People send me stuff… UPDATE: See below for another interpretation
Remember how this was phrased? “sign it, it’s just voluntary!”
Recall Rio 1992 “Earth Summit” where the meme was “hey, it’s voluntary!…with a negotiating schedule attached”. Apparently, like a Roach Motel, “countries check in but they can’t check out”. This email is from UNFCCC’s list server and note my bolded section below. The arrogance, it burns.
—–Original Message—–
From: globalmedialist-all <globalmedialist-all@lists.unfccc.int>
To: globalmedialist-all <globalmedialist-all@lists.unfccc.int>; germanmedialist <germanmedialist@lists.unfccc.int>
Sent: Tue, Dec 13, 2011 4:46 am
Subject: [UNFCCC medialist] STATEMENT BY UNFCCC CHIEF ON CANADA’S ANNOUNCEMENT TO WITHDRAW FROM KYOTO PROTOCOL
STATEMENT BY UNFCCC CHIEF ON CANADA’S ANNOUNCEMENT TO WITHDRAW FROM KYOTO PROTOCOL
The Durban agreement to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol represents the continued leadership and commitment of developed countries to meet legally binding emission reduction commitments. It also provides the essential foundation of confidence for the new push towards a universal, legal climate agreement in the near future.
I regret that Canada has announced it will withdraw and am surprised over its timing. Whether or not Canada is a Party to the Kyoto Protocol, it has a legal obligation under the Convention to reduce its emissions, and a moral obligation to itself and future generations to lead in the global effort. Industrialized countries whose emissions have risen significantly since 1990, as is the case for Canada, remain in a weaker position to call on developing countries to limit their emissions.
I call on all developed countries to meet their responsibilities under the Climate Change Convention and its Kyoto Protocol, to raise their ambition to cut emissions and to provide the agreed adequate support to developing countries to build their own clean energy futures and adapt to climate change impacts they are already experiencing.
==================================================
UPDATE: There’s some ambiguity here in the announcement, upon further reading it could be interpreted that they are saying this:
“I see you withdraw from Kyoto but you are still legally bound to reduce emissions UNDER THE 1992 ‘VOLUNTARY’ RIO UN FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE (UNFCCC)”.
So maybe it isn’t Kyoto they’re saying they can’t leave, but its parent treaty, Rio’s UNFCCC, which is the model for this Spring’s upcoming UNCSD ’12.
But that’s voluntary too, so how can a “voluntary” agreement be legally binding?
Steve from Rockwood says:
December 13, 2011 at 11:54 am
“As a Canadian I can tell you we don’t like being threatened by bureaucrats. The mostly likely response will be to quietly ignore climate change twice as much as we did before. And work a little harder selling our oil sands to China. Welcome to Canada.”
Today’s Canada is the old USA! I’m moving.
So she’s sending a demand letter that is for all practical intents and purposes a piece of Nigerian spam.
FROM: CHRISTINA FIGUERIES CHAIRMAN UNFCCC
TO: STEPHEN HARPER PRIME MINISTER CANADA
SUBJECT: UN PAYMENT
GOOD DAY MISTER HARPER. I REPRESENT THE VERY IMPORTANT INSTITUTION AT THE UNITED NATIONS AND I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR MAKING THE WORLD SAFE AND BREATHABLE.
IT HAS COME TO OUR ATTENTION THAT YOU MAY WISH NOT TO PROVIDE THE SUM OF FORTY-SIX POINT FIVE BILLION DOLLARS (USD46,500,000,000) IN PAYMENT OF YOUR NATION’S DEBT TO THE WORLD CLIMATE.
I WISH TO REMIND YOU THAT WE AT THE UN UPON RECEIPT OF YOUR NATION’S PAYMENT OF FORTY-SIX POINT FIVE BILLION DOLLARS (USD46,500,000,000) WILL REIMBURSE THE NATION OF CANADA WITH THE VERY VALUABLE DEED TO MANY MILES OF BEAUTIFUL COASTAL REAL ESTATE IN THE MALDIVES.
I IMPLORE YOU MISTER HARPER NOT TO LET THIS OPPORTUNITY PASS.
SINCERELY
CHRISTINA FIGUERES
CHAIRMAN
UNFCCC
Theo Goodwin says:
“The UN and the Left in the US employ moral reasoning which holds that each person is responsible for all persons, that each state is responsible for all states, and similar matters. The entire discussion of AGW by AGW proponents has taken for granted this moral theory.”
It has nothing to do with collectivism. But when you have a high smokestack on your factory, and you pollute the surrounding area, you are responsible for one hell of a lot of things, including the health of children living downwind.
