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A mealy-mouthed apology from Ban Ki-moon for UN cholera in Haiti

December 4, 2016

The  behaviour of the UN, as an organisation, far too often is a case of when the lowest common behaviour of the  collective prevails. Ban Ki-moon’s term has been distinguished by his cowardice. He makes politically correct noises as told to by his staff. I get the impression that during his term he put his own mind on the shelf and gave up on thinking. About lapses of UN behaviour, – whether about sexual predation by UN troops in Africa or about UN incompetence in Haiti – he has been remarkably circumspect.

Now Ban Ki-moon has made a half-hearted, mealy-mouthed apology about UN behaviour after the outbreak of UN cholera in Haiti but has, again, lacked the courage to address the fact that the UN introduced the cholera.

un-cholera

New York Times:

After six years and 10,000 deaths, the United Nations issued a carefully worded public apology on Thursday for its role in the 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti and the widespread suffering it has caused since then.

The mea culpa, which Secretary General Ban Ki-moon delivered before the General Assembly, avoided any mention of who brought cholera to Haiti, even though the disease was not present in the country until United Nations peacekeepers arrived from Nepal, where an outbreak was underway.

The peacekeepers lived on a base that often leaked waste into a river, and the first cholera cases in the country appeared in Haitians who lived nearby. Numerous scientists have long argued that the base was the source of the outbreak, but for years United Nations officials refused to accept responsibility.

Even though Mr. Ban’s office has acknowledged that the United Nations had played a role in the outbreak, his apology on Thursday was limited to how the world body responded to the outbreak, not how it started. 

“We simply did not do enough with regard to the cholera outbreak and its spread in Haiti,” Mr. Ban said on Thursday. “We are profoundly sorry about our role.” ………

……. The United Nations has not yet met its promise to eradicate cholera once and for all from Haiti, though Mr. Ban’s aides said on Thursday that they were close to raising the $200 million they say they need to fix Haiti’s water and sanitation system and treat Haitians for cholera. Nor has the United Nations yet raised an additional $200 million it wants for “material assistance” to families and communities that have suffered; donor nations have not yet come forward with the funds.

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The ICC can have no credibility till it charges non-Africans as well (such as Blair or Sarkozy)

October 21, 2016

The US is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court which keeps George Bush and Barack Obama outside their purview. However European countries are signatories and the ICC, in the 14 years it has been in existence, has only charged Africans of war crimes. Tony Blair and Nicolas Sarkozy and even David Cameron, have escaped scott free and it has never even been contemplated that they be charged. John Howard was as complicit as Tony Blair in furthering George Bush’s war crimes but he does not figure in the ICC’s investigations either. It is hardly surprising that the ICC is perceived  – in Africa – as being blatantly anti- African. It is not surprising either that Burundi and now South Africa have signed Instruments of Withdrawal and have informed the UN that they are withdrawing.

BBC: 

South Africa has formally begun the process of withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC), notifying the UN of its decision. South Africa did not want to execute ICC arrest warrants which would lead to “regime change”, a minister said.

Last year, a South African court criticised the government for refusing to arrest Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir. He is wanted by the ICC on charges of genocide and war crimes. Mr Bashir was attending an African Union summit in Johannesburg, when the government ignored an ICC request to arrest him. He denies allegations that he committed atrocities in Sudan’s troubled western Darfur region. …….

“The Republic of South Africa has found that its obligations with respect to the peaceful resolution of conflicts at times are incompatible with the interpretation given by the International Criminal Court,” the document says. 

Justice Minister Michael Masutha said at a press conference that the government would table legislation in parliament to withdraw South Africa from the ICC. The Rome Statute, under which the ICC was set up, required the arrest of heads of state for whom a warrant was issued. The consequence of this would be “regime change” and the statute was incompatible with South African legislation which gave heads of state diplomatic immunity, he added.

