Gotta love this – UN climate expert warns Australia’s emissions target should not be final offer – Australia should not attend global talks in Paris refusing to budge on its greenhouse gas emission pledge, the UN’s scientific body on climate change has said, ahead of expected international pressure on the Abbott government to do better.
Easy – stay home – the multitude of people on the public purse could work at something constructive for Australia instead.
The Sydney Morning Herald story is something of a beat-up. It claims that:
“Australia should not attend global talks in Paris refusing to budge on its greenhouse gas emission pledge, the UN’s scientific body on climate change has said.”
But this is based only on the following:
“In Canberra on Wednesday, Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the December talks in Paris were negotiations. ‘No country can go to negotiations knowing or thinking, really, that the [emissions target] numbers cannot be touched,’ he said.”
So the report is making quite a stretch with what van Ypserele actually said. Even so, he is exceeding his mandate. The IPCC is supposed to be a scientific body providing objective advice. Emissions negotiations are none of its business – that is the job of the UNFCCC .
By commenting in this way, van Ypserele is undermining the “Principles Governing IPCC Work” which state that:
“2. The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they may need to deal objectively with scientific, technical and socio-economic factors relevant to the application of particular policies.”
How can one trust IPCC reports to be ”neutral with respect to policy” when its senior office holders presume to dish out policy advice to their member governments?
Thanks Dave for pointing out the official IPCC – “Principles Governing IPCC Work”. Maybe in many countries other than Australia the IPCC Vice Chairman would not make comments like this. You have to realise that most of the media here leans to the left and is openly pro-GreenLabor – plus for years has run constant personal attacks on the now PM Tony Abbott. Not a day goes past that there are not anti-Abbott articles dredged up from any possible source. Many news storys get slanted through the anti-Abbott lens. I can not recall a PM ever who has been so denigrated by the media.
It would be marvellous if we stayed home from Paris or only sent a tiny junior delegation to observe.
Ministers should stay at home, I agree. Let the Australian embassy in Paris handle it – it is chockers with Ockers paid to flounce around at meetings like this. I notice Julie Bishop did not go to the recent UN bash in Addis Ababa and that was supposed to save the world too. She made the right decision even from a PR standpoint as all the coverage of that event was about what a failure it was and how all the rich countries were evil and selfish. The Greens will no doubt say the same after the Paris climate conference – they are bagging Australia’s offer already.
Going back to van Ypersele’s comments, what a flipping hide he has lecturing governments about their negotiating tactics on emission cuts. The whole Paris show is none of the IPCC’s business, though I bet they get a prime spot on the first morning to lecture all the pollies and dippos for the umpteen millionth time about how we’ll all fry if they don’t cut cut cut. None of the scientists with a contrary view would be allowed in to say a word.
In fact, van Ypersele is misleading the public even pretending this is some sort of “negotiation”. Paris won’t be another Kyoto, where each country had to nominate a specific reduction by 2008-12, with (pretend) penalties for non-compliance etc. This time, the countries will simply get up and announce their individual targets – with a wide variety of base years, target years, and degrees of seriousness.
But the sad thing about Paris is that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter to the climate. But it also doesn’t matter to “climate policy”: all nations have swallowed the global warming fairy tale and will persist with their daft “mitigation actions” – most of which damage both their economies and their environments – whatever they sign in Paris.
In fact barring the usual Greenpease stunts, the whole affair risks being rather dull. Maybe Australia should bring Les Patterson out of retirement to ignite proceedings – www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYpEIAeTfvM
I catch TV and www news a few times a day – never saw a reference to this visit by Connie Hedegaard. Saw the ref to Australia on Marc Morano’s site.
Subsidising Adani coal rail link unwise, ex-EU climate chief Hedegaard says
www.smh.com.au/environment/un-climate-conference/subsidising-adani-coal-rail-link-unwise-exeu-climate-chief-hedegaard-says-20150824-gj6ge5.html
Google will find a few more articles.