Ed Miliband a safe pair of hands for the US

So, Miliband Minor gets the job. No surprises there considering he's been falling over himself to prove that he's as much in the US's pockets as Tony Blair was.

The whole filial conflict in the Labour Party leadership contest has been one big pantomime to me with Ed rebranding himself as a lefty to mop up the votes generated by a nation wanting real progressive politics and who would never stomach Blair Mk II. To paraphrase the hippies, whoever you voted for, a Miliband was always getting in to continue business as usual. Just how left do you think Ed will be when he's in Number Ten?

There's an interesting blogpost I half agree with at Liam Macuaid's.

Any Daily Telegraph readers worried that Ed Miliband’s election as leader of the Labour Party means that it’s likely to move sharply left will be reassured by his performance at last year’s climate change talks in Copenhagen. Obama had flown in and demanded that a last minute deal be forced through which he’d stitched up with China, India, Brazil and South Africa. Many of the countries of the global south were opposed, rightly saying that it was a charter for richer nations to carry on pumping carbon into the atmosphere. Miliband stomped into the room where they were meeting at 4am and ranted that if they didn’t sign up they’d be denied access to a putative $30bn fund. The high drama of this bit of blackmail was lessened slightly by the fact that he was in his pyjamas at the time. It’s hard to be a moral titan in your jimjams but it’s easy to be the message boy of the rich and powerful.

Almost. As I commented at the time, the Danish Text produced in secret by the rich nations led by the US at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit last year was in OPPOSITION to the position of China, India, et al. It would have left the US producing carbon emissions at four times per capita that of the Chinese.

But Liam is right in that Ed made his bones and proved himself a safe pair of hands just when the scandal of the Danish Text was about to hit the headlines. Ed yelled, "Look over there" and blamed the Chinese for wrecking the talks.

Meanwhile, there's been no proper debate about green technology and renewables so that, for example, while Britain invented carbon capture technology for coal powered stations, we have built precisely zero while China has built a slew of 44% carbon capture stations, as well as revolutionising green energy technology. F'rinstance, although outstripping the rest of the world in the use of those big expensive wind turbines, China is developing smaller machines using far more efficient electro-magnetic energy. Plus an entire city has its domestic appliances powered by solar energy. And China is reforesting areas the size of Wales. But young Ed, minister for such affairs, shied away from these facts and avoided the debate, saving Obama's hide at Copenhagen.

I'm taking to them thar hills and wish to live as a Maroon, rifle in hand, a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou, whoever'll join me. Who's up for it?

Now China blamed for BP oil spill. I mean: Hunh?

Pic from Don't Tea On Me

The latest in the Guardian's increasingly demented run of attempts to blame China for every disaster screeches out: "BP oil spill: failed safety device on Deepwater Horizon rig was modified in China". Tim Webb's article then goes on to admit:

There is no evidence that the significant modifications to the blowout preventer (BOP), which were carried out in China in 2005, caused the equipment to fail. But industry lawyers said BP could be made liable for any mistakes that a Chinese subcontractor made carrying out the work. It would be almost impossible to secure damages in China, where international law is barely recognised.

No evidence, but I guess the Guardian lives in hope.

In contrast, over at the Observer, their stablemate/rival, Tim Webb dispassionately reports the fact that there are moves afoot to "pass the buck" for responsibility away from BP's awful health and safety record, th'awl bidness's general screw-you to local communities, Halliburton's dodgy cement, and JR-style cronyism with ambitious/influential politicians, to China! When in doubt, blame the Chinese.

The Observer has learnt how Cameron [International, not Dave] will try to pin the blame on BP for the failure of the BOP: lawyers will claim that BP ordered Transocean to modify the BOP in China so significantly that the remodelled component no longer resembled what Cameron had originally manufactured.

A different emphasis entirely.

When the Western nations' duplicity over the secret Danish Text at the Copenhagen climate change summit was about to hit the headlines last December, The Guardian and Ed Milband led the field in switching attention (hey! Look over THERE!) to supposed machinations from China, in order to protect a deal that would have left the US still producing four times per capita the carbon emissions of the Chinese. My own attempts to join the debate and present an alternative argument at the Guardian's CiF (Comment Is Free, irony duly noted) resulted in my comments being deleted and my being banned.