But the anti-African position of the ICC seems inescapable:

The ICC 

  • Came into force in 2002
  • The Rome Statute that set it up has been ratified by 123 countries, but the US is a notable absence
  • It aims to prosecute and bring to justice those responsible for the worst crimes – genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes
  • In the court’s 14-year history it has only brought charges against Africans.

 

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How The Lancet creates, and the UN spreads, lies — Hans Rosling in The Lancet

October 14, 2016

The UN can only mirror its member countries. While the UN (and for example the EU) are supposed to try and “level up” they very often “level down”. When that happens they disseminate “worst practices” rather than spread “best practices”. The UN’s executive and officers and bureaucrats are not either immune to the corruptions of being in privileged and protected positions. They also disseminate lies when advocating for their pet projects or causes. The problem is that when lies are sanctioned by the UN they take on a sanctity which is downright harmful.

Professor Hans Rosling and Helena Nordenstedt take the UN to task for spreading lies in a new comment to The Lancet. But they also point out the lie was first created in The Lancet itself and suggest that The Lancet should not publish advocacy articles without peer review.

rosling-lancet

They write

In September, 2016, at the UN General Assembly, the Independent Accountability Panel (IAP) of the UN’s Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health presented their first report. The IAP report states that 60% of maternal deaths today take place in humanitarian settings, specified as “conflict, displacement and natural disaster”. The “60%” has been trending in development aid advocacy ever since late 2015 when UNFPA stated that 60% of maternal deaths happen in “humanitarian situations like refugee camps”. The 60% has even made its way into policy documents and discourse. The only health data mentioned in the proposed policy framework for Sweden’s future international development cooperation are: “60% of maternal deaths take place in humanitarian emergencies”. We chased the origin of this seemingly incorrect percentage. We found it to be a Comment published in The Lancet, referring to the published underlying data sources and to a grey publication describing the crude calculation that yielded the 60%.

……..

We conclude that the “60%” is a fourfold inaccuracy. It is surprising that, in just 1 year, the false percentage made its way to a highly qualified panel at the UN. Global health seems to have entered into a post-fact era, where the labelling of numerators is incorrectly tweaked for advocacy purposes. The reproductive health needs in humanitarian settings should be reported without hiding that most maternal deaths still occur in extreme poverty. As recently noted in The Lancet, Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, spoke the truth when stating that the real causes of maternal and child deaths are poverty, inequality, lack of financing, and poor governance.  The use of inaccurate numbers in global health advocacy can misguide where investments are most needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. We, therefore, suggest The Lancet should only publish advocacy material after due referee procedures.

 

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UN evades responsibility for at least 9,000 cholera deaths (supported by Obama)

June 30, 2016

Haiti-cholera-UN1

The UN introduced cholera to Haiti which caused the deaths of at least 9,000 (officially 9,000, unofficially about 30,000 and with a possibility of being up to 100,000 deaths). The UN culpability and incompetence is clear. The outbreak could have been prevented “if the UN had spent just $2,000 for advance health checks and preventive antibiotics for their troops from Nepal who carried the disease. The cost of the UN incompetence in addition to the 9,000 lives lost is now estimated to be over $2 billion”. But the UN denies responsibility. In March this year came reports that “the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, has been chastised by five of the UN’s own human rights experts who accuse him of undermining the world body’s credibility and reputation by denying responsibility for the devastating outbreak of cholera in Haiti. In a withering letter to the UN chief, the five special rapporteurs say that his refusal to allow cholera victims any effective remedy for their suffering has stripped thousands of Haitians of their fundamental right to justice”.

The US has been supporting Ban Ki-moon both in his denial of responsibility and in his claim of immunity for all UN actions. “Naturally anybody on UN duty is immune from any prosecution – even for blatant incompetence or gross negligence”.

Now The Guardian reports that a bipartisan group of 158 members of Congress have criticised Obama for his stance:

A bipartisan group of 158 members of Congress has accused the Obama administration of a failure of leadership over the cholera scandal in Haiti in which at least 30,000 people have died as a result of an epidemic caused by the United Nations for which the world body refuses to accept responsibility.

