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“Secret” Norwegian Report Details ISIS-Turkey Oil Trade As UN Vows To “Cut Off” Terrorist “Funding Sources”

December 18, 2015

“Secret” Norwegian Report Details ISIS-Turkey Oil Trade As UN Vows To “Cut Off” Terrorist “Funding Sources

“The resolution gives us more flexibility to go after those who are helping Isil [Isis], whether to move funds, to store funds or to earn funds”.

That’s from Adam Szubin, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the US Treasury. Szubin is referencing a Security Council resolution proposed by Washington and Moscow that calls for a crackdown on Islamic State’s access to the international financial system.

As FT reports, the “rare meeting of Security Council member finance ministers also resolved to press other nations to enforce more rigorously existing rules that are designed to limit the flow of revenues, fighters and equipment to the Islamist militant group.”

And here’s a bit of largely meaningless rhetoric from the UN itself:

At its first ever meeting at Finance Ministers’ level, the United Nations Security Council today stepped up its efforts to cut off all sources of funding for the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIL) and other terrorist groups, including ransom payments, no matter by whom.

The Council also called on Member States to promote enhanced vigilance by persons within their jurisdiction to detect any diversion of explosives and raw materials and components that can be used to manufacture improvised explosive devices or unconventional weapons, including chemical components, detonators, detonating cord, or poisons.

“They (the terrorists) are agile and have been far too successful in attaining resources for their heinous acts,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Council at the start of the debate. “As Da’esh (another name for ISIL) and other terrorist groups disseminate their hateful propaganda and ratchet up murderous attacks, we must join forces to prevent them from acquiring and deploying resources to do further harm,” he stressed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

World Leaders Just Agreed To A “Historic” Climate Accord… Which Is Non-Binding And Has No Enforcement Language

December 12, 2015

World Leaders Just Agreed To A “Historic” Climate Accord… Which Is Non-Binding And Has No Enforcement Language

Great news! The “greatest threat to future generations of the world” has apparently been solved. World leaders Saturday adopted an historic international climate accord in Paris, the first-ever agreement to commit almost every country to fight climate change. However, as we knew all along and just got confirmation, the 31-page pact does not have binding language or a mechanism to force countries to live up to the promises to cut greenhouse gases emissions or provide money for developing and poor nations to cope with the effects of global warming.

Basically, COP21 was a massive taxpayer-funded boondoggle, in which “leaders” enjoyed all the perks of Paris for two weeks, burned through hundreds of millions in public funding, and created millions of tons in greenhouse gases (what do you think to private jets and government 747s use to fly?) that has achieved absolutely nothing.

In other words…

Nonetheless, leaders and the environmental community hailed the United Nations agreement has a historic turning point that has the potential to stave off the worst expected effects of global warming.

And The UN reports a large round of mutual masturbation…

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United Nations

✔@UN

A joyful atmosphere fills the plenary hall at #COP21. #ParisAgreement

1:36 PM – 12 Dec 2015

The Borg press is happy, clearly having no idea that absolutely nothing just took place:

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T. Becket Adams @BecketAdams

Journo says she’s watching #ParisAgreement with press (https://twitter.com/MSLJeconomist/status/675732689102741504 …), tweets video of their reaction.

2:04 PM – 12 Dec 2015

Obama was delighted that “American leadership” was responsible for an agreement that is neither binding nor enforceable, in other words, something one would write on the back of a napkin:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Agreement in Paris Paves Road For The End of Fossil Fuels

December 12, 2015

Agreement in Paris Paves Road For The End of Fossil Fuels

paris climate conference cop21

After two weeks of negotiations here in the airport hangars of Le Bourget, 195 parties are expected to sign a global pact that will curb global warming pollution and rapidly escalate the growth of the clean energy solutions the world needs.

The consensus here is that the Paris deal on the table is a good one. Could it be better? Of course. But this deal is about as good as it is going to get from a consensus process involving 195 countries.

The reduction targets in the plan are in line with what scientists say needs to happen, and most importantly this deal strikes a balance between what has to happen to avoid the most calamitous impacts of climate change, with the realties faced by developing nations that do not have the resources to go it alone in reducing fossil fuel consumption.

On a personal note, having now been involved in this UN negotiating process in various capacities for close to a decade, I have to say that this is truly an historic day for humanity.

It has been a very long road that started long before these talks here in Paris.

