Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
The lead Chinese negotiator at the 17th UN COP (United Nations Conference of Partygoers) being celebrated in Durban is a man named Xie Zhenhua. He is the Vice Chairman of the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
Mr. Xie has come to Durban in part to lay out the conditions that would have to be met before China would sign on to any new “Son of Kyoto” treaty. Fortunately for the world, their conditions are stringent.
Here’s the list of the Chinese conditions, as laid out over at PhysOrg:
One is that the European Union and “other countries” sign on to a new round of enforceable pledges under Kyoto.
Europe has signalled its willingness to extend its commitments by five, perhaps eight years, but the chances that it would do so under the treaty’s laborious ratification process seem remote.
So-called “fast start” climate financing for poorer countries of $30 billion for the period of 2010 to 2012 must also be delivered, Xie said.
Likewise a Green Climate Fund that would ramp up to $100 billion per year by 2020.
A raft of nut-and-bolts agreements outlined at the 2009 Copenhagen summit and married into the UN process at last year’s high-level climate gathering in Cancun, Mexico must also move forward.
These include initiatives for technology transfer, adaptation — helping vulnerable nations cope with impacts — and new rules for verifying that carbon-cutting promises are kept.
Finally, China insists that a review of climate science begin as planned in 2013, and that established principles in which historical responsibility for creating the problem of climate change, and the respective capacity of countries to fight it, are respected.
There are three ways to look at the Chinese proposals. Either they are a serious first step in negotiations, or they are deal breakers that the Chinese hope will be met, or they are deal breakers that the Chinese hope will not be met. I say choice (c), “deal breakers they hope will not be met”.
First, they definitely are not described by the Chinese themselves as being a negotiating posture. They were described in the article as “five conditions for China taking on pledges under a new accord that would go into effect after 2020”. So they are not negotiating positions. They are deal breakers.
But are they deal breakers designed to get China the best deal, or to keep them out of a deal? I say the latter for several reasons. The overriding reason is that unlike the EU, the Chinese will not harm their self-interest by signing on to something that will clearly damage their economy … and any “Son of Kyoto” agreement would definitely harm their economy. But that’s not the only reason, there are other indications that are signaled in the conditions.
First, the Chinese won’t sign on unless everyone signs on. The odds of the US signing are not great at the best of times. And at this particular time in the century, the odds of the US signing on to Son of Kyoto, while still non-zero, are approaching zero faster than Zeno’s paradox …
Second, there is little chance that the worlds’ industrialized countries will agree to pony up a hundred billion a year and hand it to poor countries. Most countries are having a hard time staying afloat right now. In addition the EU is not all that thrilled about the plan. The last bunch of money that the EU handed over to the poor countries under the CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) was mostly lost in a cesspool of graft and corruption.
Third, the “review of climate science” that uses “established principles” to affix the historical blame for climate change and the “capacity of countries to fight it” is a non-starter at any time. That sounds like the IPCC as envisioned and run by Chairman Mao, which would be a truly terrifying thought for most countries, particularly the US.
So my conclusion is that some of these five conditions are picked specifically because they are deal breakers.
It’s actually not a bad negotiating ploy, though. This way, when one of their claims is turned down, the Chinese can cut right to the chase and say “Sorry, we can’t agree to Son of Kyoto because our conditions are not met, the US refuses to agree to them … but let’s try to achieve at least some of our noble goals. To show you really care about the climate, how about you guys just sign up for the part where you give us poor countries a hundred billion dollars per year, and we can all go home having achieved something noble and long-lasting at Durban?”
That’s my prediction. Wait and see … it wouldn’t surprise me if in all of this, the Chinese are still able to come up with some way to make money out of the overweening guilt of the Greens …
w.
The world’s dirtiest polluter wants to be categorized
as a ‘developing country’ eligible for ‘climate aid’.
How about them threatening to let megatons of greenhouse refrigerants
evaporate unless they get carbon credits, in cash?
At the end of his presentation, I wonder if anyone clapped…
China declines to be hustled. Kipling wouldn’t be surprised.
I agree with you, the answer is ‘c’. The Chinese don’t want to make any such committment, they are much too pragmatic. But you have to consider the chinese philosophy of saving face themselves and allowing others an opt out to also save face in negotiations that might fail, that best fits ‘c’.
