Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.com
Archive for January, 2007
Zero emissions by about 2050 globally or we’ll Sue
January 31, 2007Nairobi: High Stakes in the Commons (GCI)
January 30, 2007High stakes in Nairobi
by openDemocracy contributor Adam Poole
The United Nations climate-change conference in Nairobi divides between a technical session in the first week and a political session when the ministers arrive for the second week. With, arguably, only 5% of atmosphere left before we cross the safety threshold (as outlined in the Exeter conference in February 2005) – perhaps ten years away – this conference should be about how to share out that 5%.
We don’t seem to have got to that point yet. The talk is about keeping Kyoto on artificial respiration and now, because the “clean defence mechanism” (CDM) has all but failed Africa (which has five projects out of over 300), about how to create a special multimillion dollar fund to do the job the CDM was, in part, supposed to do.
Kyoto, however, only has another six years to go before it expires and, with COP-12 taking place in Africa, it is an opportunity for the African nations to start to explore what they want from the arrangements that will be in place after Kyoto. There is agreement that arrangements need to be more equitable but little consensus on what this should mean.
We in the Global Commons Institute believe that as we need stabilise greenhouse gases at safe levels within a full term framework, this means a per capita allocation of emission rights. Working with British Labour MP Colin Challen, we have been working with African delegations to explore the appeal of a “contraction and convergence” (C&C) framework.
It is not a new concept to the UN. As early as COP1 (April 1995), then Indian environment minister Kamal Nath went on the record in declaring: “Equity should guide the route to global ecological recovery. Policy Instruments such as ‘Tradable Emissions Quotas’, ‘Carbon Taxes’ and ‘Joint Implementation’ may well serve to make matters worse unless they are properly referenced to targets and time-tables for equitable emissions reductions overall. This means devising and implementing a programme for convergence at equitable and sustainable par values for consumption on a per capita basis globally”. [ MORE TAG ]
More recently at COP6 (November 2000), French president Jacques Chirac said: “Europe proposes to the developing countries to join it in a partnership for sustainable development. Let us start thinking about the post- Kyoto period without further ado. Tomorrow, it will be up to us to set forth the rights and duties of each, and for long time to come. In order to move forward while respecting individual differences and special circumstances, France proposes that we set as our ultimate objective the convergence of per capita emissions. This principle would durably ensure the effectiveness, equity and solidarity of our efforts.”
On the basis of a timely meeting earlier in 2006 with Kivutha Kibwana, the Kenyan minister of the environment and the COP-12 president, to explore C&C, Challen wrote to every African minister of the environment to report on the meeting.
Several supportive replies were received. The first author we met was Mostefa Kameleddhine Kara, general director of the National Agency on Climate Change, and member of the Algerian delegation. We quickly agreed to write a joint letter to all the African delegations and to invite them to a meeting to explore together what equity, and contraction and convergence, would mean.
The meeting was a success in terms of the numbers it attracted – over thirty delegates came – and in getting unanimous support for the importance of equity but it failed to get consensual support for what equity means. Rather than a per capita allocation, many present wanted something that could perhaps be described as a “per capita plus” allocation to take account of historic responsibility.
Africa has been outflanked in climate negotiations before and if it cannot find a common position that is likely to be supported by other regional blocs it is likely to get outmanoeuvred again. Much depends on the African communiqué – a common position statement by all African nations that Kibwana will seek to shepherd through on 13 November.
In an address to a side event, Kibwana has already declared: “It is therefore important of us to demand that those responsible for the greatest greenhouse emissions to take the issue of equity even more seriously and ponder over a post-Kyoto regime which will not only be equitable and therefore readily implementable, but which will allocate emissions entitlements on a per capita basis. We should aim at a process for capping total emissions, progressively reducing them and sharing emission entitlements using a formula so that in an agreed timeframe, the entitlements converge to being equal per person. The reasoning behind it is that human beings by virtue of being born equal have an equal right to the atmosphere – a global common resource“.
If Africans stand for contraction and convergence, Kenya, assuming a carbon price of $10 per tonne, could expect a net cash flow of $1.2 billion a year rather than a part share in a new multi-million relief fund.
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Blair Anderson
CQuestNZ
ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219
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Sporting Equity and MedPot hits the AB’s
January 30, 2007http://sport.iafrica.com/rugby/news/602661.htm
Some might think that it would be more equitable to have this unnamed fellow dumped for breaking the rules.. but look at the message here, Medpot, er Dope for the Men in Black, pinnacle of achievement, huh!. Whats wrong with this picture?
