayne Swan responsible for climate change discussion in the House of Representatives.
Rudd’s move won’t baffle anyone familiar with Garrett’s inability to cope with questions. Still, it’s brutally unfair, and not just to Peter. Mean Kevin Rudd has denied us Garrett fans the narcotics-quality climate comedy we’d been anticipating:
Imagine the hilarity certain to be generated by Minister for the Environment and the Arts Peter Garrett. A fantastic liability in opposition, he’ll be 10,000-carat comedy gold in Government. You don’t want to see this?
former Midnight Oil front man Peter Garret.
I had forgotten about him. Still a one hit wonder, I see.
A few weeks ago, someone here commented; (paraphrase)
[The MMGW crowd is probably thinking of using the same “out” as the ozone crowd used.]
No matter that there was never an ‘unusual’ hole — the alarmists said it was the biggest ever !!
Big meetings, big dollars later — See. We fixed the hole. Next hoax, er calamity, please.
Oh, and that ‘biggest hole ever’? Tim Ball had a good come-back at his presentations. 20 years ago !!
” And how long has man been measuring [sic] ozone ?”
About 20 years.
“And how long has the earth had ozone ?”
A few Billion !!
Hoaxes and frauds are nothing new — only the people that fall for them are 🙂
At least Rudd is smarter than Chretien and his “right hand SFH man”. Talks up Kyoto, to win an election but doesn’t toss his people an albatross around their neck 🙂
I think we should commit to cut “greenhouse emissions” (did anyone ever mention that greenhouses don’t actually work according to the so-called ‘greenhouse’ effect) by 100% by the year 2200. I’ll volunteer to chair the comittee. First meeting will be in Cozumel. Government grant please.
Fear not, Rudd can have a garble with Dion in Bali.
Steffi can fill him in on how to sign onto KYOTO and do nothing for a decade.
BTW, does Dion get an opportunity to garble while in Bali or just heckle Baird?
The warming crowd is in such a panic because they want Kyoto to get this thing “fixed” before the earth cools off all by itself 🙂
* link no work. Has the SDA url buried in it.
Maybe Japan is now cool to Kyoto because their satellite showed them something lately. Maybe Rudd saw the show also.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071206.wsolarwind1206/BNStory/Science/home
It looked good on the ballot mate.
Kelowna,
That piece about solar wind didn’t mention anything about affecting Earth’s climate. Do you have more information on this, or are you making wild assumptions here?
A fact’s a fact. Who’s gonna a trust someone a who fronted a company called Midnight Oil?
Perhaps he should be Minister of Aboriginal Affairs.
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning
The time has come
To say fair’s fair
To pay the rent, now
To pay our share
Four wheels scare the cockatoos
From Kintore East to Yuendemu
The western desert lives and breathes
In forty five degrees
The time has come
To say fair’s fair
To pay the rent
To pay our share
The time has come
A fact’s a fact
It belongs to them
Let’s give it back
JW, google is your friend. It has a million.
December 6, 2007
Alberta shares climate change progress at United Nations meeting
Minister to focus on opportunities to advance carbon capture and storage in Alberta
Edmonton… Environment Minister Rob Renner will share Alberta’s experience as the first in North America to regulate industrial greenhouse gas emissions when he takes part in the United Nations climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia, next week.
Participants at the conference will try to negotiate a future framework for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions with a focus on carbon capture and storage. Renner will attend from December 11 to 15.
The minister will speak at several sessions to profile the work Alberta has done to support carbon capture and the role it can play for global energy suppliers such as Alberta.
He will travel to Tokyo for meetings with the Japanese Ministry of the Environment and Technology on December 17.
The discussions in Tokyo will focus on Japan’s carbon capture research and how government has been working with industry to implement this technology. Japanese industry has previously come to Alberta to seek out our expertise on carbon management.
Are they long faced and grave looking? If they want to be taken seriously they had better be long faced and grave looking.