The Long History of Climate Negotiations

While this official UN process began 21 years ago, it was in 1988 when a panel of scientists was struck called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), bringing together everything we knew about climate change in a series of papers that would serve as the justification for a global treaty on greenhouse gas emissions. Over the coming years, the IPCC would issue reports on the state of climate science that grew more certain in its conclusions and more dire in it predictions.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Paris Climate Accords Will Cause the Planet to Burn

December 10, 2015

The Paris Climate Accords Will Cause the Planet to Burn

paris-climate

Paris.

The Paris agreement, according to Pablo Solón, a veteran of climate negotiations, “will be an agreement that will burn up the planet.”

The result of the COP21 (Twenty-first United Nations Climate Change Conference), which began on Monday, Nov. 30 and will end on Dec. 11, “can already be announced, because we already know what it will be,” he said in an interview with the Americas Program.

“Here in Paris, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is not being negiotiated under criteria of climate justice or climate science. All that’s being done is taking note of the promises of each country and adding them up,” said the former Bolivian ambassador.

Nearly all of the world’s countries– about 186 to date– have promised to reduce emissions. The official report of these promises, when seen as a global plan, constitutes an announcement of disaster.

The challenge set in 2009 in Copenhagen was to avoid exceeding 2 degrees Celsius of global warming. The official report would mean an increase in global temperature of between 2.7 and 3.9 degrees Celsius. In other words, actual warming could reach double of what was established as the maximum limit.

“And 2 degrees Celsius was the roof of the roof, because many countries have warned that even with a 1.5 degree warming their countries could disappear, especially many island nations. With the Paris agreement, warming is going to reach more than double that figure.”

“But there is another report that says: careful, it could be even 5 degrees Celsius. Many think that we are negotiating contributions to emissions reductions, but that is not the case. That is not being negotiated. This is a farce, a scam. I can’t think of another way to say it.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Can We Have Our Climate and Eat It Too?

December 9, 2015

Can We Have Our Climate and Eat It Too?

As much as world leaders would like to focus attention on their economies, terrorism, or winning the next election, the heat is rising. Each new release of data on melting glaciers and extreme weather seems more dire than the last, and each governmental COP meeting organized to come up with an agreement on what to do about the climate crisis is freighted with more hopes and fears.

Because it is so urgent, climate change is leading to divisions within and among societies. There is of course a divide between those who take climate science seriously and those who don’t (here in the United States, the latter are so politically powerful as to have effectively blocked, for now, the possibility of a legally binding global emissions pact). Then there is the division between wealthy nations, such as the US and UK (that are responsible for the bulk of historic carbon emissions, and that therefore should rightly reduce fossil fuel consumption more rapidly—though they don’t want to) and poorer nations like India (that bear little responsibility for existing surplus atmospheric carbon, and that would like to be able to burn more coal for the time being so as to grow their economies).

Yet another rift is developing between the military and the rest of society: military emissions are not counted in official UN climate statistics due to lobbying by the United States, yet that country’s military establishment is the single largest sub-national consumer of fossil fuels on the planet; further, it is difficult to imagine how the US government could afford to subsidize the transition to carbon-free electricity, agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation without tapping into its trillion dollar-per-year military and intelligence budget.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

War Is On The Horizon: Is It Too Late To Stop It?

December 8, 2015

War Is On The Horizon: Is It Too Late To Stop It?

One lesson from military history is that once mobilization for war begins, it takes on a momentum of its own and is uncontrollable.

This might be what is occuring unrecognized before our eyes.

In his September 28 speech at the 70th Anniversity of the United Nations, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia can no longer tolerate the state of affairs in the world. Two days later at the invitation of the Syrian government Russia began war against ISIS.

Russia was quickly successful in destroying ISIS arms depots and helping the Syrian army to roll back ISIS gains. Russia also destroyed thousands of oil tankers, the contents of which were financing ISIS by transporting stolen Syrian oil to Turkey where it is sold to the family of the current gangster who rules Turkey.

Washington was caught off guard by Russia’s decisiveness. Fearful that the quick success of such decisive action by Russia would discourage Washington’s NATO vassals from continuing to support Washington’s war against Assad and Washington’s use of its puppet government in Kiev to pressure Russia, Washington arranged for Turkey to shoot down a Russian fighter-bomber despite the agreement between Russia and NATO that there would be no air-to-air encounters in Russia’s area of air operation in Syria.