In 2000, when the government's mishandling of the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in the UK resulted in pyres of culled livestock across this green and pleasant land, The Guardian was one of the loudest in suddenly accusing the UK Chinese of starting the outbreak (while the Independent was alone in maintaining a healthy scepticism). When this lunacy resulted in an apology and vindication from Nick Brown, minister at the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food, the story melted away, with the late Hugo Young conceding in an email exchange that there were wheels within wheels, and one Guardian reporter telling a UK Chinese defence campaigner that there had been a dressing-down at the very top with the instruction that this should never happen again. If only Young were still with us and on watch ...

Isn't it about time the Guardian acted like a newspaper and offered us unbiased news reporting so we can make up our own minds? What is their agenda? What are they warming us up for? With the US conducting military exercises in the Yellow Sea and Cameron's statement that nuclear war with China is an option during the General Election campaign, is the West seriously building up to a conflagration with its giant economic rival? Could China's relationship with Iran be a factor, perchance?

As if we haven't had enough wars started by the West. Still, no war news is bad news if you happen to have arms industry companies in your share portfolio.

UPDATE: Note that both articles were by Tim Webb but with a different emphasis. The Observer's homepage featured the more sober headline and standfirst: "What lurks below the surface for BP? Even amid the 'cowboy culture' of offshore drilling, BP's operational record raises concerns BP safety device was sent to China"

The Observer piece acknowledges the buck-passing strategy currently being employed and makes it clear that "BP ordered Transocean to modify the BOP in China so significantly that the remodelled component no longer resembled what Cameron had originally manufactured." The implication is that the Chinese subcontractor only worked to BP/Transocean's money-saving specs.

The Guardian's home page, however, had the headline: "BP oil spill: failed safety device on Deepwater Horizon rig was modified in China." The piece by the same journalist implies that any fault — which has yet to be determined forensically — was down to Chinese work alone despite there being "no evidence" that any modifications had anything to do with the BOP failure at all.

It would be interesting to to know if either of these versions represents the actual views of the credited journalist.

UPDATE 2: Monday 19th July. As both articles seem to be good examples of objective reportage, containing some interesting material and placing the blame for the oil spill firmly with BP/Transocean, I am left wondering why the Guardian Online chose to foreground the China angle even though the article itself makes it clear that, "... the modifications were carried out at BP's request and "under its direction" ... '. It looks as if both headlines and standfirsts were written by eds at the Observer. The Observer home page led with the "What lies beneath the surface" angle, focusing on BP, and which features China as only part of the equation. Take out China and replace it with anywhere else in the world (India and South Korea also get these jobs) and you are still left with a cost-cutting scandal that is the responsibility of the oil industry. But the majority of the subsequent blizzard of Tweets didn't reflect this, homing in instead on China.

The Observer newspaper published the China angle on page 7, and the "Beneath the surface" article on page 36. So what is going on?

Chinese dissident allowed limited media access: Madam Miaow back on Guardian CiF

Yep, I checked yesterday and posted on Gary Younge's powerful indictment of US Republican "Frat Boys" and discovered that my ban is at an end and I am now allowed to comment at the Guardian but under (heavy) moderation — so says the vivid red message in the comment window when I posted.

This goes back to last year when I tried to post on the Guardian's hysterical attack on the Chinese at Copenhagen following the exposé that America and other rich nations were hijacking the climate change summit as revealed in the leaked Danish Text. During this period of obfuscation, diversion and a lot of smoke and mirrors, journos at the Guardian accused CiF posters with Chinese sounding names who attempted to inject a few facts into the debate (such as it was) of being five-yuan a time tarts for the Chinese government. Because it's well known that we have no integrity or political conviction. And in the Independent, Tony Juniper of Friends Of The Earth felt emboldened enough to call the Chinese "inscrutable", a hoary colonialist term I'd thought disappeared with the Empire and Sax Rohmer.

How satisfying, then, to see today's Guardian reporting the Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh's statement that Copenhagen was destroyed by the Danish draft leak.

