Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Huffington Post wants former UN Climate Chief Christina Figueres to be the new UN Secretary General, on the grounds that only she understands the climate “emergency”. But what kind of political values would Figueres bring to the top UN job?
New UN S-G Must Realize That Climate Change Threatens Our World
The task facing the next United Nations Secretary-General will not be an easy one. The world seems to be teetering on the edge of multiple, interconnected crises including conflict in Syria, tensions around Ukraine, and disputes over water and land resource issues. All of this at a time when we are seeing the biggest movement of people since World War II.
In the public debates the candidates for the next UN Secretary-General have participated in, they’ve shown that they can list what will be in their in-tray, but few have acknowledged the common thread running through many of these crises and challenges: the impact of a changing climate. Any analysis that fails to acknowledge this as one of the key drivers to current and future global instability is a flawed one.
…
Unlike her fellow candidates, Christiana Figueres — a Costa Rican diplomat and former head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change — not only recognises that climate change is increasingly one of the biggest threats that we face, she also understands that the security implications need to be addressed along with all the other threats to global stability and prosperity, rather than in isolation. She knows that without such an approach climate change promises to make many of our most complex crises — from migration to conflict, food shortages to terrorism — much harder to solve.
…
The 21st century is proving extremely challenging, with many threats to our global prosperity and well-being. Under the new Secretary-General, the UN will have to adapt to meet these challenges and the candidate the members of the Security Council choose to recommend to the General Assembly must be capable of delivering; Christiana Figueres is that candidate.
Why am I concerned about Figueres’ political values? The reason is Figueres seems to hold Democracy in contempt, at least with regard to the implementation of climate policy. As previously noted on WUWT, Figueres is on record as suggesting that authoritarian China is “getting climate policy right” – because the dictators who run China do not face any “hurdles” to implementing their decrees.
Biggest Emitter China Best on Climate, Figueres Says
China, the top emitter of greenhouse gases, is also the country that’s “doing it right” when it comes to addressing global warming, the United Nations’ chief climate official said.
The nation has some of the toughest energy-efficiency standards for buildings and transportation and its support for photovoltaic technology helped reduce solar-panel costs by 80 percent since 2008, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said yesterday in an interview at Bloomberg News headquarters in New York.
The country is facing growing public pressure from citizens to reduce air pollution, due in large part to burning coal. Its efforts to promote energy efficiency and renewable power stem from the realization that doing so will pay off in the long term, Figueres said.
“They actually want to breathe air that they don’t have to look at,” she said. “They’re not doing this because they want to save the planet. They’re doing it because it’s in their national interest.”
China is also able to implement policies because its political system avoids some of the legislative hurdles seen in countries including the U.S., Figueres said.
For the HuffPost to support a candidate who in my opinion would likely think how many wind turbines a country builds is more important than whether they respect human rights and democratic procedure, must surely be seen as a sad reflection on Huffington Post’s own journalistic values.
Let’s not forget what Christiana Figueres has said in the past:
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”
..,. She also believes that Venezuela is a model country ~!
…a true workers’ paradise.
But these are exciting times in Venezuela, what more could a citizen want?
Has this woman ever read Orwell?
Pop Piasa: “Has this woman ever read Orwell?”
She believes 1984 is an instruction manual.
“what more could a citizen want?”
Food???
…or toilet paper. Is that too much to ask?
One need does follow the other.
For Ken,
Yr quote: “This is the first time in the history of mankind we are setting ourselves the task…to change…the economic development model…”
Surprise! Surprise! the “we” in the above, partial quote, is actually the “royal we”. And we (I’m usin’ the coolie-trash herdling-nobody version of we, now) know this because Christiana Figueres’ IPCC farewell ceremony prominently featured a hymn, that extolled Figueres as the “Climate Queen” (Google: “Climate Queen: Abba takes over UN talks in Figueres tribute”). A tribute, I might add, that was so disturbingly effusive in its uninhibited, take-me-you-fool-I-want-to-be-your-sell-out-tool!, vulgar, baroque, butt-kissing worship of “Her Majesty”, as to make even hardened, good-comrade, careerist suck-ups cringe in embarrassment. A small taste of that delicious (in its way), little ditty of praise that was raised up in full-throated song to Christiana I’s regal personage:
“You are the Climate Queen, best there’s been, you reign supreme
Climate Queen moving us to a future clean
You can dance, you can jive, having the job of your life
See that woman, watch her lead, diggin’ the Climate Queen”
And, of course, contrary to Figueres’ megalomanic estimate of her place in history, there have been other attempts to change “economic development models” and those attempts are associated with iconic hive success stories like: The Tambov Rebellion, The Holodomor, The Great Leap Forward, and the Killing Fields of Cambodia–the last two occurring well within living memory.
