UN High-level Panel on Global Sustainability delivers a final report

In August 2010, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability (GSP) "that bring together renowned world figures to formulate a new blueprint for a sustainable future on a planet under increasing stress resulting from human activities".

The Panel, which was co-chaired by Finnish President Tarja Halonen and South African President Jacob Zuma, met a few times - with Zuma not present on most occasions - to hear what the bureaucrats and "experts", who actually wrote the report, had on their mind.

The GSP launched its final report, "Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing" on January 30 in Addis Ababa.

As was to be expected, there has more or less been silence after the launch. Who in the world would be interested in yet another compilation of UN "sustainability speak"?!

Here are a just a few excerpts to show you what was written in the name of these "renowned world figures":

The long-term vision of the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability is to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality and make growth inclusive, and production and consumption more sustainable, while combating climate change and respecting a range of other planetary boundaries. This reaffirms the landmark 1987 report by the World Commission on Environment and Development, "Our Common Future" (United Nations document A/42/427, annex), known to all as the Brundtland report.

But what, then, is to be done if we are to make a real difference for the world’s people and the planet? We must grasp the dimensions of the challenge. We must recognize that the drivers of that challenge include unsustainable lifestyles, production and consumption patterns and the impact of population growth.

The current global development model is unsustainable. We can no longer assume that our collective actions will not trigger tipping points as environmental thresholds are breached, risking irreversible damage to both ecosystems and human communities. At the same time, such thresholds should not be used to impose arbitrary growth ceilings on developing countries seeking to lift their people out of poverty.


It is time for bold global efforts, including launching a major global scientific initiative, to strengthen the interface between science and policy. We must define, through science, what scientists refer to as "planetary boundaries", "environmental thresholds" and "tipping points".

Most goods and services sold today fail to bear the full environmental and social cost of production and consumption. Based on the science, we need to reach consensus, over time, on methodologies to price them properly. Costing environmental externalities could open new opportunities for green growth and green jobs;

International governance for sustainable development must be strengthened by using existing institutions more dynamically and by considering the creation of a global sustainable development council and the adoption of sustainable development goals;

Note the key words and phrases:

• unsustainable lifestyles, production and consumption patterns
• The current global development model is unsustainable
• "planetary boundaries", "environmental thresholds" and "tipping points"
• Based on the science, we need to reach consensus, over time, on methodologies to price them (goods and services) properly
• the creation of a global sustainable development council

What these "sustainability socialists" want is in reality to have some kind of world (socialist) government to decide our lifestyle, production, consumtion, markets and prices. Fortunately, their dream will never come true, but it will keep hundreds - if not thousands - of highly paid bureaucrats and "experts" busy planning the next major totally useless "sustainability" reports.

Carbon capture: The enormous waste of taxpayers´money continues in the EU

The enormous waste of taxpayers´money in the name of fighting (non-existent) human caused global warming, continues in the European Union. Now we hear that the failed carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) is going to get another €1.37 billion:

Experimental technology to capture, store and bury carbon emissions in geological formations is in line to receive a payout of as much as €1.37 billion from the EU’s energy infrastructure package, EurActiv has learned.

The funding could prove controversial as carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is an unproven technology that critics say is not commercially viable, climate-friendly or safe.

Supporters on the other hand say CCS will be crucial to reducing the global warming impact of fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, on which the International Energy Agency says the world will continue to rely for decades. The European Commission has already backed the technology to the tune of €1 billion.

António Correia de Campos, the rapporteur tasked with seeing the energy infrastructure package through the European Parliament, told EurActiv that “around 10%-15%” of the €9.1 billion funding in the legislation would be spent on the technology.

“CCS is by nature under-developed and by definition this leverage will be fundamental for it,” he said.

European CCS projects have been beset by delays, despite receiving billions of euros of EU funding.

Of 12 CCS demonstration plants due to begin operation in 2015, only between four and six are now expected to be up and running by 2020.

Yet there has been little public discussion about the allocation of CCS funding in the package and renewable energy grandees said the funding made no financial or policy sense.

“How can you build an infrastructure for something that has not been implemented yet?” said Arthouros Zervos, president of the European Renewable Energy Council, an industry group. “It would be another white elephant.”

“Even the people building CCS say it won’t be commercially viable until 2030,” he added, “and if you give the money to CCS you subtract it from other electricity infrastructure projects which Europe needs urgently.”

