by John Goetz
Kate Raworth of Oxfam International recently authored a 34-page report that began: “In failing to tackle climate change with urgency, rich countries are effectively violating the human rights of millions of the world’s poorest people.”
Kate goes on to claim that we now have determined with “scientific certainty” that climate change (not global warming?) is
creating floods, droughts, hurricanes, sea-level rise, and seasonal unpredictability. The result is failed harvests, disappearing islands, destroyed homes, water scarcity, and deepening health crises, which are undermining millions of peoples’ rights to life, security, food, water, health, shelter, and culture.
In other words, countries like the US, France, Britain, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada (I listed members of the G8) are essentially using global warming to violate the human rights of, well, basically the rest of the world.
It certainly is an interesting tack for a climate change activist to take. Most people don’t like being accused of violating another’s human rights. Obviously, if Oxfam can convince people that by driving their kids to soccer practice that they are in fact depriving someone of their food, health, or even life, they will be motivated by guilt to change their habits. Images of polar bears floating on ice floes must not have been enough.
Oxfam calls for urgent action, as outlined and excerpted here:
Rich countries must lead now in cutting global emissions
The science is clear: global warming must stay well below 2C to avoid creating irreversible climate impacts that would undermine millions of people’s rights. To keep the risk of exceeding 2C low, global emissions must peak by 2015 and then fall by at least 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.
[How far below 2C “well below” means is unclear]
Rich countries must provide the finance needed for low-carbon technologies in developing countries
Since rich countries’ excessive emissions have left the rest of the world with so little atmospheric space, the global reductions required now threaten the right to development in poor countries. Rich countries must therefore deliver the finance and technology needed for poor countries to develop on low-carbon pathways and realise rights at the same time.
[Now global warming is reducing the size of the atmosphere!]
Rich countries must halt their biofuel policies which are undermining poor people’s right to food
…the current rush into biofuels is both failing to deliver emissions cuts, and undermining the rights of people in developing countries…Food prices have risen over 80 per cent in the last three years, with grain-price rises costing developing economies $324bn last year alone – more than three times what they received in aid. Rich-country biofuel programmes have been identified by the International Monetary Fund, among others, as a principal driver of this crisis, and may already be responsible for having pushed 30 million people into poverty.
[Does this mean Brazil can continue producing ethanol? And should we stop research into algal fuels?]
Rich countries must provide the finance needed for international adaptation
Since rich countries’ excessive emissions have put poor people’s rights at risk in developing countries, human-rights norms create a strong obligation for them to provide a remedy by financing adaptation…Adaptation finance must be provided as grants, since people in poor countries should not be expected to repay the funds needed to remedy violations of their rights.
[I think we need a list of “rich” and “poor” countries. Where do China, India, Brazil, and the UAE fall?]
Developing countries must focus their adaptation strategies on the most vulnerable people
National adaptation strategies must put communities at the centre of planning, focus particularly on women’s needs and interests, and guarantee essentials through social protection. Good practice is emerging – and it is working – but needs to spread much faster.
[I found this surprising. Does it mean global warming affects women more than men?]
Developing countries must have ownership in managing international adaptation funds
Since adaptation finance is owed to safeguard the rights of communities facing climate impacts, their governments must have ownership in managing international adaptation funds and, in turn, must be accountable to those communities when spending the finance.
[I am sure there is no threat of corruption, because this is climate change aid.]
Companies must call on governments to act with far greater urgency in cutting global emissions
In the run up to the UN’s 2007 Climate Conference in Bali, the business leaders of 150 leading global companies – from the USA to Europe, Australia, and China – called for a ‘sufficiently ambitious, international and comprehensive legally-binding United Nations agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions’, in order to give business long, legal, and loud signals to scale up investment in low-carbon technologies.
[Isn’t investment made when a return is to be had?]
Companies must take significant steps to cut their global emissions
Too few companies have started exploring how their own operations can be made climate resilient, let alone how their strategies for achieving supply-chain resilience could help or harm the communities – farmers, workers, neighbours, and consumers – they interact with in developing countries.
[That gives me an idea for a new executive position at my company: Chief Climate Resilience Officer]
So there you have it. Joe Smith, an apple farmer in Baroda, MI – if you want to clear your conscience of the human rights violations you are committing against Ho Si Thuan, a rice farmer in Quang Tri province, Viet Nam – you better start lobbying the US government and US companies to implement the steps outlined above. Otherwise, Mr. Thuan’s misfortunes will fall squarely in your lap.
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The basic assumptions about warming and CO2 levels seems to rest entirely on the unsubstantiated theories of a single global warming activist. Who chose Hansen to speak for the entire scientific community? The IPCC report doesn’t suggest the need to cut emissions by 90%.
Griffin needs to take action. It is his responsibility as Hansen’s employer.
“which are undermining millions of peoples’ rights to life, security, food, water, health, shelter, and culture.”
Notice what is left out? FREEDOM!
