COP19 – the grubby truth behind it all. Posted by Pointman on November 28, 2013 · 19 Comments

It must have been a weekend because I was about. The kids rushed in and I had the “Dad, Dad, he’s hurt” plea for help and their miniature hands plucking at me like a flock of birds pecking and pulling me urgently out of the house sideways. They do that, you know it’s important because in their sub three-foot world, they always know when it’s time to kick a biggie problem over to the grownups.

I got there quick and the kid was unconscious. Nine, ten year old boy. Airways clear, breathing good, pulse good, pupils responsive so someone at home in there, a clean blood check and no breaks that I could feel. I sent a runner back to tell my wife to call an ambulance. While we wait for it to arrive, I try to find out what happened but they’re all too excited and scared to get any sense from. I think he just might have fainted or perhaps it was an epileptic episode. It don’t matter, he’s stable.

The ambulance arrives and the professionals start having a look at him. The Mum waddles up in no great hurry and accompanied by a posse of kids. Unkempt, untidy, overweight and a mouth breather. At a glance, fifth generation welfare class. She does all the wrong things, by which I mean she doesn’t do a single one of the right things. She doesn’t go near him, try to touch him or even try to talk to him. Just stands around flat-footed like the rest of the spectators, maintaining a social distance and gawking at the action. Instead, as they get him into the vehicle, she fixes me with a stare and tells me she came out of the house so quickly, she didn’t bring any money. How was she ever going to get home from the hospital?

You’re on the receiving end of that extended pause, that slightly eyes wide stare, that silent smug expectation that you’ll dig into your pocket and give them money, just to get out from under that social pressure and you tell them – “You can always walk home, you look like you could do with the exercise.” You’ve never seen a face go from a lazy approximation of needy martyrdom to raw naked hate so fast. The ambulance jockeys, two clued up guys who’ve been keeping an ear on the proceedings, snigger and after confirming the kid’s name and address, and as she’s no real interest in travelling to hospital with him, depart.

In a lovey dovey, climate conferency sense, the exact equivalent of that was precisely what happened in Warsaw at the recent climate conference.

As predicted by all but the most deluded pundits, it actually was a complete waste of time and taxpayer’s money. It was never going to result in a Warsaw Pact. Nothing of any significance was signed up to except where the next one is to be held. However, some very important decisions were made, whether the climate alarmists refuse to acknowledge it or not.

The first one was that the developed countries, all rhetoric aside, were not going to sign on the dotted line to some unlimited and continuous liability to pay the conniving sharpies of the developing world for damages caused by emitting carbon dioxide. Did they really expect the all growed up countries to hand them a book of blank cheques like that? Sorry maties but nobody is actually that stupid.

The next proposition they went after was an immediate contribution of thirty billion Yankee dollars with an ongoing contribution of one hundred billion per annum in climate damage reparations. The bottom line of two weeks of earnest negotiation about those ideas was they were told to Foxtrot Oscar by the grown ups. In response, they stormed out of the supposed negotiations, led by China. What happened next was truly stunning.

Nobody came chasing after them.

In response and at the end of what was possibly the slowest dash for the exit door at any international conference, they turned around just long enough to amend the closing statement in such a way that they themselves had no future liability for any failure to limit their own carbon emissions, and completed the storming out. The whole charade was led by China, a rich country somehow perceived as a poor one and by now the world’s biggest emitter of the dreaded carbon dioxide and the one who’s building two coal-fired electricity generation plants a week.

You really couldn’t make shit like that up.

©Pointman

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2012 – The real doh! about Doha.

2011 – The Durban debacle awaits …

2010 – Cancun and the Chinese perspective on it.

Australia – you beaut.

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