A joint letter highly critical of US policy – and devastatingly critical of the UN – has been sent to the US secretary of state, John Kerry, signed by 12 Republican and 146 Democratic members of Congress. Led by John Conyers, a Democratic congressman from Michigan, and Mia Love, a Republican congresswoman from Utah, the letter’s signatories include many of the most senior voices on foreign affairs on Capitol Hill.

The missive takes the Obama administration to task for failing to admonish the UN for its refusal to accept responsibility for the cholera outbreak. “We are deeply concerned that the State Department’s failure to take more leadership in the diplomatic realm might be perceived by our constituents and the world as a limited commitment to an accountable and credible UN,” the letter says.

It continues: “We respectfully urge the Department of State to treat the issue of a just and accountable UN response to Haiti’s cholera with the urgency that 10,000-100,000 deaths and catastrophic damage to the UN’s credibility deserves.”

….. As part of the UN’s dogged denial of culpability, the organization has made a blanket rejection of calls for compensation contained in a class action lawsuit filed in New York by victims of the disaster. The world body is claiming immunity from damages in the case. The US government chose to represent the UN’s defense in the litigation in front of the federal second circuit appeals court. That prompted the three-member panel of judges to question US lawyers over the Obama administration’s apparent unwillingness to use its diplomatic muscle to force the UN to shift its contentious position. …..

With cholera still raging in parts of Haiti, and aid groups on the ground reporting ongoing suffering amid inadequate provision of medical help and sanitation, the Congress members called on the state department to “immediately and unreservedly exercise its leadership … Each day that passes without an appropriate UN response is a tragedy for Haitian cholera victims, and a stain on the UN’s reputation.”

Of course the US claims the same kind of immunity for its troops on active missions abroad (and the US has even tried to claim that kind of immunity for those accused of rape on Okinawa but had to give way eventually). So perhaps the Obama government’s defence of Ban Ki-moon is just a self-serving but unprincipled exercise to protect their own position regarding the responsibility of their troops when abroad.

But it is a shameful position.

 

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Sweden is one of 3 seeking two Security Council places today

June 28, 2016

Voting for 5 places on the UN Security Council (15 members) takes place today.

The elections are for five non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council for two-year mandates commencing on 1 January 2017. In accordance with the Security Council’s rotation rules, whereby the ten non-permanent UNSC seats rotate among the various regional blocs into which UN member states traditionally divide themselves for voting and representation purposes, the five available seats are allocated as follows:

  • One for Africa
  • One for the Asia-Pacific Group
  • One for Latin America and the Caribbean
  • Two for the Western European and Others Group

The five members will serve on the Security Council for the 2017–18 period.

Sweden, Italy and the Netherlands are competing for the two places on the Security Council reserved for the “Western European and Others Group”. To win a seat on the Council a country has to receive more than 2/3rds of the votes cast. 193 countries can vote and in a secret ballot each votes for two countries. If all eligible countries participate, a winning country must receive at least 129 votes.

The Security Council met for the first time in London on January 17, 1946. Sweden has been on the Security Council three time; in 1957–58, 1975–76 and 1997–98. That is after gaps of 11, 18, and 22 years. It is now 19 years since Sweden was last a member and has a pretty good chance of winning a place. I judge it is somewhat better than the nominal 2/3rds chance all 3 countries start with. The Swedish press has “exposed” that the Foreign Ministry has spent some 22 million kronor (less than $3 million) in its “campaign” to be chosen.

I expect that Sweden and the Netherlands will probably win the two places available.

 Italy

 Netherlands

 Sweden

 

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UN cholera which killed 9,000 could have been prevented for $2,000

April 14, 2016

The UN peace keeping force which moved to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake introduced cholera which killed 9,000 people. Haiti had not, for at least 100 years, and possibly never before, had a cholera outbreak. A new Yale study shows that it could have been prevented if the UN had spent just $2,000 for advance health checks and preventive antibiotics for their troops from Nepal who carried the disease. The cost of the UN incompetence in addition to the 9,000 lives lost is now estimated to be over $2 billion.

