U.S. backs $100 billion climate fund

[Ghost Dog]

Source: Reuters

Ministers urged action as Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen dropped plans to present his own proposed draft texts which had stalled the process for more than 24 hours -- developing countries had insisted everyone should be involved.

...

Agreement on a climate fund could add political drive to the U.N. talks which meant to agree a host of other measures on Friday, from saving rainforests to boosting carbon markets and stiffening global carbon emissions cuts.

Denmark's Rasmussen removed one obstacle to the talks on Thursday, withdrawing his disputed plan to nominate small groups of countries to storm through complex texts littered with long lists of options.

...

"Copenhagen is too important to fail," China's climate change ambassador Yu Qingtai said, adding that the presence of Premier Wen Jiabao, who arrived in Copenhagen on Wednesday evening, was testament to China's commitment.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSGEE5BB07F20091217

---

The article needs to be read in full to get the picture. By the looks of it, dropping (both) pre-negotiated texts at this stage leaves only highest-level diplomacy from now until the conference closes on Saturday.

[FarCenter]

1. The first rule of diplomacy is that before heads of states meet, you know exactly the agreement

Heads of state should never "negotiate". All the negotiation should be finished at lower levels before they even agree to meet.

This is monumentally stupid.

[Ghost Dog]

5. I certainly agree with that. I suppose there will be 'Sherpas' trying

to do their best, but,

there could even be fireworks as those supremely competitive egoists take the stage/field, unsupported, without a script.

Me, I'd prefer open collaborative grassroots genuine popular Anarchy.

[Andronex]

2. A $100 billion climate slush fund...

to be administered by the central bankers, just what the world needs!

[EFerrari]

3. It's blackmail. Kill Kyoto, agree to US backed

national plans which would be catastrophic. If you don't back our position, no aid for you, buddy.

Clinton went to Copenhagen as an economic hitman, basically.

[WriteDown]

4. Kyoto was flawed too, but this may be more flawed...

We need a new plan, call it "Tokyo", that is like Kyoto, but includes China and India.

[Ghost Dog]

6. Yup. Please allow me to add some comment from the grassroots:

Copenhagen sham: the Empire reveals its nakedness

published: Wednesday 16 December 2009 23:20 af / by Alex W.

Political tensions are rising both within and outside the walls of Copenhagen's Bella Centre, the venue for what many commentators have described as the most important international conference ever held. Following a weekend of massive police repression in which over a thousand people were taken into police custody under pre-emptive detention powers passed into legislation by the Danish parliament earlier this month, the bureaucratic mandarins of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) displayed their true political colours by barring entry to thousands of previously accredited NGO observers to the conference centre as of Tuesday morning.

This exclusion of NGO's from participation in the summit - one ostensibly convened to reach a global consensus on the reduction of greenhouse gases - dramatically illustrates the undemocratic nature of the United Nations and reveals who its true masters are. Now that the leaders of the most powerful nations on Earth are due to arrive, and faced with the intolerable threat of democracy coming from outside the Bella Centre in the form of massive popular protest, the faceless, unaccountable officials behind COP15 (the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC) have shown the whole world what this summit is really all about: a tawdry exercise in grubby deal-making carried out by and for the global elite.

When the COP15 farce ends this Saturday, at best we can expect glib talk of a political framework for a legally binding treaty to be signed at some distant point in the future, and a great deal of sound and fury signifying nothing about the need to reduce the industrialised world's carbon emissions.

Which is not to say there won't be important agreements made at Copenhagen. Far from it. In fact, much progress has already been made in the advancing the real agenda at COP15 - the massive expansion of the carbon trading market on a global scale.

According to the UNFCCC's own figures, there are already some 5500 projects operational or in the pipeline under the Convention's so-called Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a pseudo-environmental market -driven scam that would make even Bernie Madoff blush. Under the CDM, capitalists hell bent on further fossil-fuel driven expansion can continue to pollute to their heart's content by either purchasing or financing 'carbon offset' projects. Under the scheme, everything from zero-biodiversity, genetically modified, monoculture tree plantations to water-guzzling, land-clearing hydroelectric dams can be eligible for official accreditation as a carbon offsetting project.

The carbon credits generated by the CDM projects can then be bought and sold on the open market. Trading floors in London, New York and Chicago are already open for carbon credit related business with no doubt more bourses to follow. Thus it is that the United Nations now works hand in glove with the very same giant Wall St investment firms who so recently brought us to the very brink of financial catastrophe. For Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, carbon credits may well prove to be the next big thing in derivatives trading. The debt and property markets have collapsed, why not speculate on carbon instead?

Numerous studies, including reports drafted by Carbon Trade Watch, the Corner House research group and Friends of the Earth, have demonstrated beyond any shadow of a doubt these carbon trading and offset mechanisms have proved completely ineffective in actually reducing pollution. On the other hand, billions of dollars has changed hands and a ripe new market for hyper-speculation is taking shape. It's nice to know there really is a silver lining to even the darkest of clouds...at least for some of us.

The madness of carbon trading; the contempt shown by the UN mandarins and rich nations towards NGOs and delegates from the global South; the summit host's deployment of extraordinary police powers to silence the expression of popular discontent at the undemocratic nature of the whole process; everything that has transpired at Copenhagen illustrates clearly 'our' bureaucratic institutions, governments and corporations will continue by their very nature to act in their own interests. Thankfully, we have begun to do likewise.

