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| Africa must protect itself from the crime of all time? |
paraclete |
12/01/06 |
I have never been a Kofi Annan fan, but this piece of over the top crap demonstrates why the UN has been going nowhere in recent years.
I note he singles out the United States as the instrument of climate change rather than recognising his new friends China or his old friend Russia
as a chief cuase of climate change
Nigeria: Climate Change and Africa
Daily Trust (Abuja)
EDITORIAL
December 1, 2006
Posted to the web December 1, 2006
Kofi Annan, Africa's outgoing Secretary General of the United Nations, on 15th November, 2006, told a UN conference meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, for re-negotiating the Kyoto Protocol on "climate change", that those leaders (like President Bush and John Howard of Australia) who are not strong enough to stand up to industrialists in their econonmies and demand new technological inventions from them in order to cut down emissions of gasses which reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, are suffering from "frightening lack of leadership". Such leaders do not, he argued, wish to face the terrible reality that change in the global climate is an "all-encompassing threat" to the earth and human life.
Annan strong talk came after his hands were strengthened by an official report by Sir Michael Stern released in Britain prior to the Nairobi meeting attended by over 100 cabinet ministers. The report linked harmful effects of climate change to devastating losses to the global economy. This slant in the report tilted the balance away from views which focus only Africa being the helpless main loser from "global warming". It allows focus, for example, on the combination of massive pollution in China's cities (from emissions from factories burning coal for power) with new destructive incidences of hurricanes, floods in some parts of the country, and fierce droughts in other regions. Consequently, China's economy is reported to have lost between 3 to 6 per cent of its gross national product. Drawing attention to similar losses in North America and Europe make it easy to mobilise public opinion globally for governments to take required measures.
It is, however, important to put focus on Africa. A significant element in the Kyoto Protocol is the provision that industrial economies should, by 2012, reduce their harmful gas emissions to pre-1990 levels.
Africa comes nowhere near China, India, Brazil and Mexico in contributing to pollution, yet it is already suffering most from droughts, devastating floods (like what hit Somalia and Kenya soon after the climate change conferees left Nairobi). Hurricanes have already decimated thousands of livestock, economic tree- crops, and arable crops.
African economies are weak, debt-depleted and lacking in technological capacity for both harnessing nature and fighting nature's wrath. This vulnerability is often exploited by the devise of luring African countries individually into making bilateral deals with main climate villains like the United States and Australia, from a position of weakness in isolation, instead of steadfastly fighting for multilateral treaties which are mandatory within the umbrella of United Nations treaties.
Multilateral initiatives pushed by African countries should insist on adding to international law the notion of a 'climate crime' which is punishable as derivative economic acts of war against other people's lives, economies and social systems. Factories in the United States whose industrial emissions cumulatively cause devastating droughts in Africa; hurricanes which destroy huge investments in infrastructures (in climatically vulnerable countries like Bangladesh and Jamaica), should be seen as committing climate crimes against humanity, and be made culpable for the crime.
West Africa
Nigeria
The establishment of an 'International Climate Court of Justice and Reparations' to try such willful economic warfare must be fought for immediately.
Hollywood movies made at the peak of the Cold War suggested that 'Climate' was already being seen as a potential military weapon by the super powers. What has been slow is the emergence of a legal arsenal for matching the effects of this new frontier of force.
Africa should push for its growth as a means of self defence.
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Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 12/05/06 1:25 pm:
We're "in a different Zone" is why our own emissions don't affect us the way they do on the other side of the world? Could you explain how that works?
Is that how it worked for Mount St. Helens?
Does the smog in Los Angeles come from Beijing? Seems Africa has it's share of "climate crimes" to be solved before looking at punishing folks a half a world away.
Cairo...
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South Africa...
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(Note: This is the UK based, The Hague headquartered, Royal Dutch Shell refinery in Durban, South Africa)
Check out this one from a 2000 CNN story...
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Smoke pollution from human cooking fires has a major effect on amount of rainfall in the tropics, according to researchers
Or how about this from 2003...
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Tanzania's national environment agency has warned that most of the country's water supply will become dangerously toxic unless drastic anti-pollution measures are taken.
"Untreated industrial waste is being pumped into the country's rivers, creating a potentially devastating future crisis, the National Environment Management Council (NEMC) has said..."
And I suppose the United States is responsible for this in Aného, Togo...
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"The out-door defecation is still one of the major sanitary problems and causes of environmental pollution in the town Aného.
The search for durable solutions to the problem of waste management led the young volunteers of V-glob to search for the causes behind out-door defecation on the beach of Aného and to inform the decision-makers and partners in development of the real needs of those who defecate the beach of Aného."
Yeah, that's our fault. We've forced those poor people to crap on the beach of Aného.
Steve
Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 12/05/06 2:18 pm:
>>>You know very well that the artic and antartic are exhibiting what is perhaps catastrophic evidence of climate change.<<<
No I don't know it, Paraclete. And neither does anybody else. It is just an assumption, not a proven fact. That's the point.
The historical records taken from core samples show that the Arctic has experienced these temperature changes (and worse) many times before in this planet's history. Ditto for Africa. Yet somehow we are still around, and so are the animals that inhabit those areas, despite global heat spells and cold spells that have taken plave for millenia.
There is absolutely no proof of any unnatural climate change taking place in these areas, or that any such climate change has or ever will affect the species of those areas.
Computer models do not constitute "proof". Computer models are about as good as "what if" scenarios... in fact that is essentially what they are.
"What if" temperatures rose unabated at 1/2 degree per year for the next 50 years? Well in that case, yes, we will see the extinction of many species from the planet. But there is no proof that temperatures have are will rise that high.
"What if" the planet started becoming colder at a rate of 1/2 degree per year for the next 50 years. Again, that would cause the extinction of several species. But there is no proof that the world has or will ever experience such a cold spell.
"What if" CFCs and CO2 are the cause of climate change? Well then, the logical response is to eliminate CO2 and CFC production as much as possible. But there is no evidence of a link between climate change and CFC and CO2 production.
There is no proof that any of the assumptions of the computer models are true. Therefore, there is no proof that any action we take vis-a-vis CFC and CO2 production will have any effect on the climate whatsoever.
Elliot
Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 12/05/06 5:16 pm:
Elliot, perhaps Clete should study the Vikings in North America story.
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