“and guarantee essentials through social protection”
and guarantee nothing else but “essentials” that some hierarchy will determine for you.
Socialism always “guarantees” that at you will have “enough” which is usually only enough to be miserable without any chance of having anything better. Of course, this doesn’t apply to those in charge because they believe that we are all equal except some are more equal than others.
This goes back to what I’ve been saying all along. They want to de-industrialize us back to the stone-age.
They say we need to fund “low-carbon” technologies in other countries. They know this isn’t feasible on national levels, so they know we can’t do it, therefore we will ultimately fail. And they can continue to point fingers.
Of course by using computers and the web to get their message out, their some of the most guilty of climate criminals.
“Of course, this doesn’t apply to those in charge because they believe that we are all equal except some are more equal than others.”
This is exactly correct and let’s not forget this, EVER!
If the media get’s it way, they will learn very fast when they lose all freedom of speech!
Great points, Anthony and Tom!
Sounds like a case of ‘eco-imperialism’ to me. Only don’t we have to include China in that list now that China is the world leader in CO2 atmospheric injection??
Guilt results from fear (False Evidence Appearing Real) and the greens exploit both. As Jonah Goldberg wrote in the LA Times:
“Environmentalism’s most renewable resources are fear, guilt and moral bullying. ”
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-goldberg20-2008may20,0,3305601.column
No wonder we see declining enrollment in science and engineering. Children are being indoctrinated at an early age that man is the despoiler and that ANY conversion of natural resources into something that benefits mankind is to be resisted or stopped completely. Guilt is a strong motivator and is used effectively by those in the environmental camp to subvert our own children.
Those who realize it’s about freedom, not climate, must continue to speak out against the prelude to humanity’s greatest danger: energy rationing.
Those who control the energy will control the people.
I actually agree with Oxfam’s biofuels policy at least as it relates to using food crops for biofuel production. I also think this is the greatest reason to be a PASSIONATE skeptic. There is a perception that there is no harm in taking action to curb greenhouse gas emmisions. Biofuels are the first program instituted in the US to combat climate change and there are obviously far ranging (and for some severe) unintended economic and environmental consequences while there is little or not benefit with respect to CO2 emission, let along climate change. I wish every decision maker in the world would look carefully at the biofuels debacle before they make any new policy decisions on global warming. We are off to a very bad start.
This person might be a “Climate Scientist” but she certainly isn’t an economist. I do believe her figures are a bit low as most liberal estimates of cost of their pet projects usually are. the earth needs saving but it isn’t from variable temperatures within the normal variability. The cost of the recomended actions will overwhelm the ability of the “rich countries” to finance and maintain Production of the stuff that the world “poor countries” need.
Bill Derryberry
Jaw-dropping idiocy.
I’ll share my mantra for maintaining mental equilibrium whilst all this craziness swirls around us:
We live in interesting times. (Repeat as needed)
Anthony, your balanced reporting and wit are a wonderful antidote.
To you other WUWT fans:
I invite you to visit the donate button with me.
Take a look at those youtube video. The guy explains well why it does not take more fuel to create ethanol from crops. The idea that it takes more fuel to make ethanol is a sham from the BigOil to prohibit every farmer to produce cheap alternative fuel… and food!
ooopss here is the link: http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/422.html
I agree that biofuels are a bad idea as well, but I don’t think Oxbreath believes so for the same reasons. Even if food crops aren’t being used, farmers, seeing more of a profit in biofuel crops, will switch to whatever is fashionable at the moment. So even if they’re not using a food crop for biofuels, land used for growing food might not be. So even while there might be plenty of arable land, there are only so many farmers, and they’re going to be looking at their own bottom line.
@RAYQ MCMULLEN:
Isn’t ‘Big Oil’ investing pretty heavy in ethanol and bio-diesel production facilities? I seem to remember reading something to that effect somewhere.
If that is true, why would ‘BigOil’ then go and lie?
A quick google on just one of the ‘Big Oil’ companies turned up lots of involvement.
BP Alternative Energy for example.
And if you are disinclined to believe what BP says they are doing, then actions speak louder than words here: BP taking stake in Brazil biofuel
This woman is a dupe for some big interests, obviously. She knows nothing about climate or world resources. The Bernaysian style propaganda she is mouthing is dangerous; a threat to our freedoms and lives. I want to make certain that this organization isn’t getting any of my tax dollars!
Ummm…
Warming and CO2 rise both increase food production.
A woman without a clue.
Dee Norris, in one simple answer: If you can’t prevent it, control it!