I’ll bet they are shitfaced and wondering how to kill time on this global lip service exercise.
Midnight Oil? Are you sure it wasn’t Snake Oil?
Congratulations on your electoral victory, Mr. Rudd. Now – welcome to the real world.
Missausaga Matt,
Midnight oil sucked. It’s not a surprise that his take on politics is a blow and suck job as well.
The counter AGW is slowly heating up. Just like the counter jihad. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Then beat the f#@*k out of ’em.
* link should work now. Thanks.
” The 00000011rd generation of affluence shalt rot all that came before it”
Statistics Canada
Looks like Mr. Rudd hasn’t heard of going to the local house of ill-repute to get a good “wax job”!
Kate
Interesting link here:
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=145245
It’s a piece in the Post by Ross McKitrick at the U of Guelph explaining not just his work showing how urbanization has contaminated temperature stations, but how the IPCC rejected his study with a rather ludicrous non-explanation.
He also notes that the CO2 theory of warming should show significant warming in the troposphere, but so far air temperature readings have failed to find this.
As a result, much of the IPCC’s claims about significantly warmer temperatures rests on deeply flawed data sources.
Bali is going to be a big disappointment without out-spoken former PM John Howard in attendance.
I was looking forward to his based-in-reality comments.
Perhaps Harper will find the cojones to suggest that most of the perceived problem could be fixed before 2020 if countries started building CANDU nuclear plants and importing that good refined Uranium from Canada and Australia (two secure and stable sources of energy. They could also probably guarantee future fuel costs for the next 50 years)
the heck with the new agreement , if Australia signed on to kyoto,back date the SOB and make them shut down their coal industry. like jean cretian signing off on a comcept in the second largest second coldest country in the world , one with a growing population and a growing industrial base, and then to sign off on a 20% cut. we should have cut off his ba11s.
* link should work now. Thanks.
OT: This happens if one forgets to put the [http://] before the [www.example.com] because browsers interpret the omission to mean that the link belongs to the parent site. Dunno why and it’s an easy oversight to make.
Fantasy Island Summit, now with bigger planes!
Someone had suggested it would be appropriate for a tsunami to hit the Bali conference in an earlier thread and:
“A strong earthquake on Friday rattled Indonesia’s resort island of Bali, where thousands of people were gathering for a United Nations climate change conference. It did not trigger a tsunami warning and there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.”
Close, but no cigar! SDA (almost) gets WORLDWIDE results! Gaia must be on SDA’s side.
What opportunity will arise for Dion to have a chance to garble in Bali and who could understand him anyway? Is he taking a delegation of media hacks to give him publicity
Anyone who remembers him as Environmental Minister and self proclaimed champion will know he did bloody nothing. He’ll be seeking out Rudd and may well be disappointed there too, unless he’s into chewing earwax.
Is this not an act against our Government’s position on the World stage? Isn’t that what used to be called treasonous?
The Liberals are so desperate they have to follow the Harper government members around the world to play their childish games.
The Libs are supposedly so broke they can’t afford attack ads so they SAY they’re beneath doing them!!!!!
So, who’s paying? Could it be some media expense accounts?
In one statement Bali becomes a huge joke
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071206/bali_china_071207/20071207?hub=TopStories
“Canadian media broadcast widely about the new Australian government “signing on” to Kyoto.”
Yeah, particularly Mothercorpse has been plugging this little zinger into evey 15 min station break.
Just who got to these CBC news editors? Seriously these people are on a protagonist agenda not an information agenda and either zealotry or money put them there.
Hi Kate,
Obligatory nitpicker post:
The term is “backPEDAL”.
It comes from what cyclists used to do to decelerate and change direction, before gear systems were changed and handbrakes introduced.
Please to correct usage, alors? Merci!
Yes, I’ll have a cherry soda with my ear wax thank you!
Just look i mean the tempeture gose up by one teenie weenie degree and the enviromentalists wackos pee the leaf pants and run around like chickens with their haids cut off their giving chicken little a run for his money