U.N. Climate Summit

One could be forgiven for thinking this story was a parody:

U.N. Report: poor hit hardest by climate change

The poor, poor. Always taking it in the keester. Has there ever been a time when this has not been the case?

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Developed nations must immediately help fight global warming or the world will face catastrophic floods, droughts and other disasters, according to U.N. report released this week.

Before global warming appeared on the scene, I wonder what caused catastrophic floods and droughts? They're not exactly new phenomenons. Just in case you do not acknowledge your responsibility to engage in this battle for the future of our planet, there might be other disasters, too. Perhaps fire and brimstone, or plagues of locusts that black out the sky. Just imagine the worst disaster you can conjure up, and it's gonna happen!

The report said rich nations will need to provide $86 billion a year by 2015 to "strengthen the capacity of vulnerable people" to cope with climate-related risks.

Because it's our duty, as "rich nations" to care for the rest of the world, since it's only an accident that some nations are rich and others are poor. And hey, what's $86 billion anyhow, especially at today's exchange rates? That's only $57.9 billion euros, the currency of the future.

"The scenario is that our generation will experience reversals on a grand scale in the areas of health, education and poverty. For the future there is real threat of ecological catastrophe," Kevin Watkins, the report's lead author, told reporters in Brasilia, the country's capital.

Global warming will render people unhealthy, and unable to work and go to school. And not just a few people, it's gonna happen on a grand scale. I'd like to see the methodology behind that conclusion.

Half the cost, $44 billion, would go for "climate-proofing" developing nations' infrastructure, while $40 billion would help the poor cope with climate-related risks. The other $2 billion would go to strengthening responses to natural disasters, the report said.

"Climate-proofing" is what we used to do in the winter when we would put clear plastic sheets over our windows to improve heat retention. $44 billion seems like a lot of money for plastic. Really though, it sounds like a pork barrel spending spree to me; another chance for 3rd world kleptocracies to feast at the trough of misplaced and mismanaged international largess.

Here's the best part:

The nearly 400-page Human Development Report comes just a week before the world's nations convene in Bali, Indonesia, to negotiate a new climate treaty.

At the report's release ceremony, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called on rich nations to do their part.

"In Bali we are going to very seriously discuss the price rich countries have to pay so that poorer countries can preserve their forests," Silva said. "Because you're not going to convince a poor person in any country that he can't cut down a tree if he doesn't have the right to work and eat in exchange."

I give you this from the Bali News website:

A Lack of Apron Area Will Compel Delegations Attending the UN Climate Change Conference to Park their Planes Outside of Bali.

11/3/2007) Tempo Interaktif reports that Angkasa Pura - the management of Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport are concerned that the large number of additional private charter flights expected in Bali during the UN Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC) December 3-15, 2007, will exceed the carrying capacity of apron areas. To meet the added demand for aircraft storage officials are allocating "parking space" at other airports in Indonesia.

The operational manager for Bali's Airport, Azjar Effendi, says his 3 parking areas can only accommodate 15 planes, which means that some of the jets used by VIP delegations will only be allowed to disembark and embark their planes in Bali with parking provided at airports in Surabaya, Lombok, Jakarta and Makassar.

Climate change is so serious that our U.N. Climate Knights in Shining Armor have to fly with their VIP entourages in C02 belching private jets to a beautiful, remote, tropical South Pacific island to discuss the imminent crisis that threatens to end the world as we know it. If this were truly a crisis, shouldn't the U.N. moral preachers just hold a video conference? I think the carbon footprint might be just a tad smaller. They tell us the goal is to reduce the world's carbon footprint after all.

I do have a feeling that the lack of tarmac parking space is the only thing they really feel is an immediate crisis. At the minimum, shouldn't they jetpool?

Developed countries, meanwhile, are failing to meet their targets under the current climate treaty, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, for cutting greenhouse gases by 2012, the report said. France, Germany, Japan and Britain have reduced their emissions somewhat, it said, but the European Union is falling short of its goal of a 20 percent cut by 2020.

Kevin Rudd of the center-left Labour Party, was just elected as the new prime minister of Australia in a landslide victory. Best I can tell, the sum of his platform was that he promised to sign the Kyoto Protocol after years of resistance under John Howard. Never mind that Kyoto is ineffective, what's important is that you posture correctly.

Olav Kjorven, head of the U.N. Development Program's bureau for development policy, said help is only natural "when we know that the frequency of droughts and floods is going up."

Because of global warming, he said, 600 million more people in sub-Saharan Africa will go hungry from collapsing agriculture, an extra 400 million people will be exposed to malaria and other diseases and an added 200 million will be flooded out of their homes.

"We're suggesting 1.6 percent of (global) GDP -- still very affordable," Kjorven said. "The countries of the world that are the principal culprits, if you wish, for creating this problem in the first place need to act strongly to safeguard the future of those that have done nothing to cause this problem but are the most vulnerable."

If global warming were not happening, 600 million people would not go hungry, 400 million would not be exposed to malaria and 200 million would not be flooded out of their homes. How about, if you wish, 600 million people would not go hungry if they had roads on which to get their crops to the marketplace, and were not bullied into not planting genetically modified crops by the EU. If you wish, consider that if DDT were not vilified, 400 million would not be exposed to malaria. Imagine, if you wish, that if deforestation weren't rampant, 200 million people would not be flooded out of their homes.


I would like to see a poll of what the average third world citizen thought were the 10 most pressing problems facing them today. I'd wager global warming wouldn't make the list.

When the United Nations moves its headquarters to, say somewhere in Namibia, I might start to take them slightly more seriously. It's hard not to conclude that their only function is to hold endless jaw-jaw sessions in exotic places like Bali. That is, when they're not enjoying all that New York City has to offer.

U.N. OUT OF NYC! Now that's a bumper sticker.