In 2008, the International Energy Agency estimated that, every tonne of CO2 captured through CCS would cost $40-90 (€30-€68), but current carbon prices are closer to $11 (€9).

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Two CCS plants in Germany and Britain were recently cancelled, and many remaining projects are at risk, due to regulatory objections, funding shortfalls, public opposition, and questions about their contribution to mitigating climate change.

Even so, the EU’s 2050 Energy Roadmap still estimates that CCS will account for between 19%-32% of Europe’s emission cuts by 2050.

Read the entire article here
PS

The EU climate change madness has already cost European taxpayers billions of euros. However, the current failed EU leaders and the unelected Brussels bureaucrats, united by the fake global warming religion, could not care less. They continue wasting billions while ordinary taxpayers are suffering (also from other failed projects, like the common currency).

But the day of reckoning is getting closer, day by day.

Putin - A "miracle of God"?

It is sad to see the head of the Russian Orthodox church and other religious leaders praise Russia´s ruler, former second rate KGB agent Vladimir Putin as a "miracle of God":

The head of the Russian Orthodox church on Wednesday called the 12 years of Vladimir Putin's rule a "miracle of God" and criticised his opponents, at a gathering where religious leaders heaped praise on the prime minister.
Putin wants support from spiritual figures for his campaign to win his third term in the Kremlin in a March 4 election. He is facing a growing protest movement and needs to consolidate his core support to avoid a runoff.
Putin has built his campaign on a contrast with the turbulent 1990s, when millions were thrown into poverty after the collapse of the Soviet Union while ethnic conflicts such as the war in Chechnya threatened to tear Russia apart.
Patriarch Kirill, a bearded cleric seen as a modernising figure in the Russian church, the largest in Orthodox Christianity, compared the period preceding Putin's ascent to power to the 1941 Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
"What were the 2000s then? Through a miracle of God, with the active participation of the country's leadership, we managed to exit this horrible, systemic crisis," Kirill told a meeting at the ancient St. Daniel's monastery.
"I should say it openly as a patriarch who must only tell the truth, not paying attention to the political situation or propaganda, you personally played a massive role in correcting this crooked twist of our history," Kirill said.
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Kirill's speech was echoed by leaders of other faiths.
"You had it right, the fact that they (opposition protests) took place on Saturday suggests that it was not a Jewish business," Russia's chief rabbi, Berel Lazar, told Putin.
"We joked in the synagogue that it would have been better to come for a prayer on that day."
The gathering was also attended by four muftis from predominantly Muslim Russian regions, a Buddhist lama, an Armenian bishop and representatives of Roman Catholics and other Christian churches.
"Muslims know you, Muslims trust you, Muslims are wishing you success," said mufti Ravil Gainutdin. Mufti Ismail Berdiyev from the turbulent North Caucasus added: "You are the only person who has shown the United States its place."

Read the entire article here

One sect, led by a former prisoner who now calls herself "Mother Fotinya" goes even further in her praise of Putin:

"Miracle" in the village of Bol'šaja El'nja, Nižnyj Novgorod, Russia: icon of current Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said to shine and cry myrrh.

A few days ago Mother Fotinya (real name: Svetlana Frolova), the leader of a 'Putinist' Christian sect officially called Chapel of Russia's Resurrection, announced on her web page that a Putin’s icon had begun to мироточить (literally: to seep myrrh), meaning a religious phenomenon where the faithful believes to see myrrh appearing like tears in the eyes of an icon.

Mother Fotinya's all-female sect worships Putin as the reincarnation of Grand Prince Knyaz Vladimir and of apostle Paul.

PS

The Russian Orthodox church of course has a long tradition of co-operation with the Communist regime and the KGB, so maybe one should not be too surprised by the open praising of Putin.

The European "slow-motion train wreck" getting closer to its final destination

While we witness the "slow-motion train wreck" (Nouriel Roubini´s description of the eurozone) getting closer to its final destination, it is good to know that at least one member of the European Parliament has seen this coming already long ago.

