Fallout Continues

I Was There. I Saw It

We posted yesterday on how Copenhagen demonstrated the rising independence and geo-political power of China. Now a "fly on the wall" article in the Guardian by Mark Lynas has been published--demonstrating just how disdainful and dismissive China actually has been of the US and the West.

Now some of the this probably reflects hyped up conspiracy theorising. Moreover, as we read this it will pay to keep in mind the ferociously tribal commitment of Lynas and the Guardian to Warmist propaganda. Nonetheless we do not doubt the general thrust of his description of the matter.

Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful "deal" so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

Clearly, Lynas believes that China had a strategy to rort the conflab before it actually took place. This is a damning indictment of China acting not in good faith, but with a degree of duplicity.

He goes on to whack environmental groups who swallowed the Chinese perspective and drone-like blamed the West for the talks' failures.

China's strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world's poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was "the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility", said Christian Aid. "Rich countries have bullied developing nations," fumed Friends of the Earth International.

We think this is a bit over the top and too byzantine to be credible. The environmental groups did not swallow China's line: they already are deeply imprisoned in a Marxist world view which wants redistribution by fiat actions of a world government, period. If the talks in Copenhagen were to fail, the environmental groups had already predetermined decades ago that they would regard it as the fault of exploitative rich nations.

But, it is the sub-text of Lynsas's article that is much more credible. China was a "law unto itself" at the talks. Obama's "new" approach to US foreign policy--multi-lateralism--was brushed aside like a pesky fruit fly.

Here's what actually went on late last Friday night, as heads of state from two dozen countries met behind closed doors. Obama was at the table for several hours, sitting between Gordon Brown and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. The Danish prime minister chaired, and on his right sat Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the UN. Probably only about 50 or 60 people, including the heads of state, were in the room. I was attached to one of the delegations, whose head of state was also present for most of the time.

What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country's foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world's most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his "superiors".

China was clearly telling the rest of the world to go take a running jump--ever so politely, ever so subtly, of course. But a running jump nonetheless.

China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak "as soon as possible". The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks popping in every corner of the world.

How has China been able to put itself in such a strong position? It is not in debt to the rest of the world; rather the rest of the developed world is indebted to China. That matters--far more profoundly than most in the West would ever understand. To the average pollie and man-in-the-street in the West, debt is just a pen-stroke, nothing less, nothing more. Money and wealth is free. A rude awakening draws nigh!

Moreover, most Western leaders had eviscerated themselves into positions of weakness because they had foolishly refused to be responsibly sceptical about global warming propaganda. They had to a man virtually become true believers thinking that the situation for the globe was desperate. The desperate do not make good negotiators--ever. They are easily manipulable.

And so it happened. The Western leaders had so wound up their political constituencies on the urgent and real dangers facing mankind--so as to justify the extraordinary imposts of rules, regulations, and taxes upon a gullible electorate--that when it came to negotiation they were totally enervated. If they went back home with nothing, they would have to tell their constituencies that they had effectively destroyed mankind. Such monumental failure would be political suicide. Or, they would have to spin the failure a different way, suggesting that climate change is not such a problem after all. That too would represent political suicide. The upshot is that China was able easily to control the complete panoply of Western leaders and their governments.

This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China's growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal. China knows it is becoming an uncontested superpower; indeed its newfound muscular confidence was on striking display in Copenhagen. Its coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately. Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to.

This may come as a bit of a shock to the elites in the West. China is not western. Imagine that! It is resolutely focused upon one thing above all else--its own economic development. It is the only way it can stop the Chinese people revolting against their government. It is in a chute, going faster and faster. It cannot stop. It cannot get off. Develop or the nation will be consumed in a furious conflagration of internal revolution. Ever realistic, ever pragmatic the Chinese government views the West with its fanaticism over global warming as either mad or puerile. Either way, it is going to have nothing to do with it.

Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China's century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower's freedom of action. I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.

Better get used to it, you silly billy. China is not going to be swayed in the same way as a Gordon Brown, or an Obama, or a Kevin Rudd or an Angela Merkel can be so easily manipulated--by fatuous appeals to guilt and pity. Such things are only (temporarily) effective in a culture which has elevated demand rights into a religion. For our money, China's real-politick is a refreshing and salutary change.

We suspect that in time it will be so far reaching globally that it will see the end of the United Nations. Now that would be something worth celebrating. The world would be a much safer place if nations and governments stopped trying to poke their noses into the affairs of other countries, but instead concentrated upon their duties and responsibilities toward those whom they govern. Like China, for instance.