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?

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.