Watch the AB’s management wiggle worm on this…
Whereas, NZ’s League is not so indelicate, they publicly suspend players for years. Nothing more to do with the game or the club, or any club.. in fact your not even allowed to water the fields, sweep out the changing rooms, coach the kids or mentor ‘away’ teams.
And that’s just for failing a piss test – at nanogram sensitivity.
Oh 2 B an AB
/Blair
027 265 7219
IPCC report due friday (6degrees a possibility/2100)
January 29, 2007Do emissions cuts add up to climate stabilization? And are they equitable, viable and deliverable?
see
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2193672.ece
At about 3:00am over the last weekend the BBC featured The [Davos] World Debates on climate change. Lots of mentions of Al Gore’s movie, not a mention of an international agreement beyond Kyoto. A bit of backslapping over California, but Africa it was noted, was ignored.
Without a precautionary global consensus to ‘cap’ (contract) and ‘trade’ (converge) things are going to continue to get very uncomfortable very quickly.
The international negotiations under the UNFCCC banner to agree a climate treaty are making very slow progress because no framework, no set of principles, has yet been agreed as the basis on which to proceed. Not even a temperature or atmospheric concentration target has yet been set. As a result, the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated on an ad hoc basis, with each industrialised nation, or group of nations, making an offer on the amount it would cut its emissions below their 1990 level. It has been sold as ‘the art of the possible’.
We are, in my view, quite simply not playing our part in finding the required international solution space (ie: 2 degree limit). While MfE’s focus is on delivering NZ’s Kyoto commitment obligations locked into 1990-2012 mindsets and science, MfE’s climate change manager Phil Gurnsey acknowledged in a telephone call [from myself] last week that NZ’s climate policy was in essence the *MildGreen Initiative / Global Commons Institute long lobbied for ‘contraction and convergence’ and that Phil and MfE climate change strategists were planning to come and discuss this with me this month, but from my experience to date, I believe this to be either obfuscatory or incompetence (or both).
There is neither the WILL to have that discussion in public nor evidence of C&C in public policy formulation documents .
MfE have failed the ‘being seen to consult’ test.
Any Cap&Trade [or Cap&Share] strategy depends upon a global C&C framework and agreement.
[We have to know how far the brick wall is away, and how fast we are going so we know how hard to apply the brakes.]
As long as there is no work (or public advocacy) towards that ‘end game’, what we do do will be illusory.
Based on this weeks IPCC reports scientific consensus – failure to set precautionary targets may be grotesquely irresponsible. Would MfE have us all join the deniers, sit back and watch the holocaust begin.?
Well, MfE, Parker, Pope, Clark et al, ‘not in my name….’
Blair Anderson
50 Wainoni Road,
CHCH 8061
ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219
* Correspondence to Kay Hewitt, Deputy Director, NZ Climate Change Programme, Dept. of the Prime Minister and Cabinet 25/11/2001, and in written and verbal submission’s to PM Helen Clark’s “Climate Change” Inquiry.
Drug Freeland – The Summary
January 29, 2007Jail avoided for cannabis importing
January 29, 2007
A cannabis user who imported seeds over the internet was found with hydroponic equipment, cannabis plants and literature on growing fruit and vegetables. (seeds cannot yet be teleported over the internet, this is the stuff of moral panic! It is no more relevant than if he had purchased the seeds from the Judge’s neighbour, one of whom in all probability has indulged [52% NZ’er have] ) The Press | Monday, 29 January 2007
In the Christchurch District Court, Judge Robert Kerr said jail could be imposed on Alan Russell Woodfield, but he accepted Woodfield may have had the equipment for a legitimate use.
(the equipment was guilty of nothing, it wasnt used… the Judge is absolving himself OF THE ABSURDITY! )
Woodfield admitted charges of importing cannabis seeds and cultivating cannabis. (Damn, Don’t admit nothing!, ever! The LAW is the ASS.)
The judge said that in March last year Customs in Auckland intercepted packages containing cannabis seeds addressed to Woodfield. (no doubt seed type ‘selected’ to ensure best match to needs and quality therefore Woodfield’s importation is a harm reducing health initiative. He’s unlikely to get hemp seeds from Yates!)
A total of 30 plants, mostly immature, were found at his home, along with partially assembled hydroponic equipment, which Woodfield contended was going to be used to grow fruit and vegetables.