And to throw in a perfectly free-floating factoid, unconnected and unconnectable to any “dots”, whatsoever–of the four, above-mentioned, mass-cull-mediated events, that changed, in whole or part, “economic development models”, all but one of them (the Tambov Rebellion) involved disarming the peasantry before the grim-reaper was commanded, by our “vanguard” betters, to “sic ’em”. And as all students of “history” know, that Tambov Rebellion bummer was, like, way, way, too costly in terms of valuable, security force lives-lost, for any senior-cadre planner to countenance a repeat.
P. S. Would anyone else be surprised to learn that in the stuffy, official language of diplomats (Jo Tyndall of New Zealand, for example), Christiana Figueres is known as a “pocket-rocked, a small car [electric car, one hopes!] with a powerful motor…a pint-sized hot-chick”? Is it any wonder that she’s on the short list for General Secretary of the UN?
erm…that’s “pocket-rocket…”
This woman is a Romulan plant!
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/File:Rakal_(Major).jpg
I’m pretty sure she’s not a plant.
She isn’t green.
She’s just dehydrated. If you hold her head under water for a few weeks she’ll turn green.
‘…change the economic development model …’
She may have been referring to the Third Way, when the yuan is king.
Juan is king, and Jose can see.
Ken,
Her “first time in the history of mankind” statement is incorrect. The Russians tried it, starting in 1917, with disastrous results as we all know now. Venezuela is another country working on the “task of intentionally” committing self immolation and succeeding admirably.
Translation: Her goal is to remove power from the United States.
From the Bloomberg article:
“Climate goals should “feed the national interest,” Figueres said, as opposed to “committing to something that is against your interest.”
and
“In the U.S., the divided Congress is politicizing climate change and slowing down efforts to pass legislation, Figueres said.”
Hmm….seems to be that she said it all. Slowing down efforts to pass legislation is not in the US’s best national interest. So her solution is what? To force it to be IN the US’s “best national interest”? Yea…that sounds about right.
So is diverting the funds from this supposedly global fight to wrestle control of countries into Costa Rica in that country’s best interest? Hmmm…..seems feeding the ‘national’ interest is a slippery slope toward world domination by a political party only interested in feeding it’s own ‘national’ interest.
Ms. Figueres:
How is the climate supposedly changing that has you so concerned?
…Why do liberal women always look sooooo….disturbed ? Just curious …
Yet again, green fantacies have nothing liberal in them.
…Sorry, but I don’t get to decide who gets to call THEMSELVES….liberal !
Hugs, maybe you should say “fanaticies”.
If the same people start calling themselves ‘heroes’, will you start calling them that too, Marcus? How ’bout patriots? Saints? Saviors? Gods?
Call them totalitarians or collectivists or something they are not perfectly happy having you promote them as being, I say . . It’s not an official Party name . .
PS~ Calling them illiberals would work pretty well, I think, Marcus. Folks would realize who you were talking about, and that label means people who won’t tolerate differing views/beliefs/opinions, yes? Kinda strange that the negation of the term is more accurate than the term they are ever so happy to have folks like you helping them indoctrinate kids with, don’t ya think? Coincidence? I don’t think so . .
~ il·lib·er·al
[i(l)ˈlib(ə)rəl]
ADJECTIVE
opposed to liberal principles; restricting freedom of thought or behavior:
“illiberal and anti-democratic policies” ~
Oxford Dictionaries
I believe they call themselves “Progressives”.
It’s a mark of Labour’s success that David Cameron called himself progressive as part of his rebranding of the Tories
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/may/22/progressive-tories-david-cameron
HuffPo just outed themselves. Again.
As if the Huffington Post ever believed in civil rights and democratic values. They have usually been consistent leftists, and only purport to believe in civil rights and democracy when someone else is being criticized, not their current political cause or politician.