There’s a fourth way it can be looked at:
What I see is “we want cash up front, before we actually have another look at the ‘climate change’ issue in case it turns out to have been a farce, at least we got $30 billion up front.”
I see China as like the Ferengi. If they don’t have a direct financial benefit (in conventional ways of measuring economic progress), they aren’t going to do a thing. They will go along as long as they are paid to and the amounts they collect are greater than the costs but they aren’t going to spend any of their own money “fighting” CO2.
[Finally, China insists that a review of climate science begin as planned in 2013, and that established principles in which historical responsibility for creating the problem of climate change, and the respective capacity of countries to fight it, are respected.]
Meanwhile..
The United States of America, Australia, Great Britain, Canada, India, and others have requested that China work with them, within established principles of history, with regard to who was responsible for the creation of a non-Japanese dominated Eastern Asian Mainland; and the how China will provide compensation to pay for this actions and how compensation will be paid for the benefits accumulated by this action for the past 65 years, and in future. A growth enablement fee of 64 Yuan ( $10) per person per year has been proposed as a levy on the Chinese people, with the initial payment covering the past 65 years to be made prior to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November 2012.
I want to see China agreeing to drop back to 20% less emissions than they emitted in 1990. That would be a real commitment to the cause.
One outcome of this would be that third world countries would be more likely to look favourably on China. Not so dumb, those Chinese.
“China’s concession to start cutting its greenhouse gas emissions won’t change Canada’s decision not to sign on to a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, Environment Minister Peter Kent said Monday.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/12/05/pol-kent-kyoto-durban.html
🙂
If Obama commits to this nonsense, he may as well not run for office in 2012.
…China is going to agree to open inspections, and some bureaucracy like the UN telling them what to do?
I don’t think so………….
The trick here is to
1) Put out a proposal that nobody would agree to, but it would still be to your benefit if they did.
2) Make it appear is if you’re being reasonable and willing to compromise.
3) Blame everybody else when nobody agrees to your proposal.
So far, the Chinese are playing it very well.
HI Wiilllis you might like this insight Xie let slip at a non-Western conference.
The chinese lead climate negotiator – doesn’t even believe in man made global warming……
from the Guardian: Climate change: Chinese adviser calls for open mind on causes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/24/china-climate-change-adviser
“China’s most senior negotiator on climate change said today he was keeping an open mind on whether global warming was man-made or the result of natural cycles.
Xie Zhenhua said there was no doubt that warming was taking place, but more and better scientific research was needed to establish the causes.”
———————————–
Unless You give us, One hundred billion dollars…’ That’s one of Dr.Evils lines, straight out of an Austin Powers movie, But he wasn’t asking for “a hundred billion a year” No, that would have been too over the top for Dr.Evil. Ha… It’s amazing how much reality is mimicking comedy parody movies these days.
Give them One Hundred Billion gad-zillion dollars a year for being hilariously funny, if not original.
So delusional are the western media/politicians no-one seems to have picked up on he significance.. of Xie’s little slip. (no westerners present)
Telegraph: China has ‘open mind’ about cause of climate change
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7067505/China-has-open-mind-about-cause-of-climate-change.html
China’s most senior climate change official [Xie Zhenhua] surprised a summit in India when he questioned whether global warming is caused by carbon gas emissions and said Beijing is keeping an “open mind”.
“There are disputes in the scientific community. We have to have an open attitude to the scientific research. There’s an alternative view that climate change is caused by cyclical trends in nature itself. We have to keep an open attitude,” he said.
“It is already a solid fact that climate is warming. The major reasons for this climate change is the unconstrained emissions produced by the developed countries in the process of industrialisation. That’s the mainstream view [but] there are other views. Our attitude is an open attitude”.
———————
“India and South Africa’s environment ministers appeared to be baffled by his comments”
——————–
the West are being played for fools by China.
The Chinese are well aware that they are playing poker with a group of retards who just got their allowance canceled (the EU), a guy in loaned clothes without a penny to his name (the US), a handful of thieves (the UN kleptocrats) and three other guys unwilling to slide back on their standard of living (Brazil, India and Russia).
China is a ‘poor’ country?
