http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas

China's strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world's poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was "the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility", said Christian Aid. "Rich countries have bullied developing nations," fumed Friends of the Earth International.

Really good read. Kevin Rudd banged his microphone.

they were saying something on the radio this morning about india admitted it worked with china to block any carbon emission cuts or something..

moral of the story ETS = s***, China = Evil, India = chinas bitch and who cares about a glacier melting in 100 years?

last edited by TufNuT at 09:54:35 23/Dec/09

I fully support China telling everyone to f*** off. If everyone else really gives a s***, they'd put environmental import tariffs on Chinese-made products thus making locally made products a more cost-effective alternative.

well said ^
i think its time we docked now

It was a nice junket. That is all.

infi you'd know, how much did we spend to send kruddler and his entourage over there for the biggest fail of all time?

Who would have thought infi posting in a political thread giving his "unbiased" opinions as fact. This thread is missing pinky telling infi how great he is, tho casa seems to be prepared to fill that role.

Yeah if people really cared they would stop (or at least try to stop) having anything to do with any product that has anything to do with China. As well as cutting their own emissions and getting their government/providers to do the same.

But, most people dont care that much. Not really. They might say they care... they might actually care... but not that much.

China's one child policy has gone further towards counteracting climate change than anything i have heard any other nation do. lets front up for a one child future.

IT wouldn't have been complete until you came in Obes.

Here's a "fact" for you Obes. Usually all background work to multilateral agreements is hamered our ages in advance so that leaders come to the conference simply sign off for the photo opp.

In the instance of Copenhagen all the negotiators were haggling until the 11th hour. The politicians had to come in and do what politicians do best - make a giant s*** sandwich look like a gourmet Off-The-Wall burger.

The politicians only wanted to come to Copenhagen for a photo opp and when the negotiations broke down they did whatever they could to make it sound like a success, instead of berating China for the their lack of good faith bargaining.

Kevin and Obama are frauds. They had no intention of playing hardball with China. Instead of being a "friend of the chair" whatever the f*** that means, Kevin might have cared to be a friend of the environment and call out China on their polluting ways.

Yeh defo the politics involved behind Copenhagen and general agreement on climate change policies can be satisfactorily summarised in 4 x 2 sentence paragraphs.

This thread is missing pinky telling infi how great he is

Queue the Pinkster...

infi, I concur totally. To say 'you're great' would be a gross understatement.

I'm guilty of the odd junket myself, but at least it's private money - not tax-payer funded. One time I had an internal business meeting in Salo, Italy. In the middle of European summer. If that's not a junket I don't know what is. We could have just met in any old place, but oh no, it had to be a tourist destination in the middle of a European holiday season.

I also had a conference in Greece once too. In a five star hotel. That was fantastic, but similarly a junket (actually some tax-payer money in that one, but mostly private).

That's it! f*** the rice eaters, I'm not gonna buy any Chinese Products!! I'm gonna buy cheap stuff from Orstralya and other non-c***y countries.


... oh wait

China's one child policy has gone further towards counteracting climate change than anything i have heard any other nation do. lets front up for a one child future.

Yeah, you should be charged for each kid you pop out. Call it the baby tax.

infi you'd know, how much did we spend to send kruddler and his entourage over there for the biggest fail of all time?

I would be interested to find this out; surely this information is available under FOI rules?

I couldn't give a rats anymore to be honest. Anytime anyone wants to do anything on a global scale it will always fail. The world is run by vested interest. There will never be consensus on anything. IMO our biggest problem is we all want too much and never appear satisfied. I'm as guilty as the next.

Official economic sanctions or tariffs against China? I used to think so until I read up a little more recently.

China is boss. You can't play hardball with your bank manager. Copenhagen demonstrated this.

I just did a cursory search to try and get some info on the costs associated with the travel to Copenhagen, from the Melbourne City Council agenda 17 Nov 2009 they expected the cost for their Lord Mayor to travel to be $19,020 inc. business class air fares, accom & incidentals. K-Rudd's contingent was 114 strong I would presume they'd have at least a similar per person cost. So ball park figure of $2,300,000.

Yeah, you should be charged for each kid you pop out. Call it the baby tax.

Just a quick note. The one child policy in China has been relaxed quite extensively. If you are a Govt employee you are still bound by the one child policy as part of your employment agreement. If you are not you can have more than one child but you have to pay a fee to the Govt - I think it's about $2,000USD.

The reason was girl babies were being murdered at an enormous rate. Everyone wanted boys. The problem they now have is there are not enough girls to go around. A Lot of Chinese men are never married. I discussed in great lengths with those I worked with in China earlier this year.

BTW you can openly talk politics in China and criticise the Govt just not on soap boxes at the town square. The biggest problem Chinese youth have today is they feel unempowered(sic). I was told many don't bother to vote cause it won't change the system and endemic corruption is everywhere, in Govt and Private Enterprise.

Also in the interest of balance The Guardian is also running this article.