Although denying all responsibility, Washington used Russia’s low key response to the attack, for which Turkey did not apologize, to reassure Europe that Russia is a paper tiger. The Western presstitutes trumpeted: “Russia A Paper Tiger.” http://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-shoots-down-a-paper-tiger-1448406008

The Russian government’s low key response to the provocation was used by Washington to reassure Europe that there is no risk in continuing to pressure Russia in the Middle East, Ukraine, Georgia, Montenegro, and elsewhere. Washington’s attack on Assad’s military is being used to reinforce the belief that is being inculcated in European governments that Russia’s responsible behavior to avoid war is a sign of fear and weakness.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Apocalyptic Capitalism

December 7, 2015

Apocalyptic Capitalism

A slogan referring to the COP21 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris on the Eiffel Tower. (Michel Euler / AP)

The charade of the 21st United Nations climate summit will end, as past climate summits have ended, with lofty rhetoric and ineffectual cosmetic reforms. Since the first summit more than 20 years ago, carbon dioxide emissions have soared. Placing faith in our political and economic elites, who have mastered the arts of duplicity and propaganda on behalf of corporate power, is the triumph of hope over experience. There are only a few ways left to deal honestly with climate change: sustained civil disobedience that disrupts the machinery of exploitation; preparing for the inevitable dislocations and catastrophes that will come from irreversible rising temperatures; and cutting our personal carbon footprints, which means drastically reducing our consumption, particularly of animal products.

“Our civilization,” Dr. Richard Oppenlander writes in “Food Choice and Sustainability, “displays a curious instinct when confronted with a problem related to overconsumption—we simply find a way to produce more of what it is we are consuming, instead of limiting or stopping that consumption.”

The global elites have no intention of interfering with the profits, or ending government subsidies, for the fossil fuel industry and the extraction industries. They will not curtail extraction or impose hefty carbon taxes to keep fossil fuels in the ground. They will not limit the overconsumption that is the engine of global capitalism. They act as if the greatest contributor of greenhouse gases—the animal agriculture industry—does not exist. They siphon off trillions of dollars and employ scientific and technical expertise—expertise that should be directed toward preparing for environmental catastrophe and investing in renewable energy—to wage endless wars in the Middle East.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Will Paris Conference Finally Achieve Real Action on Climate?

December 2, 2015

Will Paris Conference Finally Achieve Real Action on Climate?

The emission pledges from the world’s nations still fall short of the goal for limiting global warming. But as negotiators convene in Paris this week, there is cautious optimism that a significant international agreement on climate can be reached.

Six years after the last negotiations crashed so spectacularly in Copenhagen, climate delegates assemble in Paris this week to fix the world’s atmosphere. This time, despite the high security following the recent terrorist attacks in the French capital, they will meet in a better mood.

That’s because, in the preceding months, more than 150 nations have put pledges for future emissions on the table for the decade between 2020 and

Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Images

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius (right) and environment minister Segolene Royal at a preliminary event at the COP 21 climate summit in Paris.

2030. And the world’s biggest two emitters of heat-trapping greenhouse gases — the U.S. and China — are in harmony after a bilateral agreement in Washington last year.

But if the diplomats enter the home stretch more optimistic than in Copenhagen, climate analysts warn that the national “contributions” on offer still don’t meet the negotiators’ self-declared task of capping global warming at two degrees Celsius. About 2.7 degrees is the most optimistic guess of the long-term outcome of the pledges. A victory for diplomacy should not be confused with a victory for the climate.

So, is the glass half full or half empty?

On the downside, time is running out to halt the continuing accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This year, the world is a record one degree warmer than pre-industrial levels — exactly halfway to the two-degree ceiling. The much discussed warming hiatus of the past decade is over.

A strong agreement on climate in Paris would drive change forward.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Paris Climate Talks Don’t Matter

December 2, 2015

The Paris Climate Talks Don’t Matter

The COP21 climate talks began on Monday in Paris. Leaders around the world are seeking a legally binding restriction on emissions, hoping to save future generations from near-certain environmental collapse and catastrophe. But these talks won’t change a thing.

“Can the earth be saved by bureaucrats in long meetings, reciting jargon and acronyms while surrounded by leaning towers of documents?” Rebecca Solnit asks in a compelling piece for Harper’s. She’s right. Long talks and testimonies bear little fruit in making steps to achieve climate justice and combat climate change. What’s important is what happens in the crowded and sweaty streets. Solnit was writing before the November 13 terrorist attacks claimed 130 lives in Paris, before the government declared a state of emergency, before this state of emergency led to a ban on all public organizing.

The revolutionary fervor so pined for, the radical democratic politics of climate activism and mobilization, can no longer be realized under French law. The government has banned public protests, marches, and rallies. What started as a means of achieving peace and security has culminated in the total destruction of dissent. As of 27 November, at least 24 major climate activists had been placed under house arrest.

The conference is located outside the city of Paris itself, and is secured by over 2,800 police. An additional 8,000 police guard the border. In this way, climate change really is the great security issue of the new millennium. The dialogue is so securitized, that nearly all oppositional voices have been quashed.