HuffPo is as big a joke as it’s namesake and founder Arrina “Colonel Klink” Huffington. The wife of a would be Republican Senator from California. He lost because the right wing of the party would not support him. She used his money to start a left leaning website in revenge.
The left treated her as a punchline until she started hiring them for the website. She took their politics and they took her money. Funny how she suddenly became a serious player in the national conversation.
Not surprised that the HP would be pushing a Maoist like Christiana Figueres. For the UN it’s about ruling the world under the guise of saving it, and destroying the capitalist free market system.
At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.
http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/
“Doesn’t this Mao jacket make me look powerful?”
Err, she’s a communist. She looks like Mike Myers as Dr. Evil.
I’m ‘fraid that O’bummer will become Minime.
It does look like she and Hillary shop at the same ultra elite fashion shops; all of whom completely lack common or fashion sense.
She would only only be a placeholder until the day (21 Jan. 2017) when the real king of the universe is free to take the job, so that he can bring suffering humanity into the Beulah Land, just as he has done while he has been President of the United States, a job almost too trivial to have held his sacred majesty.
No first he will go on a speaking tour during which he will collect many more $$ then he would as Sec. Gen. After that he will be anointed as the first “Leader of the (not so free) World”.
ah but it sure has been good for his “handicap”
He is not handicapped you abelist.. He is differently golfed.
LOL! Walter! I just cleaned this monitor…
Christiana Figueres executive secretary of the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism. (http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/021015-738779-climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism.htm)
The Marxist-Leninists have always seen global warming/climate change as an opportunity to replace free market economies with their own strictly controlled state socialism and are backing the environmentalists to help them achieve it after they woefully failed to do so in competition. They know that it will always be and always has been impossible for humans to control warming/cooling or any change in the climate but see it as a golden opportunity to impose their brand of strict socialism on us all. And when they come to power they will cook the books and produce whatever statistics or doctored measurements they like to convince the environmentalists that the battle v climate change has been won by the comrades and everything in the socialist garden paradise is rosey.
Verse 25 of the Impeachment song: Climate change and the end of Capitalism.
The executive secretary of the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, recently made a devastating admission… the goal of environmental activism is not to save the world from terrifying environmental calamity, but to end capitalism.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.
Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”
This brings us to verse 25 of the Obama Impeachment song (as if sung by President Barack Hussein Obama to the tune of “Please release me, let me go”)
Climate change our biggest threat,
If worse, I will break out a sweat.
Global Governance, you bet!
My war on King Coal not over yet.
The whole Obama Impeachment song: https://lenbilen.com/2015/02/25/the-complete-obama-impeachment-song/
Meanwhile, China keeps increasing its use of coal
And so te struggle to establish a world communist superstate continues.
A global vegan commune of approximately 1 billion souls, run by some subset of the tinpot despots represented in the UN General Assembly. (Population reduction approach undefined.)
1984
That someone should lead the whole of th united nations simply because they understand the climate emergency does make some kind of sense because invented emergencies are essential to the survival, growth, and wealth of this bureaucracy out of control.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2794991
There does seem to be a lot jockeying for this job, mainly from those who could not get an honest market-based job elsewhere.
Any thoughts as to whether she actually has a chance? After all, this is just the Huff-Po’s opinion.
Possible thoughts from the point of view of the UN’s inner leadership:
She is effective where she is at UNFCCC – leave her where she is.
For the top job, need someone with better credentials as an international diplomat, not just another bureaucrat.
” better credentials as an international diplomat” –didn’t you mean international despot????
Credentials as a diplomat. Keep the despotic tendencies out of sight. That is, after all, part of the fine art of diplomacy. The political leanings of Figueres may have been too much in the open for too long, making her well known views something of a liability.
I used to think of the Huffington Post as sort of like ‘The Onion’ – fringe-Leftism almost to the point of satire.
Now, it’s apparently where they go to set policy.
When the blade of an IS1S sword is about to sever your head, the bead of sweat on your forehead is there to tell you that global warming is a greater threat to your existence.
..Did any one else notice..she wears the EXACT same clothing as Hillary !
Marcus August 28, 2016 at 12:23 pm
Have they ever been seen I the same room together?