Dismissing Britain's attempt to blame China for the disappointment of Copenhagen, the Indian minister said the outcome was determined by a failed "ambush", targeted at the leaders of emerging economies, by the host nation Denmark. This attempted to switch a new negotiating text for the existing UN texts.

"The Danish draft was circulated at the beginning of the conference, which got mysteriously leaked to the Guardian. That completely destroyed trust. It was the leak of the Danish draft that destroyed Copenhagen from day one," said Ramesh, at a sustainable growth forum in Hainan.

This isn't to say that China is incapable of pulling stunts when it needs to, but that it still has a lot to learn from the British Foreign Office and its friends when it comes to manipulation.

One question remaining to be answered: considering Britain invented low-carbon coal burning technology and we're signed up to the Kyoto Protocol, why is China able to build 80 percent carbon-capture power stations at the rate of one a month, and we don't even have a single one? [EDIT: New York Times says current highest efficiency is 44 percent.]

UPDATE: China announces world's largest solar plant. Hat -tip James Mackenzie

UPDATE 2: Almost a month later (7th May), the Guardian comes up with a carefully constructed rebuttal. Very interesting watching the spinning on this subject.

India's Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh

Guardian admits China's green plans leave US red-faced.

Neither the Guardian nor China: Madam Miaow globally banned

So, the commie tsars of the Guardian Trust and the Beijing regime join hands to prevent my words polluting the precious bodily fluids of sensitive liberals and impressionable proletarians alike.

I'm now banned at The Guardian's Comment Is Free as well as by the Great Firewall of China. C'mon guys, make your minds up. I'm either an apologist for the excesses of the Chinese regime or an imperialist running dog seeking to drag it into the mire. Which is it?

I just tried to post at Martin Khor's excellent article on the Copenhagen failure and attempts to blame China. What I wanted to write was a point about fiendish oriental villainy:

Thanks Martin and John Prescott for adding some balance to the mix. Phew! Now I can stop twirling my moustache and stroking my pussy.

But post there came none.

Was it this that upset them?

Oceania and Eastasia have always been at war.

Here's another stunt they pulled when I was shortlisted for the 2010 Orwell Prize — please read the thread.

Sinophobia and Copenhagen: open letter to the Guardian's Mark Lynas

PREVIOUSLY: The story so far ... One moment we were told there was a scandal brewing with the leaking of the 'Danish Text', a stitch-up of the poor nations by the wealthy, with the US and Britain among those implicated (8th Dec 2009 onwards), the next moment, this happened.

The Copenhagen blame game continues with the media reaching a hysterical pitch in their attempts to demonise China over the disappointing results at the climate change summit.

The Guardian publishes another lurid smear, this time by someone called Mark Lynas and titled: "How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room"
Starring Mark Lynas as Sax Rohmer which, I guess, makes me Fu Manchu. (I recommend you read all the comments on the Guardian thread.)

UPDATE Wednesday 23rd December : Comment is free but only if you agree. The Guardian removed my comment below from their thread, posted 22nd December 9.23pm. Not only mine, but I notice some other very good posts robustly rebutting Lynas's assertions and errors have been removed. Now I'm BANNED

Dear Mark,

So the cold war is alive and well.

Western spin is really pulling out all the stops, perhaps because we are onto you as the various blogs and forums show.

if anything, China got strong-armed into signing a weak deal when it should have held out as Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba and others have said.

The US and the rich nations use up almost all the carbon allowance in the atmosphere over the past 160 years, the US dithers over ten years of Bush, they refuse to ratify Kyoto, the Danish summit chair has to resign when she's caught fast-tracking the rich nations' deal, the West fail in their Kyoto pledges, Canada rips up its Kyoto deal and proceeds with exploiting its huge reserves of dirty oil, the US will only reduce emissions by 4% against the 1990 base year and not the 17% you describe as "serious cuts", while China makes real strides in green technology, and so on.

But it is all China's fault.

Hillary Clinton bursts into the conference demanding China eat merde when the US didn't even have anything to offer. They knew that the terms of the "verification" they demanded was an exercise in humiliation and China would not stand for it. The US can't get anything meaningful past their senate, which includes some "wholly owned subsidiaries of the energy industry" (Monbiot) and resorts to sleight of hand.

