The Chaser's War On APEC  

The cast from the TV series "The Chaser's War On Everything" made a mockery of APEC security today, putting together a fake diplomatic motorcade and penetrating all the way to Bush's lair at the Intercontinental hotel near Circular Quay and then freaking out security when they emerged in Osama Bin Laden costumes. Good thing the average terrorist in the west is an idiot and not capable of doing the same thing as anarchist comedians otherwise we'd have a smoking crater, no more civil liberties and probably a war with Iran. As stunts go this one was pretty funny (something almost everyone agrees on), but its a little foolhardy given the number of heavily armed people who seem to be perched on CBD rooftops this week.

ELEVEN crew from the ABC TV show The Chaser have been detained after staging a fake motorcade through Sydney during APEC. The team from the satirical TV program The Chaser's War on Everything were in a convoy of three cars and two motorbikes which was reportedly ushered through two checkpoints in Sydney's APEC security “red” zone. The convoy was pulled over in Macquarie Street on a block adjacent to the InterContinental Hotel, where US President George W Bush is a guest during the APEC summit.

The ABC said Chaser stars Julian Morrow and Chas Licciardello were detained late this morning following the stunt near the hotel. Chaser members said they had dressed up a convoy to look like an official Canadian motorcade, on a day during which a number of official motorcades crossed the city. Southern Cross Broadcasting reported that the convoy carrying the Chaser team passed “through two checkpoints around the hotel before one of The Chaser pranksters jumped out (dressed) as Osama Bin Laden”.

“They had been waved through, they had three cars ... big black Hummer-style cars decked out with Canadian flags on the front,” a reporter said. “A couple of Chaser team members were in the back of each of these cars and rest of the team were dressed up as bodyguards. ...

Chaser team member Chris Taylor told the Fairfax website the motorcade comprised “three cars, a couple of motorbikes, and a lot of crew”. He said the Chaser convoy had Canadian flags attached to the cars and “Canada” signs visible in the front windscreen. “No particular reason we chose Canada,” Taylor said. “We just thought they'd be a country who the cops wouldn't scrutinise too closely, and who feasibly would only have three cars in their motorcade - as opposed to the 20 or so gas guzzlers that Bush has brought with him.” ...

The Chaser's War on Everything resumed on ABC TV last night and included a number of stunts aimed at testing APEC security. Morrow told News Ltd newspapers last weekend the Chaser team was planning something “extreme” for APEC. Chaser team members yesterday staged a stunt during an anti-APEC protest, with Taylor appearing as a police officer on a pantomime horse - a dig at the fact equine flu has prevented NSW police horses being used for APEC security.

The big security breach is all the more amusing given the immense overkill of "security " stopping even the most innocuous activities at ground level.

Police are allowing the NSW Greens to hold an event for media in Sydney's Martin Place tomorrow, despite saying on Tuesday they would take legal action to prevent it. Greens MP Sylvia Hale, who will host the event, says she told the police she would not change its location, despite receiving a letter from NSW Police general counsel Michael Antrum on Tuesday threatening to launch Supreme Court action against her.

She says police have now backed away from the threat, with Mr Antrum confirming in a letter to her this morning police had dropped their opposition to the event. "I welcome this backdown by the police,'' Ms Hale said today. "The police were trying to act beyond their powers in an attempt to intimidate me into moving the event out of Martin Place."

The Greens event will be a media conference with a group of party members dressed to resemble lifesavers as Greens senator Kerry Nettle calls on APEC leaders to be climate savers.

Police in central Sydney are engaged in a necessary security "overkill" for APEC, the NSW Government says.

Deputy Premier John Watkins has defended police tactics after reports that a city restaurant was told to leave cutlery off outdoor tables, office workers were directed to not to look at passing helicopters, and police leafed through journalists' notebooks.

Ian Dunlop of ASPO Australia has an article in Crikey on global warming and peak oil - "Don't blow it APEC, habitable planets are hard to find".

As APEC meets, the good ship “humanity” is steaming into the teeth of a hurricane with our leaders asleep at the wheel, as the great global issues of climate change and the peaking of oil supply converge.

The need to address human-induced climate change is finally reaching the top of the political agenda, driven primarily by scientific and community concern rather than by any proactive political leadership. Even now, the political rhetoric confirms that our leaders do not understand or accept the seriousness of our position, and the limited time to take action in reducing carbon emissions before we encounter dangerous climate change.

Recent science suggests that the danger level for atmospheric carbon concentrations, to keep warming below 2oC, is 450 parts per million carbon dioxide equivalent, possibly lower. Current atmospheric carbon concentrations are 430ppm CO2e, increasing at 3ppm per annum and accelerating fast, both here and overseas. In theory that leaves 7 years before we reach the danger point of 450ppm. In reality, given accelerating emissions and the non-linear climatic response which is occurring, we probably have no more than 4-5 years to turn down emissions growth. As there is considerable lag before any reduction in emissions takes effect, substantive action is required now, not in 2011 as the government proposes; by then we may already be in the danger zone. ...

