Just as the Copenhagen climate summit appeared to be on the verge of unraveling, the United States Thursday announced its support of an annual $100 billion climate protection fund, the Associated Press reports.
“The US is prepared to work with other countries toward a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the climate change needs of developing countries,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
Included in the conditions for the US’ contribution, Clinton demanded that China’s emissions reductions be scrutinized independently and that 193 countries sign a climate deal tomorrow. This would keep the US and other rich nations on top of developing countries who want them to increase emission cuts, the AP reports.
Clinton revealed that the U.S. would not be decreasing emissions by 2020 beyond the 4 percent it committed to in 1990.
While she would not disclose how much the U.S. would be contribution to the climate fund, Clinton said there would be a fair amount contributed to the pot that would be made available in 2020. The finances will reportedly be raised partially by taxing aviation and shipping, as proposed by the European Union.
There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday.
The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change “spin” row.
Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.
In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”
However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.
“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”
Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.
The embarrassing error cast another shadow over the conference after the controversy over the hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, which appeared to suggest that scientists had manipulated data to strengthen their argument that human activities were causing global warming.
Mr Gore is not the only titan of the world stage finding Copenhagen to be a tricky deal.
World leaders — with Gordon Brown arriving tonight in the vanguard — are facing the humiliating prospect of having little of substance to sign on Friday, when they are supposed to be clinching an historic deal.
Meanwhile, five hours of negotiating time were lost yesterday when developing countries walked out in protest over the lack of progress on their demand for legally binding emissions targets from rich nations. The move underlined the distrust between rich and poor countries over the proposed legal framework for the deal.
Have you asked yourself, “if the earth has been warming since the industrial age began, and the ice around the north and south poles have been melting, where’s the water?” We always hear about New Orleans but that really should be an example of how little additional water there is. New Orleans was built at or just under sea level and kept afloat by the silt bought down by he Mississippi river. New Orlean’s problem is that it’s sinking not that it is being covered by global warming’s waters. And what about Venice or Holland….. Last time I checked they were still there.
Former Vice President Al Gore thought he had spotted a winner last year when a small California firm sought financing for an energy-saving technology from the venture capital firm where Mr. Gore is a partner.
The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient. It came to Mr. Gore’s firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital providers, looking for $75 million to expand its partnerships with utilities seeking to install millions of so-called smart meters in homes and businesses.
Mr. Gore and his partners decided to back the company, and in gratitude Silver Spring retained him and John Doerr, another Kleiner Perkins partner, as unpaid corporate advisers.
The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts. Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr. Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years.
Silver Spring Networks is a foot soldier in the global green energy revolution Mr. Gore hopes to lead. Few people have been as vocal about the urgency of global warming and the need to reinvent the way the world produces and consumes energy. And few have put as much money behind their advocacy as Mr. Gore and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes.
Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming skeptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire,” profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in.
Remember how you felt when you found out that a television evangelist with a great following got caught bilking the his followers of millions of dollars? That is how the nation should be feeling right now over AL Gore but no one is saying anything. It is well documented how much carbon his home estate and private jet fleet cost (in carbon dollars) to operate, but no one in his church cares.
It is really not to far of a stretch to see “Global Warming” as a religion and Al Gore thinking of himself as a pope. Not just a pope in the modern sense but a pope with medieval, pre-reformation papal powers. Remember the Spanish Inquisition? Here is a little something to brighten your day from a classic Monty Python.
I view Al and his church to be just as false as these so called church officials in the Monty Python skit. The difference is that Al is back by governments that see this as a huge opportunity to tax business, by organizations like moveon.org to get even the American Middle Class and folks looking for redistribution of wealth on an international basis. Their cry is, “down with Western Europeans they have had it too good for too long”.
The problem with Al’s new church Instead of taking up an offering from willing givers, this church is looking for the power to take your money. And this time the inquisition won’t be led by Terry Jones of Monty Python.
No Wonder Chavez Loves Obama and the Socialist Democrats so much. The new bill just out of committee will make his offshore refineries incredibly profitable.
After one week of long hours and heated arguments,and many months of continued propaganda by the GE owned broadcast networks (CBS, MSNBC, CNBC, History Channel, SciFi, A&E) the House Energy & Commerce committee, on May 21, cleared the American Clean Energy & Security Act of 2009, by a 33 to 25 vote. Those backing the Bill claimed it would reduce global-warming pollution to 97% of 2005 levels by 2012, 80% by 2020, 58% by 2030, and 17% by 2050.
The final vote, was along political party lines with only one Republican joining Democrats in support of the climate change bill and four Democrats shifting to the Republican opposition.
Republicans generally (and rightly so) refer to it as an energy tax as the bill does nothing to address pollution or our national security. I want to repeat that statement because it sound so so unreal it just can’t be true. The Clean Energy and Security Act does nothing to reduce pollution and/or increase availability of energy and provides no security…..at all. In fact the bill reduces energy consumption (read that heating, cooling and transportation) by increasing cost so that the American families will be forced to cut back and our manufacturing base will continue to flee our shores because of energy cost.
Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss) said, “”I think of the whole cap-and-trade idea as a Ponzi scheme,” Continuing Taylor said, “I don’t like the idea that one factory is cleaner than it has to be so that another a factory is dirtier than it should be, because historically that factory that’s dirtier than it should be ends up in the South. … If the vote was today, I’d vote ‘no.’
“As this bill is now out there in the public domain, I think people will understand the extraordinary cost that this will impose to business and working families,” House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said yesterday. “And at the end of the day, that will be what will kill this bill.”
I certainly hope he is right. However, it is up to each of us to write and call our Senate and House representatives and voice our concerns. If we don’t stop this now, our freedoms and way of life will continue to erode under this oppressive administration. Join me in asking them to campaign against and vote no on the American Clean Energy & Security Act of 2009.
fund, the Associated Press reports.
While she would not disclose how much the U.S. would be contribution to the climate fund, Clinton said there would be a fair amount contributed to the pot that would be made available in 2020. The finances will reportedly be raised partially by taxing aviation and shipping, as proposed by the European Union.