Where we agree is that CO2 poses no threat to anyone. In cases where there is a whiff of CFCs, PFCs, mercury, benzene, toluol, and the list goes on, different story.
PM Harper survived almost 5 years with a minority government in parliament, built a strong single party of two small conservative parties and won a majority. Look what Canada accomplished in Durban by first floating the Kyoto dropout, then the call-out on China and India. We Canadians changed the direction of the Durban love-fest into something other than a continuation of Kyoto. Our announcement yesterday was just icing on the cake. I think Harper’s response to threats or bullying by UN thugs will be- Make my day.
Least news of file structure recognition
https://sites.google.com/site/myteurastaja/no-trespassing/uxix-timestamp-txt
Now let me see, who has more democratic legitimacy to decide upon issues of national sovereignty and national interest?
Its a hard choice isnt it? A democratically elected government of Canada or a wholly unelected utterly corrupt UN? After much consideration I choose the former. An organisation that allows rabid psychopaths like Imadinnerjacket/Mugabe/Assad to have a say and membership is an organisation that needs to be taken out and destroyed. If you could name the greatest danger to the planet and the peoples who live on it, it would have to be the UN.
Now lets have a look at the UN, corruption and thievery rule that roost, secrecy and stunning incompetence by panjandrums and apparatchiks and gravy riding bureaucrats who have somehow got it into their warped little minds that they are the up and coming and rightful supreme world government, I dont know where these deluded bozos got that idea but there they are just itching to take over the role of dictator. No need for elections or a democratic process eh? Naah, its far too cumbersome and the little people are too uneducated to make the right choices, far better to let a select and shadowy small group of elitists take power, much more streamlined and what could possibly go wrong?
Theo Goodwin:
Please stick to the topic here, which is a discussion of climate change and the politics surrounding it. I get a violent headache when I have to read about “communist avant grades,” “chief threat to world peace,” and similar utterances.
What I love about WUWT is that the forum is mostly very low key from a political standpoint. It is unavoidable that some politics are discussed, but I can’t help but retch when I run into neocon conspiratorial theories.
The UN is not the Antichrist. There is no communist around every corner. Hell, there are hardly any communists left in the world. Even Raoul Castro is opening the doors to private property on his little island, and China is worried about how to tax its billionaires, just like we are.
Gotta love it!
Do you know what they just did?
They just pushed all the Canadian CAGW fence sitters off the fence…onto our side. We never gave Michael Mann permission to use hockey sticks for anything except hockey, so we’re not in a good mood about the whole thing right off the hop. But try and cross check us into the boards and tell us we gotta just take it? You’re risking a bench clearing brawl that spills into the stands just for the fun of it. What are they going to do? Issue a resolution? How about a binding resolution? How about a security council binding resolution?
They’ve been so effective in Iran, Middle East, North Korea, East Timor, Myanmar, Somalia, Darfur, Rwanda, Bosnia….
Go ahead and try. We’ll show you what to do with a hockey stick….
If the UNFCC thinks the Canadian Government made this decision without first getting an extensive legal opinion they deserve the ridicule that this response will bring down on them.
Mike
A happy Canuck
Or as a very eloquent general once said “NUTS!”.
“The UN is not the Antichrist”
Yes it is. Or maybe something worse.
The statement doesn’t merit serious response, but FWIW:
1. Canada has already reduced emissions, which means compliance with any definition of voluntary;
2. If Canada has a moral obligation, it could be to use resources in a way that keeps people from starving or dying of preventable disease. Last time I checked, I hadn’t noted noted too many bureaucrats without enough food, shelter or medical benefits. If take resources from the hungry and sick however, and divert them to ego-trips like saving the planet from plant food and self-dealing institutions, more will die.
“There is no communist around every corner. Hell, there are hardly any communists left in the world.”
Yet, oddlly, I meet them every day. I read their articles in newspapers and magazines and blogs and listen to them on TV news programs advocating incessantly for communist practices and limitation of capitalism and free market economies. Is there perhaps only one or two of them and they are just really really really really busy?
Hey Hansson, looks who is running the UN now. The US and Canada may not be perfect, but they are far above the likes of Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, Cuba, Venezuela and all the other oppressive regimes that now make up a large part of the UN. Look at the countries making up the current UN Human Rights Council. What a joke! Time for the US to get out and have the UN move it’s headquarters. The Canadians are doing the right thing r.e. all this CAGW bs, time for the US to do the same.
If this E-mail is authentic it may be the start of questioning the climate convention text. This is proposed by Roger Pielke Jr. in his book “The Climate Fix”.