Vestas, the world´s biggest wind-turbine manufacturer, makes huge loss

Now No. 1 loss maker

Vestas, the world´s biggest wind-turbine manufacturer, today delivered a terrible result for 2011, with an annual loss four times wider than analysts had estimated:

Three members of wind turbine maker's board, including chairman, announce their departure after declaring billion kroner loss 

Wind turbine maker Vestas suffered pretax losses of 1.1billion kroner in 2011, far higher than the 450 million kroner loss which was expected.
The numbers were announced on Wednesday and were followed by the news that chairman Bent Erik Carlsen, his deputy chairman, and the company's head of finance will leave after the annual general meeting in March.
The company had already lowered its earnings forecast, but after the loss turned out to be almost triple what was expected, the company has now decided not to publish its expected number of orders for coming years.
“After input from several of the company’s large shareholders, we have decided to reduce the number of parameters that Vestas publishes information about in 2012,” the company said in a press release.
Vestas share prices tumbled almost 15 percent overnight, wiping about two billion kroner off the company’s value.

This comment to the article in the Copenhagen Post pretty well describes what has been happening in Denmark:

According to our current government, this is where the future growth of DK should be--green energy sources.......The government hates other industries and has done everything to ruin them such as high energy costs (greenhouses), NOx fees (cement), over the top animal rights and pesticide legislation (meat and farming), high petrol taxes, environmental zones (transport). The only growth I can see will be an increase in border shopping in Germany and Sweden.   

Der Spiegel: "It's Time To End the Greek Rescue Farce"

Stefan Kaiser, writing in Der Spiegel, has published a realistic account of the efforts to "rescue" Greece:

For the past two years, Greece has wrangled with the euro-zone states and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over its so-called "rescue." Austerity measures have been agreed to, aid has been paid and private creditors have been forced to accept "voluntary" debt haircuts. Despite all this, Greece is in even worse shape today than it was then. Its economy is shrinking, the debt ratio is rising and the country and its banks have been cut off from capital markets. There isn't even the slightest sign that the situation might improve. Something has gone very wrong with this rescue.

But none of the protagonists seem to have grasped this. They continue to negotiate as if things are business as usual, they let one "final ultimatum" after the other pass and they persistently fail to realize that their discussions have started to verge on the absurd. It would be a lot better to end this farce.

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For months, Greek government politicians as well as the so-called rescuers in Berlin, Paris and Brussels have all been deceiving themselves. Each supposedly final rescue package is followed by yet another, and austerity pledges aren't being adhered to.
That has a lot to do with domestic political considerations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy must convey to their voters that they have the situation and, especially the Greeks, under control. Meanwhile, the government in Athens must, out of self-preservation, limit the burdens to its own people as much as possible.
That's why both sides repeatedly agree to promises that everyone knows they will not be able to keep. The current rescue package, for example, officially agreed at the euro summit at the end of October, already has to be improved because it has become too small.

Read the entire article here

Frau Merkel is still, according to fresh polls, very popular in Germany. However, that can change very fast, when people begin to realise what a weak leader she actually is. That realisation will come when the German economy slows down, at least partially as a consequence of her failed "green" energy policy and partially because of the China bubble beginning to burst.

Unelected EU bureaucrat threatening US and China on airline carbon emission tax

The opposition against the European Union´s unilateral carbon emission scheme for international airlines is hardening. The US seems likely to join China in preventing its airlines to take part:

In December, the US lost an appeal before the EU Court of Justice against the application of the emission permit scheme to non-EU airlines.
In retaliation, the US Senate is considering a bill preventing US airlines from taking part in the EU scheme, which has already been approved by the House of Representatives. President Barack Obama could not stop it unless the EU gave something in return, White said.

China is also retaliating. On Monday its civil aviation authorities ordered its airlines not to pay for the EU permits. US, Chinese, Russian and Indian representatives are set to meet in Moscow on February 21 to mount a united front against the measure.

As we have said before, this is a fight the EU is going to lose. Unelected EU bureacrats, like Jos Delbeke, head of the European Commission's climate change department, are - as they usually are on most matters - seriously out of touch with reality:

But Delbeke stood firm. He noted that so far all foreign airlines have applied for the 85-per-cent quota of EU emission permits that are being handed out for free. Those which will refuse to pay for the remaining 15 per cent will be taken to court, he pledged.

Equally, countries taking retaliatory measures will be taken to the ICAO or even to, as a last resort, the World Trade Organization, Delbeke said.

'If there is retaliation we are going to react ... we are going to be damn serious,' he warned.

Read the entire article here