Of course, Ban Ki-moon spent months spinning the story and denying responsibility. (Just as he is still denying UN responsibility for the sexual predations of UN troops in Africa). Naturally anybody on UN duty is immune from any prosecution – even for blatant incompetence or gross negligence.

It can only be considered incompetence on the part of the UN when the study states “Prior to the outbreak, there were no biomedical interventions in place to prevent its occurrence despite the recognized risk for spread of infectious diseases from military to civilian populations”.

JA Lewnard et al, Strategies to Prevent Cholera Introduction during International Personnel Deployments: A Computational Modeling Analysis Based on the 2010 Haiti Outbreak, January 26, 2016, http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001947

One of the most severe cholera epidemics of the modern era began in Haiti in 2010, causing over 700,000 reported cases and nearly 9,000 deaths to date. Prior to the outbreak, cholera had been absent from Haiti for over a century. Several pieces of evidence have contributed to widespread acceptance that the epidemic resulted from contamination of the Artibonite watershed with infected sewage from a United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) base. The causative Vibrio cholerae strain was imported from Nepal and diverged from strains circulating in that country around the time 454 Nepalese troops were deployed to Haiti, and the first cholera cases in Haiti were seen downstream from the base days after troops arrived.

…. The cholera outbreak in Haiti arose from a confluence of preventable circumstances. Systemic inadequacies in sanitation infrastructure made Haiti vulnerable to water-borne disease, like other disaster-affected settings where peacekeeping operations are undertaken. Mass personnel movements from a cholera-endemic country and deficient waste management practices at a MINUSTAH base led to the introduction of V. cholerae to a susceptible population. Prior to the outbreak, there were no biomedical interventions in place to prevent its occurrence despite the recognized risk for spread of infectious diseases from military to civilian populations. While the UN has been reluctant to implement interventions in the wake of the epidemic in part due to uncertainties surrounding their effectiveness, our findings suggest antimicrobial chemoprophylaxis reduces the risk of disease introduction by over 90%. The low costs and minimal logistical burden of chemoprophylaxis relative to the other interventions suggest this approach warrants consideration as a strategy to limit risk for cholera introduction in future peacekeeping operations.

The Guardian writes:

The devastating Haiti cholera epidemic that has claimed thousands of lives and will cost more than $2bn to eradicate could have been prevented if the United Nations had used a basic health kit for a total of less than $2,000, scientists have found.

A team of Yale epidemiologists and lawyers has looked at how the cholera bacterium was introduced to Haiti by United Nations peacekeepers relocated there in the aftermath of its 2010 earthquake. Yale’s startling finding is that simple screening tests costing $2.54 each, combined with preventive antibiotics at less than $1 per peacekeeper, could have avoided one of the worst outbreaks of the deadly disease in modern history.

The Yale experts warn that the catastrophe in Haiti could be repeated as the UN appears to have failed to learn the lessons of its lack of preventive screening of peacekeepers. Some 150,000 UN peacekeepers are deployed from cholera-endemic countries each year but there is still no routine procedure to ensure they are free of the infection before being moved.

At least 9,000 Haitians, and possibly many more, have died in the continuing cholera epidemic that erupted in October 2010, it is thought as a result of untreated sewage from UN peacekeeping camps being dumped straight into a river. It was the first outbreak of the disease in Haiti in 150 years, and was almost certainly caused by the relocation of UN peacekeepers from Nepal, where cholera is present, to Haiti for emergency earthquake assistance.

Related:

UN’s own experts chastise Ban Ki-moon over handling of Haiti cholera outbreak

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Sweden tries to buy votes for Security Council place

April 5, 2016

Five UN Security Council places (non-permanent) come up for election in June 2016. Sweden is competing against Italy and the Netherlands for the “Western European and Others” place.