Prosecutor Zannah Johnston said that the inference was open that it was a commercial operation, the nature of the set-up meaning a large number of plants could be grown. (Subjective bullshite Zannah, your lies suggest your no more than a paid stoollie for prohibition politics.. which makes you, the police and the law, contemptibly corrupt)
Lawyer Pip Hall said Woodfield’s plan was to use the cannabis for his medical problems. He intended to use the equipment to grow fruit and vegetables and written material found nearby supported that. (Oh rubbish Pip! Woodfield’s ‘alleged’ hydro grow is a product of the prohibition your lifestyle thrives upon.)
The judge said that, given Woodfield’s medical problems, jail would be disproportionately severe.
(So it has been accepted this man was a medicinal user, what is he facing jail for anyway?, the evidence in respect of medical efficacy is exonerative. Cannabis is a health issue, not a justice/criminal one. Now, to save Woodfield from himself we have turned him into a goddamn victim who is still ill. Ironically it was Neville Yate’s political view, his medical disability and congruent mental health issues that WAS the REASON the Judge slammed him with 5months, and it wasn’t even an imported seed, hydro or computer/books assisted ‘crime’. Bah humbug!)
He was sentenced to 250 hours community work and his computer and hydroponic equipment were ordered to be destroyed. (what about the books about growing vegetables, surely these too were ‘evil’ beyond comprehension? If Woodfield had remained undiscovered he may have advanced on to ‘riskier’ ornamentals with no known medical use. What possible reason or benefit is there in destroying a sick mans computer. Is the LAW or its adjudicator bereft of reason? Is it going to destroy ‘the soil’ if cannabis was grown in wholesome manure… )
Just exactly who was the victim here?, who/where was the aggrieved party complainant?, who endured loss, financially or otherwise? Whose health has suffered? Who has been deprived?
Look who made money, who got paid? Customs, Police, Justice..
Who else paid… Taxpayers. Will it make an IOTA of difference? Has it ever.. ?
One day we really will have sensible pot policy instead of incense’able sentencing.
Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.com
We’re anti-Prohibition because….
January 25, 20071. threatens your liberty, pleasure, health and safety.
Cannabis links in Stanlake case
January 24, 200724 January 2007
Former wife of murdered man tells court how their relationship deteriorated following his cannabis conviction.
(could any of this have anything to do with the prohibition of cannabis? There seems to be no evidence thus far of any health consequences, so what ever could the ‘link’ have been then? This case is going to prove to be very interesting. /Blair)
More evidence of Tony Stanlake’s alleged involvement in cannabis cultivation has emerged on the second day of depositions in the Wellington District Court.
Twenty-two-year-old Lower Hutt man Daniel Moore is charged with Mr Stanlake’s murder.
The crown alleges that on July 6 last year, he killed Mr Stanlake, then severed his hands and dumped his body in the sea off Wellington’s south coast.
Today the court has heard from a woman who was still married to, but legally separated from Mr Stanlake at the time of his death. She said they married in 1988, but their relationship started to deteriorate after his conviction for cannabis cultivation in 2001.
She says he pleaded guilty to the charge, saying it was for personal, medicinal use, and was fined $10,000. She said he paid the fine from his superannuation from the Fire Service.
The couple separated soon after because, she said, she discovered he had told her a series of lies, including that he was travelling daily to a job in Porirua, when he was allegedly tending a cannabis crop there.
She says she visited his Karori home in 2004, but did not go inside because she detected a strong smell of cannabis.
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Blair Anderson
Contraction and Convergence: A short video making the case.
January 23, 2007Contraction and Convergence Climate Change Action
Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.com
Fiji, to hell in a handbasket
January 22, 2007Army, police, govt analysts, in on drug raid.
Monday, January 22, 2007
A JOINT operation by police and military officers led to the seizure of a plastic bag containing dried leaves believed to be marijuana at a home in Nasinu.
Acting public relations officer, Corporal Tevita Suliano said the incident happened at 10.50pm at Makoi on Friday where the house of a 40-year-old man was raided.
Acting on information, the house was raided and the plastic bag was found inside it.
Police are awaiting a government analyst’s report and investigations are continuing.
“like the Fiji Government, Military and Police have nothing else to do?; if the good Fijian folk don’t understand corruption and drug policy and all that that destabilises, they have learned nothing from their coupe” /Blair
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Blair Anderson
ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219