Merkel on Europe

While I write this Chanchellor Angela Merkel is speaking to the Bundestag about the Brave New World (after last week´s EU summit) of the European Union.  Lots of words - and nothing more. This will not convince investors.

The brutal suppression of human rights continues in China

The communist rulers of China should be held accountable for their brutal suppression of human rights. Western governments - including the Obama administration - more or less ignore this repression due to China´s purported economic importance.

The chairman of the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China, representative Christopher H. Smith (republican) reminds us about the reality:

Despite China’s brutal suppression of human rights, Chinese authorities claim to uphold the values of the UDHR and other human rights instruments. The government announced several months ago that it would issue a National Human Rights Action Plan for the coming years, following on the heels of a similar action plan issued in 2009. The earlier plan showed the Chinese government has improved its rhetorical strategy for asserting compliance with human rights standards but has improved little else. In the end, the plan has done nothing to better human rights conditions in China, which actually have regressed.
If we are to give real substance to human rights, we must hold China accountable to its obligations to abide by the values enshrined in the UDHR and to guarantee fundamental human rights. By keeping a constant spotlight on China’s behavior, ensuring the Chinese government faces consequences for its actions and supporting Chinese citizens in their rights defense efforts, we can give real meaning to International Human Rights Day and the values of freedom and democracy championed by Liu Xiaobo.

Read the entire article here

Greenpeace on Canada´s decision to pull out of Kyoto

The Canadian government´s wise and laudable decision to pull out of the uselesss and expensive Kyoto Protocol has, as was to be exptected, been criticized by sanctiomonious global warming cultists.

Here is a comment from the lunatic fringe - Greenpeace :

"The Harper government has imposed a death sentence on many of the world's most vulnerable populations by pulling out of Kyoto"

Mike Hudema
Greenpeace Canada

PS

This guy is in urgent need of some kind of professional care.

A British petition to Angela Merkel

We have been informed that a group of leading British europhiles, outraged at Prime Minister David Cameron´s behaviour at the recent summit in Brussels, are preparing a secret petition to Angela Merkel.

This is the leaked first version of the text:  

To Her Imperial Majesty
The Ruler of All Europeans
and
Chancellor of the Germans

May it please Your Majesty,

We the undersigned venture respectfully to approach Your Majesty as profound sympathisers with the noble and enlightened sentiments to which Your Majesty has given expression in the deliberations in Bruxelles recently. Having read and being deeply moved by the petition of the High Representatives of the Commission Européenne in which they make a solemn appeal to Your Majesty in support of the maintenance of the common currency l´euro, first confirmed by His most gracious and Imperial Majesty Helmut Josef Michael Kohl and subsequently re-affirmed in the most solemn manner by all his illustrious successors; we venture to express the hope that Your Imperial Majesty will take into consideration this petition and prayer of Your Majesty´s most humble British servants.

It would be a matter of great regret to us, as to all other admirers of Your Majesty´s enlightened views if events that transpired during the recent deliberations in Bruxelles should retard the cause of amity among your subjects in various parts of our common Empire.

Bruxelles and London .... December, 2011 A.D.

The Right Honourable the Lord Heseltine, CH, PC

The Right Honourable the Lord Kinnock, PC

The Right Honourable Kenneth Clarke, QC, MP

The Right Honourable Nicholas William Peter Clegg, MP



PS

We understand that a copy of the petition will separately be posted to the viceroy in Palais de l'Élysée



Free Cash, $100 billion each year by 2020 "to help mitigation and adaptation" activities of the "world´s poorest countries"

The Green Climate Fund (= free, almost unlimited cash for some of the world´s most corrupted dictators and regimes) was agreed already in Copenhagen in 2009,  but now it is said to have been "launched" at the COP 17 climate change jamboree in Durban.

Fortunately this "launch" is just as fake as everything else "agreed" in Durban:

In practice, however, Durban´s only concrete progress relating to the fund was the agreement that it would be overseen by the UN, as desired by developing countries, rather than the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which the European Union and United States wanted.

The final document does not clarify where the money will come from or how much cash, if any, is already there, which country will host the fund, or who the trustees will be.

The only thing that seems certain is that there will be hundreds of new highly paid taxfree jobs for UN bureaucrats. The UN Green Climate Fond will of course also need a flashy new headquarters somewhere, paid for by taxpayers in the same "somewhere".

Wind energy subsidies take away incentive to innovate

The federal tax credits for wind power in the US expire at the end of next year. The wind energy lobby is now ramping up its efferts to get an extension of the subsidies. But, as Nicolas Loris points out, it’s time to let this wasteful, unnecessary subsidy run out:

Twenty years of subsidies later, wind still only provides a paltry 2.3 percent of America’s electricity in 2010, and it still needs subsidies.
Jim Nelson, CEO of Solar3D, argues that government subsidies are obstructing innovation in the renewable-energy sector:

Operating subsidies, or installation subsidies, helps get clean energy sources installed but the problem is that current technology is not economically competitive. Everything we do needs to be done with a view toward global competitiveness. Unfortunately, because current technology is not economical relative to alternatives, it does not promote our competitiveness.

The problem is that subsidies promote technological malaise. They take away the incentive to innovate and lower cost by promoting business models geared more toward gaining favor with politicians than on technological innovation. The result is that subsidized industries quickly become dependent on government. At that point, long-term competitiveness becomes secondary to near-term survival, which is generally conditioned on more handouts.
Thus when the government support is threatened, the propped-up industry responds with pleas for more handouts. Recognizing that their survival depends more on securing subsidies than on technological innovation, subsidized industries reject such investments to the extent that they too are not subsidized by government. Hence, the vicious cycle of subsidies inevitably result in technological stagnation.

The same of course applies to wind energy subsidies in other countries as well. Why waste money on a technology that does not work properly, when there will be e.g. more than enough of cheap shale gas available for all sorts of future energy needs.

COP17 - Much Ado about Nothing?

What did the Durban COP 17 agree? A “historic deal to save the planet”?

Take your pick:

"Historic is the word.´The idea that we got everybody to agree to take some form of legal commitment is a major outcome.”

Dessima Williams, Grenadian ambassador


“This is a breakthrough decision. Efforts to fight climate change will be made by all countries, not only the EU. This won’t happen right now, but a process has been started.”

Tomasz Chruszczow, Polish envoy


“This weak compromise is a victory for the fossil industry, which is successfully controlling the U.S. government not agreeing to a legally binding protocol”

Martin Kaiser, Greenpeace


“We all know this is a very bad agreement that will need more work. We need to stop this farce of lack of shame.”

Claudia Salerno, Venezuelan envoy


“The ambition of the package is extremely low. It says this is a critical problem that’s time urgent, so let’s do something about it in 10 years. You have low ambition, low urgency. We’re ignoring what’s happening before our eyes.”

Paul Oquist Kelley, Nicaraguan minister


(Read the entire article here)


I have not yet read the text, but judging from the comments made by representatives for Greenpeace, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the result appears to be rather satisfactory: Much Ado about Nothing.

However, the "breakthrough" will be expensive for the EU:

CFigueres: Listen up!We have Kyoto CP2, path toward future with legal force for all, Green Climate Fund full implementation of Cancun package! #COP17

But of course the leader of the new European "Great Power" is now - when the euro is "saved" - ready to save the world, with or without the UK.