China and Brazil etc know who has control of the financial instruments meant to make trillions from trading carbon dioxide:
2 Dec: Irish Times: China and Brazil threaten to block carbon offset trade
PILITA CLARK in Durban
“The issue now is to avoid countries getting away with murder,” said Andre Correa do Lago, Brazil’s chief envoy, in a separate interview. “You cannot think you can have the instruments of the Kyoto protocol without belonging to the Kyoto protocol.”…
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/1202/1224308474749.html
5 Dec: Energy Collective: India Rejects EU Plan for New Climate Treaty
Before India announced its opposition, China had already rejected the plan, saying that a new mandate before the Bali Roadmap was complete was “too much.”…
http://theenergycollective.com/paigeandrews/71675/india-rejects-eu-plan-new-treaty-after-kyoto
talk of reducing carbon dioxide emissions is just that…talk:
2 Dec: Mail & Guardian, South Africa: Dirty energy financiers shamed
by Lloyd Gedye
Other major coal energy financiers include JP Morgan Chase with €16.5-billion, Citi Bank with €13.75-billion, Bank of America with €12.6-billion, Morgan Stanley with €12.1-billion, Deutsche Bank with €11.5-billion and the Royal Bank of Scotland with €10.9-billion…
According to the World Development Report 2010, “if all coal-fired power plants scheduled to be built in the next 25 years come into operation, their lifetime CO2 emissions would be equal to those of all coal-burning activities since the beginning of industrialisation”…
http://mg.co.za/article/2011-12-02-dirty-energy-financiers-shamed/
then there is the sheer audacity of the EU, which is unilaterally imposing an Aviation Tax on airlines worldwide, when all countries fly in and out of everywhere, so surely everyone should be able to impose the same tax, making the tax meaningless.
then there is the UN now trying to impose a shipping tax worldwide…nice.
the MSM of course is conveniently ignoring China’s “per capita” emissions, but as China’s negotiator at Durban said:
“China remains a developing country. Per capita GDP is only $4,300, and we have 128 million population living within $1 a day.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/05/china-eu-plans-kyoto-durban
Dollars are in short supply since the worldwide Great Recession, so I propose giving developing countries 100 billion quatloos annually. Or 100 billion carbon credits. But they would probably prefer quatloos.
Ha ha, China. Jokes on you.
If you want $100 billion a year, where do you think the rest of the world’s going to get it?
Just write yourselves a big fat climate check, then declare yourselves the “Greenest,” most Climatically Ethical Country on Earth.
Brilliant plan from China, and stupid retarded Western politicans buy it lock, stock, and barrel:
A) Get the West to fork over $30 to $100 billion per annum to useless third world countries and dictatorships.
B) Build 77 nuclear reactors producing 84 billion MWe of electricity. But also continue building coal plants with little hesitation.
C) Watch Western countries such as the USA build 8 (eight) nuclear plants with 10 MWe capacity.
D) Buy oil, uranium, copper, and other deposits globally, as stupid retarded Western politicians suck their collective thumbs and worry about bogus “climate change.”
E) Manufacture and sell pathetic windmills and windmill components to stupid retarded Western politicians **and their famiilies and business associates at the expense of Western taxpayers.”***
It goes on and on and on, but a good place to start is right here:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html
David Chamness says:
December 5, 2011 at 11:53 am
Oh, very good. Yeah, you can see why they love Kyoto not applying to them.
w.
You know what’s really scary? The West might agree!
How does the old saying go… “If you look around the [poker] table and can’t tell who the chump is, it’s you.”
~More Soylent Green!
If the funding that China wants were to see the light of day it would be the first steps in splitting the planet in 2. On one side the Declining West, with enough cash left to give to the rest, and drain its strength. The other, the emerging economies, led by China, Supplied by China, and Influenced by China. With capital funding from the west.
Beautiful, from a Chinese perspective. They see their window of opportunity within the next 50-75 years, I’d be guessing.
One day someone, who is has mountains more influence than I, is going to look at all this from the context of a battle for dominance and stop with fluffy tree hugging crap.
Once all this leaves the rhelm of NGO’s and is in the hands of those power and decision making influence, it ceases to become a benign movement just making a lot noise.
All this becomes a tool for control, dominance and influence in the holders best interest.