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thomas davison

Doha climate change deal clears way for 'damage aid' to poor nationsEU, Australia and Norway also sign up to new carbon-cutting targets as fortnight-long conference in Qatar closes
The Observer, Saturday 8 December 2012 19.19 GMT
Delegates attend the last day of the UN climate talks in Doha, where poor nations secured a pledge of 'damage aid'.
Poor countries have won historic recognition of the plight they face from the ravages of climate change, wringing a pledge from rich nations that they will receive funds to repair the "loss and damage" incurred.

This is the first time developing countries have received such assurances, and the first time the phrase "loss and damage from climate change" has been enshrined in an international legal document.

Developing countries had been fighting hard for the concession at the fortnight-long UN climate change talks among 195 nations in Qatar, which finished after a marathon 36-hour final session.

Ronald Jumeau, negotiating for the Seychelles, scolded the US negotiator: "If we had had more ambition [on emissions cuts from rich countries], we would not have to ask for so much [money] for adaptation. If there had been more money for adaptation [to climate change], we would not be looking for money for loss and damage. What's next? Loss of our islands?"

Ruth Davis, political adviser at Greenpeace, said: "This is a highly significant move � it will be the first time the size of the bill for failing to take on climate change will be part of the UN discussions. Countries need to understand the risks they are taking in not addressing climate change urgently."

Ed Davey, the UK energy and climate secretary, said: "It's about helping the most vulnerable countries, and looking at how they can be more resilient."

But the pledges stopped well short of any admission of legal liability or the need to pay compensation on the part of the rich world.

The US had strongly opposed the initial "loss and damage" proposals, which would have set up a new international institution to collect and disperse funds to vulnerable countries. US negotiators also made certain that neither the word "compensation", nor any other term connoting legal liability, was used, to avoid opening the floodgates to litigation � instead, the money will be judged as aid.

Key questions remain unanswered, including whether funds devoted to "loss and damage" will come from existing humanitarian aid and disaster relief budgets. The US is one of the world's biggest donor of humanitarian aid and disaster relief, from both public and private sources. It will be difficult to disentangle damage inflicted by climate change from other natural disasters.

Another question is how the funds will be disbursed. Developing countries wanted a new institution, like a bank, but the US is set against that, preferring to use existing international institutions. These issues will have to be sorted out at next year's climate conference, in Warsaw, where they will be bitterly contested.

Davis said: "This [text] is just the beginning of the process � you need to have a finalised mechanism. But it will concentrate minds on the fact that it is in the best interest of countries all over the world to start cutting their emissions quickly." Governments also rescued the Kyoto protocol, the initial targets of which run out at the end of this year. The EU, Australia, Norway and a handful of other developed countries have agreed to take on new carbon-cutting targets under the treaty, running to 2020.

A separate strand of the negotiations, set up to accommodate the US because of its refusal to ratify Kyoto, was closed. This will allow unified discussions to begin on a global climate treaty that would require both developed and developing countries to cut their emissions. The treaty is supposed to be signed in 2015, at a conference in Paris, and come into effect in 2020.

The next three years of negotiations on the treaty will be the hardest in the 20-year history of climate change talks because the world has changed enormously since 1992, when the UN convention on climate change was signed, and 1997, when the Kyoto protocol enshrined a stark division between developed countries � which were required to cut emissions � and developing countries, which were not.

China was classed then as a developing country, and although it still has about 60 million people living in dire poverty, it is now the world's biggest emitter and will soon overtake the US as the biggest economy. It has made clear its determination to hang on to its developing country status, and that the countries classed as developed in 1997 must continue to bear most of the burden for emissions cuts, and for providing funds to poor countries to help them cut emissions and cope with climate change.

This climate change is the biggest load of rubbish ever invented, it is their own people burning down their own forests , draining their own water supplies and causing their own problems while breeding 10 times faster than they can support.
All this while waiting with their hands out for the West to send them their yearly food supply and money, we have to end this folly and let them take care of themselves, IT IS NOT OUR RESPONSIBILITY IT IS THEIRS.

thomas davison · Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2012 10:23 am Post subject:

Anger at climate aid �blank cheque�: Ministers accused after agreeing global deal to repair �loss and damage� caused by extreme weather�Energy Secretary Ed Davey pledged to help people in poor countries 'who will be underwater' due to rising sea-levels and melting glaciers

�In a deal signed by 193 nations, rich countries accepted responsibility for the consequences of rising temperatures
By Nick Mcdermott and Tamara Cohen
PUBLISHED: 23:50, 9 December 2012 | UPDATED: 07:32, 10 December 2012

THE LUNATICS ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM
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Deal: Energy secretary Ed Davey pledged to help those in poor countries who 'will be underwater' due to rising sea-levels
Ministers were accused of �signing a blank cheque� for climate aid to the third world as Britain agreed a global deal to repair �loss and damage� caused by extreme weather.
Energy Secretary Ed Davey pledged to help people in poor countries �who will be underwater� due to rising sea-levels and melting glaciers on the final day of UN talks in Qatar.
In a deal signed by 193 nations, rich countries for the first time agreed to accept responsibility for the consequences of rising temperatures.
It was described as a historic shift for developing countries, which have been disappointed by the failure of the big polluting nations to cut their carbon emissions.
But Tory critics claimed the measure would leave Britain open to paying an unlimited bill in addition to the �6bn already pledged by 2020 in climate aid.
Philip Davies, MP for Shipley, said: �It sounds like a blank cheque and I think the Government must have taken leave of their senses. On the one hand they tell us we haven�t got any money, the country is broke.
�And people accept that they know that, but then to internationally go spraying taxpayers money about as if it�s going out of fashion, my constituents find incredibly offensive.