The elections are for five non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council for two-year mandates commencing on 1 January 2017. The five members will serve on the Security Council for the 2017–18 period.

No doubt there is heavy lobbying going on. A UNSC place is seen as a strategic – and ideological – objective by the Social Democrat /Environment party government. The Social Democrats especially see the UN as a minor God and they have already canonised themselves as Saints. (Their sanctimonious self-image has been dented lately as they have been forced to take less than “friendly” actions in stopping the influx of “refugees”).

In any event, the Social Democrats were faced with the problem of how to fund their lobbying activities while not seeming to bribe “poor” countries for their votes and tarnishing their own self-righteous, self-image of propriety. So they chose a round-about method of inviting 27 UN ambassadors of “poor countries” to an all expenses-paid jaunt in Sweden under the guise of an “environment seminar”. They funded the whole business through a number of intermediary institutions to hide the fact that the money was coming from the Foreign Aid budget and that the whole “bribery tourism” was organised by the Foreign Ministry. The Foreign Ministry arranged the “gift packages ” for the UN ambassadors (note that those invited were not environment ministers but UN ambassadors). It is not often that UN ambassadors get their business class air tickets and five-star hotel bills paid for by a foreign country. What exactly was contained within the “gift packages” is not known. The environment seminar, just for these 27 country ambassadors, was an attempt by Sweden to cash in on its “environment credentials” just before the Paris conference. A similar jamboree was also arranged in March 2015.

By FIFA standards, the Swedish bribes were just small potatoes and normally I would expect Italy and the Netherlands to have provided more. But a  UNSC place is probably of more prestige value to the Social Democrats in Sweden. There is nothing wrong, I think, in lobbying. It is trying to hide it which is despicable. The sanctimonious, self-righteous facade which covers Swedish foreign policy is always despicable but it has reached new heights (or should it be depths) with this government. If it was all for the interests of the country it wouldn’t matter much, but for the Social Democrats, ideology often overrides country interests (Palestine, Saudi Arabia, the PKK ….).

(I observe that the left parties in Europe and including the Social Democrats in Sweden, in their ideological zeal to support the Palestinians often come close to being anti-semitic. And they get into a tangle when supporting a Kurdistan).

Kronprinsessan och Prins Daniel tillsammans med ambassadörerna.

Crown Princess and Prince Daniel with the Ambassadors. Photo kungahuset.se

Swedish Television:

Ambassadors from 27 island nations and poor countries were treated to a free trip to Sweden in August. The official reason for the visit was a climate seminar. The bills running into millions were sent to the  Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, who in turn received 14 million kronor of Sida’s aid money.

The common factor for the visitors was that they each have one vote in the UN General Assembly, which in June will appoint new members to the Security Council.

To get a seat in the UN Security Council has been one of the current government’s major foreign policy goals. …..

After the disclosure the government … writes that aid money was also used at another opportunity to invite UN Ambassadors on a trip to Sweden. On March 10,  27 representatives of several small island states met the Aid Minister Isabella Lövin (MP) and Foreign Minister Margot Wallström (S), during a visit to Sweden at the invitation of the Dag Hammarksköld Foundation. ….

…… Niclas Kvarnström Manager of the Security Council candidacy, said that the UN ambassadors’ visit was a collaboration between the Foundation and the Foreign Ministry. …..

During the visit, the ambassadors lunched with Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, had coffee with Aid Minister Isabella Lövin and had dinner with Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. 

But the program was not mentioned publicly …. and they made no press releases.

The UN ambassadors also met Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel who received them at the  royal palace.

The Social Democrats together with the Environmental party makes for a dangerous mix. They are particularly good at “Do as I say and ignore what I do”

 

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India says that OECD claim of $57 billion in 2013/14 for “climate finance” was grossly exaggerated and actually only $2.2 billion

November 30, 2015

The propaganda tsunami for the Paris climate conference is reaching a peak just in time for the 147 leaders who fly in for today’s opening. Many organisations and lobby groups and newspapers have brought out special issues and reports to sell their viewpoint. No matter how little Paris agrees on, it will be presented as a major breakthrough (too many have now invested too much to allow any other spin).