The fact of the matter is corn ethanol production is not yet profitable for companies in the US to do. The cost and income are both determined by energy use when you break everything down to the root cost. A farmer has to pay for the energy used to create the fertilizer, transport the fertilizer, apply the fertilizer, create the insecticides and herbicides, etc etc. The only reason corn ethanol production is being done now in the US is because farmers get a subsidy per acre plus the final product is sold without a gas tax. So when you see corn ethanol at a lower price then gasoline, keep in mind that it is actually more expensive then gasoline because the tax on gasoline is over half of the cost, and you payed tax money to the farmer for him to grow it. I don’t know the exact numbers but as an example:
Gasoline price: $2 before tax, $4 after
Ethanol price: $3 before tax, $3 after
Sugar cane can be effectively and profitably turned into ethanol, which is why Brazil has been doing it for many years. If the companies doing research now on GE bacteria are able to create a bacteria that can convert the stalks and husks of the corn into ethanol, it will become much more profitable. That is where the government money should be going to, not going into the farmer’s pockets.
Ray,
Where in this thread was it posted that it takes more fuel to create ethanol? I don’t see it.
It does cost almost as much fuel to produce the fertilizer used to grow the crop, tend the crop, harvest it, transport it to the ethanol plant, then truck the ethanol to the refinery to be mixed with fuel.
That and the payback in carbon savings is roughly 100-150 years, not mention the cost penalty inflicted on the poor by the diversion of food to fuel.
All in all ethanol, especially ethanol made from corn, does not provide any of the benefits it is touted to provide and it turns out that ethanol burned as part of the combustion process pumps carcinogens into the atmosphere. It might be worse than gasoline. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/03/tech/main508006.shtml , http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9647424 I suppose that NPR is a shill for ‘BigOil’ tho 🙂
There is a right to shelter? Where’s the mansion which I am entitled to?
Hi Ray. Conversion of lands from food crops to biofuel is taking food out of the mouths of very poor people. See Associated Press story from Time’s website below regarding the rising cost of soy — the only form of protein most poor people can afford in Southeast Asia.
So, though you clearly WANT to be down with the people, if you are going to BE down with the people, you may have to let go of your belief in biofuel.
As Soy Costs Soar, the Poor Panic
(SURABAYA, Indonesia) — With the dollar a day he earns scrounging for scrap metal and paper, Jumadi can’t buy his family beef or even chicken. But until now, the rail-thin scavenger could at least afford soy.
His wife and two children snacked on slabs of fried fermented soy, known as tempeh, and tossed the cake — like staple into bland bowls of noodles and soup. The soy provided protein, and it was cheap.
Not any more. The cost of tempeh and tofu has doubled to record highs, driven by the soaring price of soybeans imported from the United States.
“What kind of life is this?” complained the 25-year-old, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, as he stood outside his plywood shack that was buzzing with flies. “I just eat crackers now.”
The cost of soy is spreading hunger on the country’s main island of Java, where millions of poor and working-class families depend on tofu and tempeh every day. It is also devastating an entire local industry based on soy products. Hundreds of factories have closed, thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest soy prices and at least one soy vendor killed himself after falling into debt.
About 20 percent of soy now goes to make biodiesel in the U.S., up from almost nothing three years ago, the FAO said.
— Michael Case, Associated Press, Sept. 6, 2008.
link to full article is here:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1839304,00.html
I keep going back to a number of papers that appeared in Nature, one in 2000 and another in 2005, in which it was determined that the majority of anthropogenic CO2 emissions were from Third World home fires. Other articles noted that deforestation accounted for 40% of the residual excess CO2 and ocean pollution caused a decrease in productivity further reducing the natural ability of the earth system to absorb and sequester atmospheric carbon.
Nowhere did Ms. Raworth mention the other obvious and significant factors contributing to the rise in residual CO2, not to mention the growing body of knowledge that shows CO2 is not driving the climate change.
If she is a scientist, she must be one of those in social or political science, not atmospheric science or meteorology.
Can anyone provide an example of how their local climate has actually changed as a result of climate change?
Some say that Australia is having increasing droughts – this seems to be cyclical.
Some say Bangladesh is facing increased coastal flooding – this hasn’t really changed over millenium.
Some say the Cascades snowpack has declined – long-term records show nothing unusual is happening and this year, there was near record snowpacks.
The Island of Tuvala will be sunk by rising sea level – sea levels are increasing by 3.2 mms per year or 1.7 inches over the past 15 years – the same rates as 1850 before CO2 started increasing – the tides are 3 feet, how do you notice 1.7 inches over 15 years.
The Arctic ice is melting – this also seems to be cyclical – let alone that the biggest cycle is the fact that it always melts in August and starts refreezing in late September.
Glaciers melting – since 1800 that is before global warming had an impact.
Any REAL ones?
Let’s see…
Do I feel guilty about my CO2?
Not at all. In fact, I love my CO2. It is free fertilizer for the poor farmers of the world.
No guilt here.
Bill, I am talking about the general perception that you need more fuel to create biofuel from crops. Have you watched the video?
To clarify, I am not talking about cost. The cost of fossil fuel is controlled and manipulated to optimize their profits, without having a revolution over it. But we need to bring this in energy units. It takes less energy to create ethanol from crops. Corn is one of the worse crop. However, the utilization of the rest of the plant should also be included and used to offset the cost and increase the efficiency of the process.