'They cannot afford this largesse, the Government are going to have to start acting in the British national interest.�
Glyn Davies, MP for Montgomeryshire, said: �We have to go through the small print to see what this means, but the whole talks have worried me for the implications of the public finances in Britain.

'Household bills are driving elderly people into poverty and large numbers of jobs are being exported overseas.�
He said Britain�s aid budget �should be used to help poorer countries develop industries and look after themselves, which is worthwhile.
More...�Gove on 'war footing' with teaching unions expected to launch industrial action as he considers new anti-strike laws

'Giving money as compensation seems to be a bottomless pit, and will see people�s support for the whole policy disappear.�
The �loss and damage� clause became one of the most contentious issues of the two-week talks.

Mr Davey, who participated in the final 36-hour stretch of the negotiations, said: �It�s about helping the most vulnerable countries, and looking at how they can be more resilient.�
Some lawyers say climate change will unleash a flood of liability claims, although there have not yet been any successful claims.
Analysts from PricewaterhouseCoopers said for small island states and the world�s least developed countries at risk from rising sea levels, storms and droughts, compensation had become a �totemic issue - everything they think the negotiations are about�.

Objection: Glyn Davies MP is worried about the implications for Britain's finances
But they said a focus on money was likely to hold back progress on reducing carbon emissions, as scientists are predicting greater than a 2C rise in temperatures by the end of the century.
[keep] However the final text falls far short of any admission of legal liability for climate damage and the US delegation refused to include the word �compensation�.

How much money could be needed and how it would be distributed are set to be fiercely contested at future talks.
Mr Davey denied Britain would be taking on �unlimited liabilities� and said �we are not an insurance company of last resort and we are never going to be�.

But he said: �We have a duty to help people losing their country beneath the waves. The issue for me is that in some countries climate change is not an issue of mitigating or adapting to climate change. They will be underwater.�
Rich nations have already �62bn ($100 billion US dollars) a year by 2020 to help developing countries build renewable energy and infrastructure such as irrigation and flood barriers to adapt to climate change.
But they have stopped short of discussing how much damage is actually being caused by rising temperatures and who will pay.

Mohamed Adow, Christian Aid�s senior climate change adviser, estimated that tackling loss and damage would cost �well in excess� of this amount - to which Britain�s contribution is �1bn.
Ronald Jumeau, negotiating for the Seychelles told the US delegation: �If we had had more ambition [from rich countries], we would not have to ask for so much [money] for adaptation, we would not be looking for money for loss and damage. What�s next? Loss of our islands?�
Another islander said: �We didn�t cause the problem, but we are being harmed.�
Ruth Davies, political adviser at Greenpeace said: �This is a highly significant move - it will be the first time the size of the bill for failing to take on climate change will be part of the UK discussions.�
The UK has already pledged �2.9 billion during this summit to support wind farms in Africa and greener agriculture in Colombia over the next four years, despite a lack of similar pledges from other countries.
Britain and other European countries also signed up to an extension to the Kyoto Protocol agreement until 2020 although the new pact only covers a sixth of the world�s polluters - and does not require action from the biggest emitters, the US and China.
Mr Davey said yesterday that the climate talks had been �a modest step forward�.

He added: �Doha addressed a key concern of developing countries by agreeing to establish institutional arrangements to address loss and damage associated with the impacts of climate change in particularly vulnerable developing countries.�

..Once again, our politicians have burdened us with Billions of pounds worth of aid. This will no doubtable add more financial pressure on ordinary hard pressed families in the name of the global warming scam.

.FACT - The earth has not warmed for 16 years. This despite the fact that carbon dioxide has increased over that time. FACT - If all the arctic ice (around the north pole) melted, sea levels would remain the same because it is all sea ice and is already floating in the sea. FACT - At the other end of theplanet, the antarctic ice has been expanding year on year and there is no lilekyhood of it melting and causing any sea level rises. FACT - Many of the leading climate scientists were exposed in the climategate email leaks as being dishonest, unable to use mathematical tools, ignored empirical evidence, attempted to delete or hide their data from others. They conspired to exclude sincere sceptic scientists who disagreed with their own (presumably ideolgically led) bias. FACT - All of the disastrously expensive "green" policies that have been forced on us were decided on by unscientific poiticians, civil servants and noisy marxists lobby groups like Green Peace and the WWF.
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