The British and US governments have blamed the Chinese government for the failure of the talks. It's true that the Chinese worked hard to mess them up, but Obama also put Beijing in an impossible position. He demanded concessions while offering nothing. He must have known the importance of not losing face in Chinese politics: his unilateral diplomacy amounted to a demand for self-abasement. My guess is that this was a calculated manoeuvre guaranteed to produce instransigence, whereupon China could be blamed for the outcome the US wanted.

Quote cherry picked for your convenience.

This was politics, not environmentalism. Why would any nation upset the soon-to-be world superpower? They are the ones making our really really cheap stuff to boost our economy too.

It's about convenience - sure, we could take off some clothes in summer or put some more clothes on in winter, but pressing the button on the air conditioner remote is SO much easier.

you can have more than one child but you have to pay a fee to the Govt - I think it's about $2,000USD.

love it! say yes to baby tax

^ the problem is the ones that appear to work hardest come from lower in the food chain in China whilst the prodigy of the wealthier seem to be the fat arsed lazy spoilt prats.

^ and this is different from Australia how?

*Awaits finding another habitable planet to resolve the issue, until next time.

Bring out the nukes... a nuclear winter will stop this global warming business - STOP IT COLD!

Official economic sanctions or tariffs against China? I used to think so until I read up a little more recently.

China is boss. You can't play hardball with your bank manager. Copenhagen demonstrated this.

pretty much.


The docco 'Is Walmart good for America' really hammered this home some years ago.


Western countries are becoming the victims of their own success

actually china has been scammed big time by taking bits of useless paper and converting them to promises to pay useless bits of paper in exchange for real goods. pretty lols. america doesn't care that China is artificially devaluing their currency because China is going be left holding the bag and the US is getting cheap goods in the meantime. China doesn't care because they have some weird f***ed up understanding of economics (positive balances of trade = good?) and they are 'keeping score' in US dollars.

last edited by hast at 18:22:27 23/Dec/09

In China they had 34 TV stations. Six were owned by the CCCP. Two were totally anti-Japanese and partly anti-Western. One was documentaries about the atrocities committed by the Japanese and European Colonialists, the other constantly ran serials based on the Japanese occupation. Both kept repeating the same theme, Japanese are evil.

EDIT: Whenever I tried to get to www.google.com or www.google.com.au it came back www.google.com.cn. If I remember correctly I even tried Whirlpool an got "no link found".

last edited by Some Fat Bastard at 18:29:39 23/Dec/09

I think that is a gross generalisation of the TV channels in China, being that I lived there for over 2 years that was not my experience with the CCTV channels.

HAHAHA IT is funny watching you eat up the bread and circus games of government

You all buy it hook line and sinker.

^ I was there this year and watched TV a lot in the hotel room after work and that's about all I saw on, I think, CCTV 6 and CCTV 8.

EDIT: Not much else to do in the industrial sector of Guangzhou except eat dinner.

last edited by Some Fat Bastard at 18:43:54 23/Dec/09

Thom Yorke of Radiohead said he was appalled at the summit.

HAHAHA IT is funny watching you eat up the bread and circus games of government You all buy it hook line and sinker.

Ignore this guy he is seriously mentally ill.

Blame China all you want, but China was the only ones who were up front from start to finish about the whole process. They went in with targets already on the table, conditions that they wouldn't budge on and conditions they expected from the US and others.

Only the really desperate countries went in expecting a result any different. Australia, US, EU and the broke ones, the Brits and a few African countries.

f*** the UN though. Robert f***ing Mugabe got up there and moralised about global warming. The c*** kills his opposition and held the presidency through violence. Everyone else in his country is starving and he is moralising on some bulls*** science fiction that he blames the US and Europe for, and is begging for billions in cash to "adapt" to.

What the f*** is Zimbabwe going to do to adapt to climate change? A/C for the Presidential palace?

Rudd might have gone in there with blind hopes of a deal to save some face, but at least he didn't f*** up and commit billions to funding corrupt regimes just to get yes votes.

Blame China all you want, but China was the only ones who were up front from start to finish about the whole process. They went in with targets already on the table, conditions that they wouldn't budge on and conditions they expected from the US and others.

Maybe you didn't read the article, but China removed any such targets from legislation and wanted nothing set in concrete legally.

They have nothing to gain from any enforced climate change rules. Their economy and power is solely reliant on fossil fuels.

AND if they wouldn't budge on anything, that is even worse. To negotiate is just that...

China went in with their own targets. Not global ones. Their targets are linked to GDP, namely as their GDP grows so does their target. Essentially they have only said they will reduce carbon intensity.

The conditions I was talking about were that no targets be legally binding, and no targets be specific. They didn't change their line at any point. China didn't remove anything, the draft was thrown out and the Western countries scratched up some non-binding "accord" just so that they wouldn't walk away with nothing.

China was never going to sign something that limits their growth (ditto with India), the rest of the world was naive to think they might. And why should the Chinese not have the same quality of life that the Western world has?

It wasn't just China, it was All the major players. We just have to deal with what the world throws at us now.

So in 20 years time the climate people can say, "I told you so" or the skeptics can say, "HA! We knew it!"

No one with power has any incentive to help the entire world. f*** our lives and our decedents' lives.

great speech from arnold:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zoXCNEyFCU