The OECD is one such organisation and they have just issued a report “Climate Finance in 2013-14 and the USD 100 billion goal” to try and show the position of the developed nations that a great deal of “climate finance” is already flowing.

OECD Climate-Finance in 2013-14

The OECD claims that developed countries and their private sectors had provided $62 billion in climate finance flows in 2014 — up from $52 billion in 2013 — and an average of $57 billion annually over 2013-14.

But this is all spin and hot air. All kinds of money flows are, by tortuous reasoning, allocated to “climate finance”. The Indian government’s Department of Economic Affairs is not amused.  They have performed a due diligence on the OECD’s claims of $57 billion disbursement in 2013/14. They find double-counting, mislabelling and misreporting and find that  “the only hard number currently available in this regard is $2.2 billion in gross climate fund disbursements from 17 special climate change finance multilateral, bilateral and multilateral development bank funds created for the specific purpose”. The DEA report goes on to say “the Paris Conference and negotiators will unfortunately need to worry about the credibility of the new OECD report”.

Of course the OECD wants to show numbers bigger than they are and developing countries such as India want to show them as small as possible. The very concept that man-made emissions are going to control climate is arrogant, decadent and deeply flawed.  But climate conferences are about money flows not about climate.

The Hindu: 

The estimate of $57billion in assistance during 2013-14 is flawed; the only number available is $2.2bn, says Finance Ministry paper.

On a day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi left for Paris to participate in the global climate change conference beginning Monday, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said that India has questioned the correctness of the recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report which claimed that significant progress had been made on a roadmap towards the goal of $100 billion in climate change finance flows annually by 2020.

In the foreword of a discussion paper titled, ‘Climate Change Finance, Analysis of a Recent OECD Report: Some Credible Facts Needed’, the Secretary said: “We asked our Climate Change Finance Unit of the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Ministry of Finance, and its experts to undertake a careful review of that OECD report. Their conclusion: the OECD report appears to have over-stated progress.” ….. 

The DEA paper said the OECD report had mentioned that developed countries and their private sector had provided $62 billion in climate finance flows in 2014 — up from $52 billion in 2013 — and an average of $57 billion annually over 2013-14.

The DEA paper quoted the French Foreign Minister as saying, “estimates demonstrate that considerable progress has been made. We must mobilize our efforts to provide the remaining $40 billion.” The paper then countered these claims saying, “We are very far from the goal of $100 billion in climate change finance flows annually by 2020.”

Describing the OECD as ‘a club of the rich countries’, the DEA paper said the Paris Conference and negotiators will unfortunately need to worry about the credibility of the new OECD report. …… 

Terming the figure of $57 billion average for 2013-14 as one that was exaggeratedly reported by the OECD, the DEA paper said the only hard number currently available in this regard is $2.2 billion in gross climate fund disbursements from 17 special climate change finance multilateral, bilateral and multilateral development bank funds created for the specific purpose. ……

The OECD report is deeply flawed and unacceptable, the DEA paper said, adding that the OECD report repeats a previous experience of double-counting, mislabelling and misreporting when rich countries provided exaggerated claims of ‘fast-start climate financing’ in during 2010-12 which were widely criticized by independent observers.

Reporting of the Paris conference will see a lot of spin. But there are only 2 real questions

  1. Are any emissions targets legally binding? and
  2. Are any money flows legally binding?

And I expect nothing of substance will be legally binding – thank goodness.

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UN Resolution 2249 (2015) has implicitly invoked Chapter 7 and sanctions military action against ISIL in Iraq and Syria

November 21, 2015

UN SC Res 2249

UN Resolution 2249 which was passed yesterday at the initiative of France actually does invoke Chapter 7 of the UN Charter and goes very much further than some are arguing. The resolution does not just sanction action against ISIL (ISIS) but calls on member states which can act, to do so:

”  Calls upon Member States that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures, …….  on the territory under the control of ISIL also known as Da’esh, in Syria and Iraq, to redouble and coordinate their efforts to prevent and suppress terrorist acts….”