But China is the villain.

As for Merkel, she is a massive hypocrite when you look at what her government's been doing.

Even John Prescott pointed out that we've had our industrial revolution yet the poor countries have to halt in their tracks and people live on an average of $2 per day. [Update: see Prescott's take here.]

But according to you China twirls its moustache and strokes its cat as it eats the planet for breakfast.

What other country has an entire city using solar powered appliances? Who else has planted such huge tracts of forest while loggers tear down the rest? China aims for 15% of its energy from renewables, it has revolutionised wind-turbines, makes a key component of electric car batteries, and so on. We in the UK can't even meet our Kyoto promise.

The world says it'll pay $100 billion into the global kitty. Yet how much does the US spend each year on wars? Something like a million dollars a day on petrol alone.

This game of smoke and mirrors is shameful. Dividing the world into angel and devil does not help, neither does throwing a hissy-fit when China baulks at signing the rich nations' deal which condemns the poor nations to a slumdog future. At an early stage in its industrial development China is moving onto the right track. By all means criticise them when they screw up but give them credit for what they're getting right. The future of the planet is too important for these political football games.

Seasons greetings, although seasons may soon be a thing of the past if the rich nations get their own way,

Anna

Practically a lone voice in the Guardian, George Monbiot writes:

Obama went behind the backs of the UN and most of its member states and assembled a coalition of the willing to strike a deal that outraged the rest of the world. This was then presented to poorer nations without negotiation: either they signed it or they lost the adaptation funds required to help them survive the first few decades of climate breakdown. ... Pushing a strong climate programme through the Senate, many of whose members are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the energy industry, would have been the political battle of his life. Yet again, the absence of effective campaign finance reform in the US makes global progress almost impossible.

Almost forgot, Naomi Klein: Copenhagen's failure belongs to Obama

UPDATE 2: A recent comment (not mine) at the above Guardian CIF thread:

The Guardian writer was trying to confuse the public by omitting the fact that the EU couldn't even agree to its binding emission cut targets even by 2020 and they couldn't fill that blank. He also omitted the fact that the US also refused to have its emission cut target by 2020 included in the draft. An 80% cut by 2050 on a global scale obviously would have painted a big panckage in the sky. When the rich countries have not honored their pledges to the Kyoto Protocol to cut their emissions and they couldn't set binding short-term emission targets, how do we expect them to honor a long-term emission cut targets by 2050? In fact, Yvo de Boer in his last press conference said that the commitments to cut GHG emission by individual developing nations combined are far larger than those of the developed countries combined.
They want 80% cut by 2050 written into the accord so they could pressure the developing nations, because after all, the developing nations are the ones whose emissions will have to grow and peak as the year 2050 gets closer.
Above all, the writer didn't even tell how the US and other rich nations were pretty successful in detrailing and deviating the negotiations over the Long-term Cooperative Action and amendments to the Kyoto Protocol, especially the Kyoto Protocol, the two documents that have legal binding over the rich countries. The writer didn't even have the courage to mention the two most important documents, upon which any political declaration should have been based on.
It is the rich countries, the US, particularly, which has hijacked the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. That much should be clear to us all.

Wonder how long that'll stay posted.

The real reason Copenhagen failed.

UPDATE 3: AAARGH! Just read at a debate here that I have a typo. The international kitty is, of course $100 BILLION not million. Apologies. And thanks to the peeps at www.metafilter.com/87766/General-Tsos-Climate

UPDATE 4 (sigh!): A very clear article on what went wrong at Copenhagen.

"But what was this ‘deal’ that these obstinate rascals obstructed? “A 50% reduction in emissions by 2050 and an 80% reduction by the developed countries,” laments Mr Milliband. “Both were vetoed by China.” What he refers to of course is none other than the infamous Danish Text. But what he carefully omits from his account is the reason why this deal was ‘obstructed’.

