Story submitted by Eric Worrall
From Australia Network News: Pacific presidents speak out against Australia’s stand on climate change
Leaders of small Pacific nations have spoken out against Tony Abbott’s efforts to organise a global coalition against Obama’s climate push.
The comments from the presidents of Kiribati and Marshall Islands came as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott met US President Barrack Obama for formal talks in Washington.
The leaders suggested Australia’s climate stance under Tony Abbott risked further isolating Australia from the Pacific.
Kiribati’s President Anote Tong says climate change is an issue of survival for Pacific Island states, not just economics.
“We’re not talking about the growth GDP, we’re not talking about what it means in terms of profit and losses of the large corporations, we’re talking about our survival,” he told Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-13/pacific-presidents/5521478
President Anote Tong has received strong criticism in recent years for the rise of authoritarianism under his rule, such as the recent forced closure of an independent newspaper critical of his government.
http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2012/05/pmc-slams-kiribati-ministry-for-muzzling-independent-paper/
Politicians who crush dissent, free speech and criticism of government mistakes are rarely associated with a healthy domestic economy, so President Tong may be counting on future climate wealth transfers from Western countries to help prop up his regime.
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Push until Obama falls – right out of office. The Australian Prime Minister has far more common sense than Obama will ever have.
The islanders need to take the long view. At some point in the future they will have large areas of new land added to their nation as the waters retreat during the advent of the next glaciation. They just need to be patient.
Give them free swimming lessons.
So the parasites are griping at the host for not being more forthcoming. Quelle Surprise.
Of course they would complain about the derailment of the Climate Gravy Train. They are probably not sufficiently knowledgeable to understand most of the stuff posted here, and why should they bother when the expert scientists are 97% sure that it’s happening and they absolutely know that their islands are sinking!
There isn’t anybody giving money to these islands, is there?
I mean they think they have a good story going on but it is not translating into any actual cash is it.
***turning a scandal on its head, with faux concern about the Maldives & Bangladesh & funding from The Green Climate Fund/IMF/World Bank??
17 June: Guardian: John Vidal: Greenpeace’s £3m gamble could yet reap dividends in the fight against climate change
Yes, Greenpeace got it wrong – but if it only costs £3m to prove that speculation on risky markets is madness, it may be money well spent
PHOTO CAPTION? ‘Greenpeace may like to be seen as the brave underdog, but it employs 2,200 people, turns over about £200m a year worldwide and is just as much as multinational as the oil and chemical companies that it challenges in court or at sea.’ Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian
Its political enemies smirk, thousands of small donors question the Amsterdam-based organisation’s financial competence, and the folk who make a business of pointing out other people’s faults are humbled and have to apologise.
On the surface this seems like many other finance scandals, with a single person, a rogue trader, blamed for what is probably an institutional failure…
The £3m loss also hides the fact that even without its rogue trader the group lost money last year. The recession has been particularly hard for international charities, who are increasingly constricted by governments and have had to cut staff, reduce salaries and retract, thanks largely to the greed of bankers and financial institutions who plunged whole economies into crisis with their risk-taking…
***It hurts when Greenpeace loses the widows’ mite, but it will be nowhere near as painful as when countries such as Bangladesh or the Maldives are told there is no money in the Green Climate Fund, the IMF or the World Bank to build defences against rising sea levels or storm surges because anonymous rogue traders and trusted financiers in New York or London have misjudged the market and lost billions…
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/17/greenpeace-3m-gamble-dividends-climate-change
The leaders suggested Australia’s climate stance under Tony Abbott risked further isolating … Pacific Island states from their gravy train
Kiribati and Marshall Islands : the bribed and the coerced
Hey! They need that money to buy new airports.
I would rather it all be lost on the market than a penny going to those with their hands out. Everyone with a brain knows there is no new danger of sea level rising. I am tired of those who take from the earners and give to the parasites .
Corruption a plenty in the Islands.
Well? Tony Abbott has been speaking with Prime Minister Harper. Seems they are birds of a feather.
France is saying? There must be a united front against fascists and dictatorships. Too late for Canada to be saved. The Australians may still be able to save their country.
PM Harper has approved the Enbridge pipeline for Communist China’s benefit. So, Canada is a total loss. BC is already overrun with Chinese. China already owns a huge chunk of the tar sands.
Communist China has polluted much of their farmland and 40% of their water. Dead pigs come floating down China’s rivers. Now, we can have dead pigs floating down Canada’s rivers too.
As an Engineer, I am applying overseas. Canada will not be fit to live in and I refuse to have my little girl brought up in Harper’s fascist dictatorship. China wants their history and culture taught in Canadian schools. So, it is time to leave Canada.