Any member nation is therefore fully authorised  – in international law – by this resolution to attack ISIL (ISIS) (or any other of the named terrorist groups) in Syria or in Iraq. 

I have heard arguments from the left in the UK that this is not the explicit UN sanction for military action under Chapter 7 that they are looking for before agreeing to any attacks on ISIS in Syria, but this is just wishful and incorrect thinking. The UN itself explains in its Research Report No. 1 that the Security Council can exercise its Chapter 7 powers without explicitly invoking Chapter 7 in the text of a Security Council resolution.

UN Research Report No 1 Chapter VII 23 June 08

There can be no doubt that Chapter 7 is being implicitly invoked.

UN Charter

The beginning of Chapter 7 (Article 39) is specifically addressed to “any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” and yesterday’s resolution “determines …….  the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as Da’esh), constitutes a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security”.

The United States Deputy Ambassador to the UN provides this explanation to the US President of yesterday’s resolution:

Mr. President, in recent weeks barbaric terrorist attacks have startled the world’s conscience. From Europe to Africa to the Middle East, innocent men and women have been slaughtered. Families destroyed in Beirut. Concertgoers slain in Paris. Air passengers bombed in the sky. Tourists killed on the beach in Tunisia. ……

For this reason, we welcome and applaud this resolution’s resolute call on states to take all necessary measures in compliance with international law to counter ISIL and the al-Nusrah Front. We must also choke off funding, arms, recruitment, and other kinds of support to ISIL and the al-Nusrah Front.

As the resolution recognizes, Iraq has made it clear that it is facing a serious threat of continuing attacks from ISIL, in particular coming out of safe havens in Syria; and the Assad regime in Syria has shown that it cannot and will not suppress this threat, even as it undertakes actions that benefit the extremists’ recruiting. In this regard, working with Iraq, the United States has been leading international efforts to provide assistance to combat the threat that ISIL poses to the security of its people and territory, and we are taking, in accordance with the UN Charter and its recognition of the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense, necessary and proportionate military action to deny ISIL safe haven. …….

Any government of a member state in general, and the UK government in particular, needs no further UN sanction if they wish to act against ISIS in Iraq or in Syria. In fact with this resolution in place it is quite unlikely that the UN Security Council will produce another resolution to cover ground already covered.

David Cameron now has all the UN sanction that he could ever desire to extend military strikes on ISIS in Syria. He can even, with justification, go to his parliament at any time and explain that all member states with the capacity to attack ISIL (ISIS) in Syria have a duty to do so under Resolution 2249 (2015). St Jeremy really has no leg to stand on – Chapter 7 has already been invoked.

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India and China have already won and the Paris climate conference has become irrelevant

October 20, 2015
Paris conference

Paris conference

India and China have successfully managed to get the UN to focus on the intensity of emissions per unit of GDP and thus can make promises (not legally binding) about future emissions tied to GDP such that they will not be limited in their use of coal in any significant way.

The hype about the UN’s December climate meeting in Paris is gradually growing. Media, politically correct politicians and the global warming religion’s orthodoxy are winding up their rhetoric. Ostensibly the goal is to demonise carbon and to get nations to commit to reducing fossil fuel use such that the global temperature rise “will not exceed 2ºC”. This target of “allowable” temperature rise is not “2ºC caused by man” but just “2ºC”. Nobody actually knows what the rise by “natural causes” might be and what is caused by man. “Global temperature” itself is an artefact, a calculated quantity and calculated by those with a vested interest in showing that it is increasing. It seems that the calculation method is conveniently variable and is adjusted every year to show that the current year has demonstrated the highest ever temperature. Nevertheless the 5,000 participants and 190+ countries have effectively set themselves up to discuss commitments to stop climate change itself. The arrogance is astounding and worthy of King Cnut.