"The Danish Text, which had been secretly put together by the US, the UK and Denmark, revealed the true aim of the rich countries in Copenhagen. There was to be a gesture towards cutting emissions, sure there was… on condition that the natural order and balance of the world remains unaffected, that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor, that growth and accumulation continue unhindered. The proposal would have sidelined the UN by handing power and control to the rich countries themselves; it would have entrenched global inequality by allowing the rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes of CO2 per capita while granting developing countries only 1.44 tonnes; it would have handed control of climate change finance to the World Bank; it would have locked the world into a disastrous system of carbon trading; it would have attached tight strings to any financial aid; and it would have abandoned any interim 2020 targets. All in all, the ‘deal’ would have condemned the world, and the South in particular, to a climate catastrophe of unimaginable horror."

Big thanks to Harpymarx, Socialist Unity, Liberal Conspiracy and Sunny at Pickled Politics.

The BBC says

John Prescott on China at Copenhagen

Martin Khor in the Guardian on the Copenhagen failure

George Monbiot on what the US has to offer

Global Comment with something useful to say on sinophobic hypocrisy

Madam Miaow banned in the Guardian, Comment is Free. Free speech, much? Here's another stunt they pulled when I was shortlisted for the 2010 Orwell Prize — read the thread.

Anna Chen on BBC World TV on the opening day and the final day of the Copenhagen summit

Ed Miliband accuses China.

Guardian admits China's green plans leave US red-faced.

March 2012 and the Guardian acknowledges huge investment in renewables.

NOTABLE CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE (CCS) PROJECTS IN CHINA

Climate change: Is new Independent newspaper regime Sinophobic?

Well, I used to be a fan of The Independent, what with having Robert Fisk and being so brilliant on the Iraq war. But with an article yesterday headlined, "China's delaying tactics threaten climate deal" by Chris Green, and allowing racist epithets in their comments threads, has The Indy jumped the shark?

You know what came next. I couldn't resist posting a reply to their US BS:

That is an appalling bit of US spin and I'm amazed that Chris Green has swallowed this wholesale. I wonder just who his "sources inside negotiations" are. We can make an educated guess.

After wasting ten years under Bush, obfuscating and setting up obstructions to the talks over the past two years, Clinton rides in six-guns blazing, holding the world to ransom by demanding that the $100 billion fund for the developing world's climate change technology is contingent on China jumping through hoops of America's choosing while Obama has nothing to offer. The US is the nation who refused to ratify Kyoto — the ONLY legally binding instrument in the world that can require countries to cut emissions.

MEANWHILE ... China is soaring ahead in green technology: it has revolutionised wind turbines (using electro-magnetic principles); the entire city of Dezhou in Shandong of 5.5 million people have their appliances powered by solar energy; it has planted the biggest area of man-made forest in the world; it is charging each household $64 towards the $30 billion it needs [to pay for its cuts in emissions]; it's leading the world in electric cars and makes a key component of the car batteries. And yet you make this unfounded, unfair, bad-tempered attack. How does this help except to let the US off the hook?

I'm not the only one to observe that Obama has come naked to the table and some are speculating that he has been set-up to fail by right-wing elements in government.

Wen Jiabao has said that any internationally supported cuts will of course be subject to international scrutiny — meaning legally binding global decisions made through a successful treaty. He is refusing to be browbeaten by the world's worst polluter per capita over China's voluntary national mitigation action which will be legally binding within China.

If he's heard Scott Ritter admit the Iraq WMD teams were also espionage groups I dare say this might also have swayed him. Who'd want the agents of such a warmongering nation swarming over their country?

China has pledged that its cuts (40-45 per GDP unit) will be adhered to even if Copenhagen fails, unlike others such as Japan that says its cuts are contingent on a deal. If China sticks to its targets it will set the international benchmark for looking after the environment. If it doesn't, then go ahead and poke them with a sharp stick.

Yet another article is headlined, "China holds the world to ransom".

The fan-boys gushed breathlessly:

It was unforgettable political theatre. Like a poker player with a sudden new bet, the power-dressed Mrs Clinton changed the game instantly as she pulled her gigantic sum out of the US back pocket and slammed it down on the negotiating table.

Er ... it's not actually America's money, though, is it? This is the combined world fund to help the third world develop green technology and meet climate targets.