Auto, just asking, just asking!
Scientific mysticism (a.k.a. post-normal science) has been a lucrative enterprise. Unfortunately, the limited scope of the scientific domain in both time and space is hostile to ambitious individuals and factions. So, its acceptance must be indoctrinated and forced.
Spacetime. Not “both time and space”.
Just f’n with ya in a world of “post-normal science”.
IN the same room.
Auto – in the wrong.
She looks like she thinks she’s a Bond villain. Definitely more Rosa Klebb than Pussy Galore.
Ernst Stavro Blofeld
Former UN Climate Chief Christina Figueres is obviously perfectly suited to the ideas of the Leftists and Warmists for the role of the UN in promulgating Climate Alarmism over Human Rights and Economic Development. She clearly understands their manufactured “climate emergency”.
The Leftist-Warmist ex-Marxist-Leninists see ‘global warming/climate change’ as their opportunity to replace free market economies with their own demonstrably unworkable state controlled socialism. How many times does socialism-Marxism have to fail before the Leftists admit that it doesn’t work to give people a happy stable society.
Previous attempts have failed only because Marxist socialism hasn’t been done ENOUGH! Bear in mind that the majority of alarmists are also lefties, and in both cases it is enough to BELIEVE. The Millennialist paradigm is incapable of being disproved.
“How many times does socialism-Marxism have to fail before the Leftists admit that it doesn’t work to give people a happy stable society.”
I know this is a rhetorical question, but I am not sure that your implicit answer is understood by the uninitiated, so let me fill in here.
Marx-Leninists will never admit that. It is always the fault of the subjects who did not eagerly enough submitted themselves to the endless toils, mostly on volunteer basis, of perpetually building the greater future of the classless society, while the supervising class of apparatchiks enjoys the luxurious life.
(Well luxurious is a relative term, meaning about 20x average income and access to special stores where goods unavailable to the commoners are sold, sea resort vacations and other entitlements.)
I know, I lived there…
fifty shades of green……..we would all be s…..d.
Should the aspirations of this lady be realised her ambition to destroy western capitalism via the device of “climate change” will be greatly encouraged by this news article from the latest edition of Science :
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6302/858?utm_campaign=wnews_sci_2016-08-25&et_rid=17079999&et_cid=748147
“The carbon accountant
Douglas Starr
( co-director of the program in science journalism at Boston University.)
Summary
By piecing together the annual production of every major fossil fuel company since the Industrial Revolution, geographer Richard Heede has shown that nearly two-thirds of the major industrial greenhouse gas emissions have originated in just 90 companies around the world, which either emitted the carbon themselves or supplied carbon ultimately released by consumers and industry. The study provoked controversy when it was first published, with some complaining that it unfairly held the fossil fuel industry responsible for the lifestyle choices made by billions of consumers. Others, however, saw it as a turning point in the debate about apportioning responsibility for climate change. Now, Heede’s carbon accounting is opening a new chapter in climate change litigation and policy, helping equip plaintiffs who believe they have suffered damages from climate change to claim compensation.”
(Persons of a choleric disposition are advised not to read the full article and experience the delight of Oreskes and her allies . Exxon again the main culprit for the distress of humanity apparently) .
It will be interesting to see a few of these cases come to court and be shot down in incarbonaceous flames. The opportunity to poke fun at those trying to show the ‘damage’ came from ‘climate’ and not ‘weather’ will last for ages.
Court victories do not go to those who think they are clever.
Good news, she can use whichever restroom she wants to use at Target.
The sad thing about these socialists or communists or anyone in a company who has sole authority. They (within their own mental bubble) have great ideas that they think should just work and work well. The reality is that Communistic ideas only work under ideal conditions which never exist because we human beings are so different from each other. When they put their ideas into practice and make them law, everyone is miserable. You just can’t force-fit people into one way of thinking or living.
I will agree to Ms. Figueres becoming the next UN Secretary General on the condition that the US withdraws from the UN, the UNFCCC and the IPCC are eliminated, and the UN HQ building is moved to Venezuela. Then she can have at it.
…and withdraw all funding.
I second that, and in addition to the UN occupants vacating the current UN building, it be turned over to a well known NYC real estate developer (wink, wink), so that the building can be renovated and turned into affordable apartments.
