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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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?