Let's remember it's not China that's been belching out carbon emissions for over a hundred years. America has cheated the Kyoto figures, claiming to aim to cut emissions by a measly 17 percent by 2020. But this is against 2005 levels and not the Kyoto base year of 1990, meaning if we're lucky, the US will have made cuts of only 4 percent. No wonder they put the rat into ratify and refused to sign up.

Currently producing four times the emissions of China per capita, even if all had gone well at Copenhagen, the US would still have been allowed to pollute at twice the rate of the poor countries for each man, woman and child by 2050.

In another Independent article, "Tony Juniper: China is a country that dislikes being told what to do", the Chinese are accused of that old colonialist cliché, being "inscrutable". What is this, the 19th Century?

Is Tony Juniper — environmentalist and director of Friends of the Earth — aware that a third of all China's emissions are produced making goods for ... guess where? How about Western markets picking up the carbon bill?

To top it off, The Indy ignores its own moderation policy. The moderators may be off getting some seasonal cheer but perhaps someone should be awake when posts titled "Obama and the Chinks" come in. Would they allow equivalent racist epithets for other minorities or are we a special case?

The Guardian has also evidently been briefed along the same lines but it is the Independent that's picked up this particular bone with gusto and run with it, such as with this vicious article today.

John Prescott in The Guardian is good, though.

But the atmosphere was soured by the US, first by its climate change special envoy, Todd Stern, who said emissions "isn't a matter of politics or morality or anything else, it's just maths", which completely ignored the per capita argument. President Obama's speech blaming China didn't help either. The US has pushed the Chinese hard on emissions cuts. Fine when you've had your industrial revolution. But China and the other developing countries need that growth. Understandable when more than half of the planet is living on less than $2 a day.

This from Joss Garland sounds right on the money: Historic failure that will live on in infamy

UPDATE: I've just remembered that the new Indy editor, Roger Alton, was the editor of the Observer when bizarrely it was part of a media bloc that kept trying to stitch up the UK Chinese community and blame it for the Foot And Mouth Disease outbreak which devastated large swathes of Britain in 2001. MAFF minister Nick Brown stated that this was nonsense and completely untrue. So what's going on at The Independent?

Madam Miaow on the Copenhagen climate change summit

Johann Hari, the Indy's one remaining journalist worth reading, gives an overview of the truths Copenhagen ignored here

More on post-Cop15 sinophobia in the Guardian here

Copenhagen summit final day: Anna Chen on BBC World TV

Anna Chen speaks on BBC World TV "World Have Your Say" on the final day of the Copenhagen climate conference, Friday 18th December 2009. What has Copenhagen achieved?

Hosted by Ros Atkins. Also participating:
Daniel Mittler — environmentalist and blogger
Prabir Purkayasta — an energy analyst in Delhi
Isaac Mwaura — a development consultant in Nairobi
Julian L Wong — Senior Policy Analyst with the Energy Opportunity team at The Center for American Progress and blogger
Mark Kenber — Policy Director of The Climate Group and former adviser to Tony Blair

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:


See also Anna Chen speaks on BBC World TV on the opening day of the Copenhagen climate summit

Anna Chen writes on the start of the Copenhagen COP15 climate change summit

Copenhagen summit final day: Anna Chen on BBC World TV

Anna Chen speaks on BBC World TV "World Have Your Say" on the final day of the Copenhagen climate conference, Friday 18th December 2009. What has Copenhagen achieved?

Hosted by Ros Atkins. Also participating:
Daniel Mittler — environmentalist and blogger
Prabir Purkayasta — an energy analyst in Delhi
Isaac Mwaura — a development consultant in Nairobi
Julian L Wong — Senior Policy Analyst with the Energy Opportunity team at The Center for American Progress and blogger
Mark Kenber — Policy Director of The Climate Group and former adviser to Tony Blair

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:


Anna Chen speaks on BBC World TV on the opening day of the Copenhagen climate summit

Madam Miaow on the Copenhagen climate change summit

Madam Miaow on BBC World Service TV: China and Copenhagen Opening Day

Anna Chen in the studio for the BBC World Service "World Have Your Say" programme on the first day of the Copenhagen climate conference, Monday 7th December 2009.

Posted at YouTube in three parts.