Read the first two pages of the convention and you will understand the difficulties our politicians are in.
Link:
http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf
DirkH says:
“Maybe it’s you who needs a history book; if you manage to find one, look up the League Of Nations, and maybe the Treaty Of Versailles.”
Dirk, my headache is coming back. The Treaty of Versailles was the reason we got WWII. The League of Nations was the attempt by good people after WWI to increase collaboration in the world and perhaps avoid it.
What does that have to do with the UN being formed in San Francisco in October 1945, on the ruins of the League of Nations, to bring nations together to TALK before they bring out the guns?
Yes, it is a toothless organization, yes it is expensive to run, yes, many times foolish things are decided upon at the UN. But at least, through the UN, nations talk, and maybe it helps, and maybe we are learning enough to avoid another world war. It’s cheap insurance, and please don’t harass me with any communist conspiracies. They are so so very old.
All I see is a majority parliament and a smart PMSH showing the rest of the world how to tell fascists to shove it.
How on earth can a commitment to a voluntary non-binding aim to reduce atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases be posed as a legal obligation under the Convention to reduce emissions is beyond me. Are these people mad or just can’t think clearly?
I realise that Canadians are polite, reasonable people who may not have access to the necessary words to reply to the UN demands properly.
Therefore as a Brit I will be happy to help them..liven up..their reply.
I’m sure my Australian friends would be happy to chip in as well…
davidmhoffer says:
December 13, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Yet, oddlly, I meet “communists” every day.
Your idea of a communist is anyone who wants to limit anything about the activity of any free market or anything else for that matter. That makes you an anarchist.
You live in a world of make believe. I live in the real world. When you choose to live in the real world, I’ll be happy to talk to you. In the meantime, happy trails.
When, at the 1992 Earth Summit, they said “It’s voluntary”, did they also say “No Pressure”? If so, I fear someone at the UN may be reaching for the red button as we speak, and the rest of the world’s nations will soon have Canada’s splattered remains all over their clothes.
The UN has done nothing to prevent superpower war. That proved to be an economic battle between the US and the USSR and – well, so far at least – the US managed to win that one. For now. Fingers crossed.
As for everything else…well, UN peacekeeping works about as well as just about anything else that’s bought from the lowest bidder. Ask the Haitians. Canada’s prided itself on its involvement in the blue-helmet stuff, ask General Dallaire how well that worked in Srebrenica.
If you look, you’ll find the US income tax is also “voluntary”. Just try not paying it.
http://www.fff.org/freedom/0500a.asp
Will there be UN sanctions and a no-fly zone over Canada then?
All countries should get out of the UN. European countries should get out of the EU.
Countries need to stop going along blindly with the insanity (the Maldivian MPs scuba signing should have been a wakeup call to many people).
Well done Canada. Really well done. Nations, especially in a time of ‘austerity’, have every right – and indeed duty – to review their expenditure relating to ‘optional’ clubs they may pay membership fees to. Tightening the belt and all that. Getting out of the UN, EU, IMF, World Bank, WTO, WHO, etc. subscriptions would probably save any nation quite a whack on their annual budget. Who are all these people anyway? I don’t remember voting for them to run my country and my life, down to telling me what kind of light bulb I can have in my living room (EU resident).
The Harper Government backs down from NO one on this planet. Least of all the UN – in which the UN and Harper have clashed head together over Canada’s entry on to the Security council. Canada was refused directly because of the Muslim nations (because Harper stood up for Israel and refused to back and now supports Israel stronger than ever) and their EU friends ganging up on Canada and voted in Portugal instead. BTW, the US under Obama refused to back Canada and sided with their Muslims fiends.
Harper merely put that little scheme on the shelf for later use – and BOOM! PAYBACK! Directly in the heart of the UN itself – money and climate – their direct money making tax scheme! The Witch is DEAD, baby! Hot diggity damn – And here’s to YOU EU – PAYBACK! Now YOU lot are stuck with YOUR climate taxes – Now that’s what I call Alberta JUSTICE!
No problem, they just need to withdraw from the UNFCC:
“Article 25
WITHDRAWAL
1. At any time after three years from the date on which the Convention has entered into force for a Party, that Party may withdraw from the Convention by giving written notification to the Depositary.
2. Any such withdrawal shall take effect upon expiry of one year from the date of receipt by the Depositary of the notification of withdrawal, or on such later date as may be specified in the notification of withdrawal.
3. Any Party that withdraws from the Convention shall be considered as also having
withdrawn from any protocol to which it is a Party.”
The only “moral obligation” Canada has is to do what is best for its own people. I hope the U.S. does the same.