Already, Parisians are finding ways to sidestep the rules. Protestors left out 10,000 empty pairs of shoes to signify the space of the march that would have been. Shoes were donated by the likes of actress Marion Cotillard, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, even Pope Francis.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Near Boiling Point on Global Warming

December 2, 2015

Near Boiling Point on Global Warming

Rising global temperatures – if they exceed 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels – threaten to unleash havoc across the planet, including mass dislocations of desperate people that will make the current flood of Syrian refugees look like a tiny warm-up, writes Nat Parry.

With more than 40,000 negotiators from 196 governments descending on Paris this week to negotiate a comprehensive accord to tackle climate change, it is hard to imagine that they could possibly reach an agreement that will satisfy everybody.

The interests that each country brings to the table are so complex and diverse – especially when it comes to the touchy subjects of climate reparations and ensuring effective enforcement mechanisms for any sort of “binding” deal on how to actually reduce carbon emissions to safe levels – it is inconceivable that everyone (or anyone) will feel content at the end of these marathon negotiations in two weeks.

This is likely why the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a Costa Rican diplomat named Christiana Figueres, has for months been lowering expectations for the outcome of the summit.

While the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) has long been deemed necessary to avoid the most serious effects of climate change – a future of drowned cities, desertifying croplands, and collapsing ecosystems – Figueres acknowledges that the negotiations, based on the declared “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs) of each country at the table, will probably not result in reaching that 2-degree goal.

“I’ve already warned people in the press,” she said this summer. “If anyone comes to Paris and has a Eureka moment — ‘Oh, my God, the INDCs do not take us to 2 degrees!’ — I will chop the head off whoever publishes that. Because I’ve been saying this for a year and a half.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

From Good Intentions to Deep Decarbonization

December 2, 2015

From Good Intentions to Deep Decarbonization

NEW YORK – In the run-up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, more than 150 governments submitted plans to reduce carbon emissions by 2030. Many observers are asking whether these reductions are deep enough. But there is an even more important question: Will the chosen path to 2030 provide the basis for ending greenhouse-gas emissions later in the century?

According to the scientific consensus, climate stabilization requires full decarbonization of our energy systems and zero net greenhouse-gas emissions by around 2070. The G-7 has recognized that decarbonization – the only safe haven from disastrous climate change – is the ultimate goal this century. And many heads of state from the G-20 and other countries have publicly declared their intention to pursue this path.

Yet the countries at COP21 are not yet negotiating decarbonization. They are negotiating much more modest steps, to 2025 or 2030, called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). The United States’ INDC, for example, commits the US to reduce CO2 emissions by 26-28%, relative to a 2005 baseline, by 2025.

Though the fact that more than 150 INDCs have been submitted represents an important achievement of the international climate negotiations, most pundits are asking whether the sum of these commitments is enough to keep global warming below the agreed limit of 2º Celsius (3.6º Fahrenheit). They are debating, for example, whether the INDCs add up to a 25% or 30% reduction by 2030, and whether we need a 25%, 30%, or 40% reduction by then to be on track.

But the most important issue is whether countries will achieve their 2030 targets in a way that helps them to get to zero emissions by 2070 (full decarbonization). If they merely pursue measures aimed at reducing emissions in the short term, they risk locking their economies into high levels of emissions after 2030. The critical issue, in short, is not 2030, but what happens afterward.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

France Arrests 24 Climate Activists Using New “State Of Emergency” Laws, As Clashes Break Out In Paris – Live Feed

November 29, 2015

France Arrests 24 Climate Activists Using New “State Of Emergency” Laws, As Clashes Break Out In Paris – Live Feed

As Intellihub’s Shepard Ambellas writes, one-hundred and fifty heads of government, a.k.a. the elite, are gathering over the course of the next few weeks for a massive climate summit that’s anticipated to attract and indoctrinate over 40,000 visitors from around the globe. The summit, dubbed COP21, is sponsored by the United Nations (UN) and will reportedly focus on combating climate change. However it’s doubtful that geoengineering, which ironically is mostly to blame for current climate patterns, will even be a topic of interest to scheduled speakers. To boot any chance of that information making it out to the general public is limited as 24 activists have already been placed under house arrest.”

He further observes that “emergency powers” declared in the wake of the recent Paris attacks – in the name of terrorism – and adopted virtually overnight, were extended for a period of up to 90-days by the country’s leadership allowing for such activists to be jailed in advance of the summit or at anytime within period.