What effect man has actually had on climate is unknown. For almost 20 years now, man-made carbon dioxide emissions have been growing explosively but “global temperature” has paused. Those countries which have increased their own costs of electricity by reducing fossil fuel use (mainly in Europe) have effectively done it all quite uselessly and unnecessarily. Other countries (China and India in the main) have increased their use of fossil fuels such that global emissions of carbon dioxide have continued to grow. And yet there has been no change in “global temperature” except by arithmetical tricks. The last 3 decades of reducing fossil fuel use in Europe have been unnecessary. Three decades of subsidising renewable energy have still not made them commercial in their own right.

Climate policies are all policies where the objectives are not measurable. Policies are being proposed where the effect of the policies on climate itself cannot be measured. All that can be measured are the actions themselves which is both trivial and meaningless. For example countries can measure amounts of money spent but have no clue as to what the resultant effect on climate may be. Emissions reductions can be measured, but not the actual climate effects such reductions may have caused or not caused. For many delegates the purpose is not climate but the redistribution of wealth among nations where climate policy is the vehicle.

Ask a politician what his countries climate policies will achieve and the answer is that it will “contribute to the world’s efforts to stop climate change”. But by how much and how success can be measured are unknowns. It has become a matter of solidarity among nations not of policies with objectives. Not a single country (nor any politician nor any so-called climate scientist) has any inkling about what its climate policies will achieve for climate or even if it will achieve anything at all.

Some of the more savvy politicians and countries have figured out ways to seem to support political correctness while ensuring that their continued – and increasing – use of fossil fuels is not constrained in practice. For India and China the continued use of fossil fuels is critical and necessary for their growth. For the next 20  – 30 years, their carbon dioxide emissions are going to increase regardless of what the Paris meeting decides. India has proposed policies which seem – at first sight – to be drastic reductions in the “intensity of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP” but defined in terms of growth such that coal consumption will have trebled in the next 25 years from 2005. India has now said it will cut emissions intensity by up to 25% of 2005 levels by 2020. China has also said it will reduce the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP in 2020 by 40 to 45 percent compared with the level of 2005.

India’s GDP has grown from $0.8 trillion in 2005 to be about $2.1 trillion in 2014. China’s GDP has already grown from $2.3 trillion in 2005 to $10.3 trillion in 2014. These “promises” based on GDP are not even going to be legally binding  and there is certainly no cap to the GDP which can be aimed for or achieved. The GDP targets for India and China inherently require a mix of fuels to be used for electricity generation; coal, gas, nuclear and hydro primarily. Solar and wind power may have a large installed capacity and may contribute something to the growth but are not necessary or critical. The Indian and Chinese plans for using more gas and nuclear in their mix automatically brings down the carbon intensity per GDP from the levels of 2005 when both countries were heavily dependent on coal. Their coal plans can therefore proceed unimpeded while still meeting their “promises”. Both countries are relying on GDP growth to effectively reduce their “intensities of carbon emission” without having to reduce the rate at which they increase planned fossil fuel use or carbon dioxide emissions. Both India and China have reached the stage of development where electricity consumption growth is now lower than GDP growth. Both are at low levels of energy utilisation efficiency such that significant demand side improvements can be made. With around 7% growth in India and even with China reducing to, say, 6% growth, the reductions of intensity of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP are impossible to prevent.

Any agreement in Paris will mean India trebling and China doubling its coal burn by 2030. And with “official” sanction to do so. So what “success” in Paris means is that global, man-made, carbon dioxide emissions are going to double (at least). And it also means that any carbon dioxide emission reductions promised by other countries are of no significance whatsoever. It is a very good thing that man-made, carbon dioxide emissions have no significant impact on global temperature.

And the Paris conference is both meaningless and irrelevant.

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Posted in Alarmism, China, Climate, India, UN | 5 Comments »

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