World Have Your Say: Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAMXCfnju6c



World Have Your Say: Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJVdKb5N-o8


World Have Your Say: Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNeA8WZ6TyY


Read Madam Miaow on China, Copenhagen and climate change

UPDATE: Anna Chen on BBC World TV on the final day of the Copenhagen summit

Madam Miaow on BBC World Service TV: China and Copenhagen

Anna Chen in the studio for the BBC World Service "World Have Your Say" programme on the first day of the Copenhagen climate conference, Monday 7th December 2009.

Posted at YouTube in three parts.

World Have Your Say: Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAMXCfnju6c



World Have Your Say: Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJVdKb5N-o8


World Have Your Say: Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNeA8WZ6TyY


Read Madam Miaow on China, Copenhagen and climate change

UPDATE: Anna Chen on BBC World TV on the final day of the Copenhagen summit

China, Copenhagen and climate change

Monday sees the start of the Copenhagen climate conference, marking the end of a two-year period which aims to see a far-reaching and legally binding global agreement on how to combat climate change.

China is widely regarded as the Big Bad in this scenario, called “the world's biggest polluter”, and yet the West has been belching out carbon emissions for 160 years with no serious sign of abatement. The US is still the biggest polluter per capita with Americans still consuming a huge proportion of the world’s resources. I don’t know whether the figure of one American kid consuming the same as 100 Bangladeshi children still holds true, but the nation that wants gas at ten cents a gallon and persists in its divine right to drive Humvees is telling China to shut the fridge door.

That is not to say that China isn’t storing up some massive problems for itself if things stay the same. When I was taken around China with my family in the 1970s, everyone rode bicycles and the air of the cities was pristine. Now it’s so bad that one Chinese filmmaker was telling me that she had to get out of Shanghai after three weeks because her lungs were packing up.

But, no, China is whipping boy for the failures of the developed world to sort out the mess they made. Never mind that one of the G8 group of industrialized nations is doing its best to sink any agreement. Canada is currently sitting on the planet’s second largest oil reserves which it plans to release into the markets and the atmosphere, and is the first Kyoto signatory to renege on the deal. Also implicated in these Canadian plans are Shell, BP and RBS. Our RBS.

In contrast, Chinese President Hu Jintao signaled a change in policy in September, promising a "notable" decrease in the carbon intensity of China's economy by 2020.

"At stake in the fight against climate change are the common interests of the entire world," Hu said. "Out of a sense of responsibility to its own people and people across the world, China fully appreciates the importance and urgency of addressing climate change."

Hu added that his country would plant forests across an area the size of Norway, and generate 15% of its energy needs from renewables within a decade.

China hasn’t given detailed figures as to how this will be achieved and I trust that environmentalists within and without will keep up the pressure until it does. I am, however, optimistic that China will end up leading the world in renewables technology if only for the reason that this is going to be a major global industry and fortunes stand to be made.

China has introduced a whole slew of newly released renewable energy and clean technology regulations, while all the West can come up with are delusional carbon market exchanges where rich nations buy carbon allowances from poor nations. Over five million people in the city of Dezhou, Shandong, use electric appliances powered by solar energy.

Each Chinese household will be expected to pay the annual equivalent of $64 to contribute towards the $30 billion dollars per year China needs to invest to meet its climate aims.

Let’s hope they succeed where we’ve failed. If not, China will have let us all down and helped finish the global destruction we started 160 years ago with the industrial revolution.

Ultimately, production based on need not greed is the only way out.

UK flood map here

Babeuf has just sent me the Wikipedia list of countries by carbon emissions per capita showing that Qatar is number 1, the US is number 9, and China is number 96.

UPDATE: George Monbiot on the climate change deniers.

Madam Miaow (Anna Chen) appears on BBC World Service TV tomorrow (Monday 7th December 2009) to discuss Copenhagen on "World Have Your Say" at 15:30-16:00. Also on World Service radio later in the evening. Can't watch it live in theUK but the BBC will be putting it on YouTube in a few hours, linked at worldhaveyoursay.com. The radio can be listened to on BBC iPlayer.

Sinophobia and the media following Copenhagen

Madam Miaow banned in the Guardian, Comment is Free. But speech isn't.