France 24 confirms the “pre-crime” arrests, writing that twenty-four environmental activists have been placed under house arrest ahead of the Paris climate summit, using France’s state of emergency laws. Two of them slammed an attack on civil liberties. The order ends on December 12, the day the Paris climate summit draws to a close.

French security forces have been on edge since Islamist gunmen killed 130 people in a deadly rampage across Paris on November 13, in the country’s worst ever terrorist attacks.

The ensuing state of emergency, declared by President François Hollande and extended by lawmakers for three months, has given police sweeping powers to search homes, handcuff residents and place people under house arrest, without judicial oversight.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

UN chief warns climate change could have link with terrorism

November 28, 2015

UN chief warns climate change could have link with terrorism

Ban Ki-moon tells CBC’s Margo McDiarmid social disruption could lead to more ‘terrorist fighters’

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in an interview with CBC, said the effects of climate change will lead to social disruption, fuelling the frustration of the young and unemployed, who may then join extremist causes.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says the attacks in Paris can’t overshadow efforts to reach a climate change agreement at next week’s summit. He also warns in an exclusive interview with CBC News of a possible link between climate change and terrorism.

CBC’s Margo McDiarmid spoke to Ban Ki-moon in Malta on Saturday at the Commonwealth summit and he talked about an indirect link between the effects of climate change and the rise of extremist groups.

“He said climate change has a similar effect to terrorism in that climate change can lead to social disruption, it can lead to climate refugees, which in itself can lead to people looking for other answers or joining terrorist groups, especially among young people,” McDiarmid said.

“When we do not address climate change properly it may also affect many people who are frustrated and who are impacted and there is some possibility that these young people who [are] jobless and frustrated may join these foreign terrorist fighters,” the UN chief said.

“There is a concern whether it may overshadow the climate change agreement and I think we have to move on this climate change [agreement],” he added.

French President Francois Hollande was meeting with environmental groups Saturday, pushing for an ambitious global deal to reduce man-made emissions blamed for global warming.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is among leaders attending the Paris talks, has been in Valetta, Malta for the Commonwealth meeting, where he pledged his government would spend $15.3 million over four years to improve the lives of young people in Africa.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Population Decline in Industrial Countries Requires Immigration?

November 27, 2015

Population Decline in Industrial Countries Requires Immigration?

The United Nations projects that over the next 50 years, the population in the industrialized world (US-Europe-Japan) will DECLINE, not expand. The population is suffering from growing old and the youth are so burdened with taxes they are not getting married (marriages off by 50%) and are not having children. The decline in birth ratesand the migration of people from the outer regions into the old core is typical.

The UN is now supporting immigration to keep the pension funds alive. They have stated that immigration now “require[s] comprehensive reassessments of many established policies and programmes, including those relating to international migration.”

Russia Says Turkey’s Attack On Jet Was “Planned Provocation” As Ankara Moves Tanks Near Syrian Border

November 25, 2015

Russia Says Turkey’s Attack On Jet Was “Planned Provocation” As Ankara Moves Tanks Near Syrian Border

On Tuesday evening, we took a close look at the circumstances surrounding Turkey’s decision to shoot down a Russian Su-24 near the Syrian border. The incident was the most meaningful escalation in the conflict to date and marks the first time a Russian or Soviet plane has been downed by NATO since 1953.

The pilots ejected, one of whom was shot in his parachute by FSA-affiliated Alwiya al-Ashar militiamen who subsequently celebrated over the body. About an hour later, the FSA’s 1st Coastal Brigade used a US-made TOW to destroy a Russian search and rescue helicopter, killing one Russian marine.

For his part, Vladimir Putin called Erdogan a backstabber and proceeded to accuse Turkey of flying the black flag of ISIS and funding the Islamic State cause by facilitating the sale of illegal crude.

Miraculously, there were no further escalations overnight, but as we outlined in detail on Tuesday, something doesn’t add up about the story Ankara is telling. According to a letter Turkey sent to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the 15 members of the UN Security Council, the Russian warplane, flying at 19,000 feet, “violated Turkish national airspace to a depth of 1.36 miles and 1.15 miles in length for 17 seconds.” If you do the math on that, it means the Su-24 was basically flying at stall speed.

WikiLeaks

✔@wikileaks

Journalists: Learn to do basic maths. Look at Turkey’s statement to UN: 1.15 miles / 17 seconds x 60 x 60 = 243 miles/hour = 391 km/hour

12:04 PM – 24 Nov 2015

Here’s how we summed up the situation:

It’s important not to forget the context here. Ankara is fiercly anti-Assad and in addition to being generally displeased with Russia’s efforts to support the regime, just four days ago, Turkey summoned Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov over the alleged bombing of Turkish villages near the border.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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