China is also reducing air pollution by changing the devices that burn coal to designs that burn coal better producing vastly reduced PM emissions. One is the RMB3.4 bn Hebei Clean Air Project which is the pilot phase. One of its dozens of measures is to replace the hydronic heaters in farmers’ homes with ones that have lower emissions. Note that they do not consider CO2 to be a pollutant.
The mechanism for replacement does not require any arbitrary UN power, they just offer a discount (subsidy) if the farmers buy a model with a significantly reduced PM level, measured while burning the ‘worst’ coal available. The reduction is 60-99%. They also offer semi-coked briquettes below cost to reduce emissions from the old stoves (typical age 10 years).
My point is to separate the ‘dirty air’ argument from the ‘CO2’ argument as they are unrelated. Ploughing also creates ‘dirty air’ as the EPA found out to its chagrin when they accidentally, temporarily, zealously banned it.
I see that during ‘climate spot’ propaganda the BBC has switched from showing backlit cooling towers at sunset to sunlit video of steam from chimneys. I’ll bet British children think CO2 is white.
Well, everything that is white is bad, ergo everything that is bad is white…
/sarc off
The most inept incompetent corrupt bureaucracy the world has ever known. Brought to you by that progressive jackass Woodrow Wilson.
The League of Nations was Wilson’s hobbyhorse. The UN is a creation of Franklin Roosevelt appointees, and FDR was both a progressive and a machine politician.
Christina Figueres would seem the ideal Secretary General of the United Nations. She has openly stated her end goal is to destroy capitalism and everything else is a just a collection of tools to further that aim.
Robmax linked it before and here it is again – http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/
The great thing about her being appointed is that, unlike previous and current Secretaries General, she would be open and upfront about her intentions and the whole world would see the sham that the UN has become. Memberships would then drop rapidly as the general populations see the naked face of global socialism and vote accordingly.
But Kevin Rudd would still get my vote for the job.
http://cdn-media.hollywood.com/images/l/drno_620_110212.jpg
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”
Oh how I ache when I hear this drivel, this tripe. And from a well coiffed woman who has probably never produced anything of use to others in her life.
It is exactly, it is precisely over the past 150 years that humans have finally begun to conquer nature. Regarding the past, from Hans Rosling, ‘Humans did not live in harmony with nature, they died in harmony with nature”
What do I mean by conquered? I use the term ‘becoming fully human’, living a full, long life not filled with the mundane but inexorable tasks required for living (gather fuel, gather food, gather water, cook food, eat food, sleep, repeat). But most importantly, for the first time in human history we can protect our children.
Historically, children died in vast numbers just like creatures in the wild. Go back 150 years and child mortality (dead before age 5 years) was 400 per thousand. Today it is down by a factor of ten to 40 per thousand and falling rapidly. And make no mistake, it is not modern medicine that is responsible for this. No small part of child mortality was due to infanticide as found in every culture on every continent. This is never taught in the schools. But poverty and starvation have a way of making humans decide to allow the newborn to die of exposure. And most often it was the females that were left to die. A stark commentary on the human condition but well documented (just not discussed in polite company).
Vast exploitation of resources, particularly fossil fuels gives mankind to cornucopia of plenty which permits us to live fully human lives, to protect our children. I for one am not quite sure what is wrong with that.
Yes, but…..it was treating water and sewage wot dunnit.
======
In an interview for the Guardian, 13 January 2014, Christiana Figuerres stated-“Democracy is a poor political system for fighting global warming. Chinese Communism is the best model.” Well , knock me down with a feather- she is advocating the iron fist of totalitarianism to combat a non-existent “problem.”
I smell a rather large RAT in the UN, or should that stand for “United Nazis.”
People still read HuffPo?
Huffington I believe married an unbelievably pushy Greek woman from Oxford University (PotOU) who wanted to turn him into a President the way Hillary had done. She started the campaign with the Post and that is all that remains.
Leftists in general, and those who also work for the UN, hold democracy in contempt, and have so for decades.
Just look at how the EU is run.
“only she understands the climate “emergency”.”
because she helped design it !!
Consider the source of the Figuerres endorsement…
Huff Po.
‘Nuff said.
Yup, checks &. balances is nothing, but a legislative hurdle. Is that right, Ms. Figueres?