Rob @ur momisugly 6:55 pm
There is corruption everywhere. Agenda 21 is everywhere.
adanac @ur momisugly 7:12 p.m.
Where will you go overseas?
Their biggest problem is not the reduction of land due to sea level rise, if any, its because of overpopulation. With imported foods, safer boats, less tribal, modern medicines etc their increased population is outstripping the available land.
That’s why so many migrate to New Zealand and Australia where they can earn very good wages by island standards.
Climate Change, sea level rise etc is just the level to get the govt money.
This Kiribati?
The one whose tide gauge shows no sea level rise?
One of the islands that is actually increasing in size as it rises upwards?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/16/australias-abc-comes-round-to-what-we-said-on-wuwt-years-ago/
Off your med’s again Adanacs?
adanac says:
June 17, 2014 at 7:12 pm
—————————————-
As a Canadian I can only say – GOOD-BYE!
@adanac says:June 17, 2014 at 7:12 pm
adanac, get a grip ya loony tune, plus what Steve from Rockwood says:
Steve from Rockwood is correct.
Bill Illis
There isn’t anybody giving money to these islands, is there?
I mean they think they have a good story going on but it is not translating into any actual cash is it.
From the Wiki entry on the economy of Kiribati:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Kiribati
“In one form or another, Kiribati gets a large portion of its income from abroad. Examples include fishing licenses, development assistance, worker remittances, and tourism. Given Kiribati’s limited domestic production ability, it must import nearly all of its essential foodstuffs and manufactured items; it depends on these external sources of income for financing.”
Kiribati have also apparently been running down their sovereign wealth fund the last few years, though there is still a lot of money in it, for now. The wealth fund was created from phosphate mining which ended in the 1970s.
@adanac says:June 17, 2014 at 7:12 pm
Dont’t even think about coming to Australia ya bloody great sook.
the MSM in Australia happily gives McKibben space to insult our Govt:
17 June: SMH: Bill McKibben: Tony Abbott’s climate change policy makes me cringe
Americans who travelled abroad during the George W. Bush years have some sympathy for Australians and Canadians right now – it’s not easy being citizens of countries run by international
laughing stocks. People laugh at you, then get angry: just remember Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo or referring to Australia as Austria.
Americans have a slightly easier time of it at the moment. Barack Obama is no Winston Churchill, and there’s still plenty of reason for the rest of the world to look askance (drone attacks, the NSA collecting your Gmail). But at least he’s a serious human being with a wide-ranging intellect…
Author and journalist Bill McKibben is co-founder of climate change movement, 350.org.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbotts-climate-change-policy-makes-me-cringe-20140617-zsa7t.html
17 June: Washington Times: Kristen East: Climate change scientists stand by 97 percent figure
Half of Americans “don’t know there is a consensus”
“Do we still need to do this in 2014? Sometimes things, they need to be said more than once, [but] it’s really horrible that we even have to be having this conversation,” said Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard professor of history in science, who co-authored a study that posited the 97 percent claim more than 10 years ago.
Ms. Oreskes and Peter Jacobs, a researcher in environmental science at George Mason University, said that while Republicans and Democrats hold staunchly opposing views on climate change, the 97 percent statistic remains a subject up for debate only because Americans aren’t aware of the extent of the consensus within the science community.
“There’s an enormous disconnect between lines of what scientists think and what Americans think the scientists believe,” Mr. Jacobs said. “More than half of Americans don’t know that there is a consensus.”…
Mr. Jacobs acknowledged that while scientists have been wrong before — citing the lack of consensus over the theory of plate tectonics as an example — he said, “uncertainty has two faces.
“Just because [the climate change consensus] may not turn out to be exactly correct, that doesn’t mean that things are going to be great,” he said. “Things could turn out to be much worse. We could just as well end up on the bottom as on the top.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/17/climate-change-scientists-stand-by-97-percent-figu/
Eric Worrall says:
June 17, 2014 at 8:05 pm
Kiribati have also apparently been running down their sovereign wealth fund the last few years, though there is still a lot of money in it, for now. The wealth fund was created from phosphate mining which ended in the 1970s.
Eric,
Thanks for that!
It illustrates Kiribati’s main concern is not about ‘rising seas’ as much as it is about sinking account balances. Their main source of wealth was mined phospates…. and now they hope to mine AGW ‘fertilizer’ until that runs out also.
Mac
Ahh! So it was okay to dig up all that phosphate and create a big pile of money – never mind the shrinking islands. But now that the pile of money is shrinking, they want climate refugee handouts (or any handouts for that matter).