As Vandana Shiva said to the gathering of 100 000 people outside the Danish parliament last Saturday, "This is what Earth democracy looks like." The time is long overdue for a truly global climate justice movement. Copenhagen might spell the end of any official pretence by the world's ruling classes that they intend to combat the climate crisis (how appropriate the Empire reveals its nakedness in the land of Hans Christian Andersen himself!). It might also prove to be the birthplace of a movement that will one day deal with not just the problem of climate injustice, but all the other injustices and crises currently plaguing the planet. Only time will tell.

http://indymedia.dk/articles/1899

even less fewer ngo people allowed inside conference

Icon_article Udgivet / published: Thursday 17 December 2009 11:46 af / by Yvo De Boer

Tagget som / tagged as: cop15
Område / neighbourhood:

From now on only 300 people will be allowed inside the Climate Conference as observers from NGOs. Suddenly there is a lack of capacity (?), after they already reduced the number earlier this week.
Other people with valid badges are allowed to watch the talks on a video screen.

Here is the email text sent out by the UNFCCC:

Dear Constituency Focal Points,

Further to our briefing last night at the Bella Center, this is to inform you that NGO participation will be limited to 300 delegates on Thursday, 17 and Friday, 18 December at the UN climate change conference to maintain a peaceful environment for the negotiations and ensure the necessary level of security when over 110 Heads of State and Government will be present. Regrettably, security considerations and the limitation of the capacity of the Bella Center have made it impossible to open the venue to a larger number of civil society representatives. The NGO representatives for the 300 slots will be selected by the constituency focal points.

Alternative conference venue for observer organizations

The Host Country in cooperation with the Danish NGO-network Peoples's Climate Action (PCA) is organizing an alternative conference venue at Forum Copenhagen for the observer organization representatives that will not be able to enter the Bella Center Thursday, 17 and Friday, 18 December. TV links to the Bella Center will be established that will show the proceedings at COP 15. A wireless internet connection will be available.

Observer organization representatives with valid UNFCCC COP 15 badges may go to the alternative venue from 08:00 on Thursday, 17 December at Forum Copenhagen, Julius Thomsens Plads 1, 1925 Frederiksberg (Metrolines M1 and M2 go directly to Forum station). Catering will be available.

http://indymedia.dk/articles/1912

Oh, and See More Here: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/ (& scroll down).

[EFerrari]

7. Thank you. I'm so disheartened, I can only force myself to read

a little bit at a time.

Thanks for staying on this.

[Ghost Dog]

8. You're welcome, E, all.

I try to remain cheerful, focus on what's real (that's why I've made my home down here off the Saharan coast of Africa... getting closer). And this, even though I also observe, quite closely, the enemy (mentality, as much as I can take, eg.).

I recommend, if you're stuck where I think you're living/working(or not), at least use the net to look out and see... other people. Follow the links.

Compared to this, though, even the Stock Market Watch is, like, light relief, although it's such a big part of what's going on.

Reasons to be cheerful: (Warn the kids), there's going to be revolution (which never suits all, to put it mildly), even if there is going to be war. Then we can Change.

But first, you all need to just say NO. Turn off the TV. Forever.

......

Further to that (eg. - The Guardian channelling the UK Govt.):

The day saw thousands of protesters take to the streets to demand a strong deal by Friday but, while they clashed with police, they failed in their objective to enter the conference centre.

A key meeting of 25 government ministers from different countries, chosen to streamline the negotiations, was 18 hours behind track tonight , having failed to meet for the entire day. The group, along with another 25 "shadow" ministers, had been scheduled for its first meeting in the early hours of Wednesday but it was delayed. Ministers from developing countries were shocked to find that, instead of making progress on producing the slimmed-down draft agreement for the leaders, talks starting at 5.45am had seen the document increase in complexity.

Miliband said people around the world would be rightly furious if negotiators failed to get a deal because the talks were delayed not over substance, but over the process. "It would be a tragedy if we failed to agree because of the substance. It would be a farce if we failed to reach agreement because of the process," he said.

"People will find it extraordinary that this conference that has been two years in the planning and involves 192 countries, which is such an important thing, such important stakes, is at the moment being stalled on points of order."

There was, however, some progress on other important issues. The US and China appeared to resolve some of their differences and a proposal from the Ethiopian prime minister on climate funding closed the gap between rich and poor countries. At the heart of the impasse is the fate of the Kyoto protocol, signed in 1997. It is the only legally binding agreement on climate change and requires industrialised nations – but not developing nations – to cut their emissions. Rich nations want a fresh treaty, arguing the world has changed and the major emerging economies such and China and India must commit to curbing their huge and fast growing national emissions. But the developing nations argue that rich nations grew wealthy by polluting the atmosphere and must take primary responsibility for it, which can only be guaranteed by Kyoto.

/... http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/16/copenhagen-summit-miliband-farce-warning

[EFerrari]

10. I don't really watch television unless I want to see Amy Goodman

or the other indy niche news shows on a big screen. Sometimes documentaries or book talks but Madison Avenue hates people like me. I don't watch their product placement anywhere and have to be dragged into stores kicking and screaming. I've only ever owned 1 new car and drive maybe once a month or so. We recycle everything here. We're pretty much Communists, I guess. lol :)

[Ghost Dog]

9. More! (& see itsgettinghotinhere.org link above)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/17/un-leaked-report-copenhagen-3c