These challenges are daunting, but successful solutions first require that we accept a wider underlying problem; namely that human activity is pushing way beyond the ability of the global environment to absorb its impact, thereby threatening the survival of society as we know it. Further, it will not be resolved by conventional market economics, or technology, in isolation. Markets are important, but they must be redesigned in line with a fundamental rethink of our values. Politically, we have yet to cross that threshold and it may take some further crises, or preferably more community pressure, to force the issue.

Climate change and peak oil are only forerunners of many other issues stemming from the impact of human activity. If a global “Tragedy of the Commons” is to be avoided in the 21C, we have to cede sovereignty from narrow national self-interest, to support equitable global solutions. As global population grows from 6.5 to 9 billion over the next 40 years, per capita allocation mechanisms, whilst anathema to many conventional market economists, will become commonplace. If complemented with national and international market trading, they can address many of the intractable problems that arise from global inequity, such as failed states, poverty and terrorism.

Which brings us back to APEC. The 21 APEC leaders are convening for three days to focus on solutions to major global problems. At present, there is nothing more important than managing our transition to a sustainable global society; without it, discussions on trade and security are meaningless. Climate change is on the agenda, but peak oil is not mentioned although it is fundamental to the functioning of the global economy.

It is a great honour for Australia to host the APEC meeting. However in the current critical circumstances, we are entitled to expect that our leaders devote themselves exclusively to the task of producing substantial initiatives, and dispense with the floss and photo opportunities. Paul Keating is right; we need big structural shifts, not more non-core, long-term, “aspirational” goals.

President Bush and Prime Minister Howard, between them, have done more to subvert serious action on climate change, and to endanger energy security, than anyone else on the planet. The foolishness of their policies is being increasingly visited on communities across the world day by day, as extreme climatic events intensify. They now have a unique opportunity to make amends with real leadership, by ensuring the APEC final communiqué signals the end of “business-as-usual”, with binding commitments to come to grips with these problems.

I'm dubious (to say the least) about the whole idea of "per capita allocation mechanisms" (aka "carbon rations" and their peak oil equivalent advocated by the peak oil protocol). A much better alternative is to institute carbon taxes, make them mandatory under the WTO agreements and invest in clean energy - the market will greedily go for broke building clean energy technology and we'll have a bright future instead of some dismal quasi-wartime rationing system...

Clive Hamilton has an article in Crikey pointing out "Howard's Kyoto alternative will have dire economic consequences".

The global politics of climate change are very fluid. And sometimes a dramatic shift in a nation's policy can be overlooked by the media because its significance is not properly understood. The declaration of the June G8 meeting in Heiligendamm provided a strong indication of where the debate is going. In a crucial move that's been overlooked in Australia, the statement declared that future negations should occur under the auspices of the Framework Convention on Climate Change. Having attacked the UN for years, including its alleged failure to develop a viable response to climate change, President Bush’s endorsement of the G8 statement was a huge concession. In short, Bush blinked.

So where does that leave Prime Minister John Howard's endorsement of APEC and AP6 over Kyoto and the UN, and ultimately, Australia's place in the global climate change conversation? When it comes to implementing a carbon trading system, it could have dire economic consequences for this country.

The first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol begins on 1 January 2008 and it is now clear who is committed to action under it and what they will be doing. The most important developments have been the emergence of the European emissions trading system, which has set the benchmark for the rest of the world, and the emergence of the Clean Development Mechanism, which is channelling billions of dollars of investment into developing countries.

Attention is focusing increasingly on what will emerge after the first commitment period ends in 2012. The parameters of what might emerge remain unclear, but pressure is mounting to ensure that the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held in Bali in December, defines a pathway to a new agreement. The 1992 UN Framework Convention is the mother treaty for the Kyoto Protocol, and the latter was agreed in 1997 because it was accepted that the voluntary measures set out on the Convention had failed to have any appreciable effect on the growth of greenhouse gas emissions.

The decision by the United States to negotiate a future treaty under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention has left the Howard Government stranded. Although Australia ratified the Convention in the early 1990s, the Prime Minister has repeatedly attacked the UN process as flawed and insists that any progress on climate change must occur in other forums, notable AP6 and the forthcoming APEC meeting. It does not yet seem to have acknowledged the import of the G8 agreement and the dramatic US shift.

While Howard could have relied on the US to back his push for a new international framework at the APEC meeting in Sydney in September, it now seems likely that the US will join with Japan and China in insisting that anything APEC agrees should be supplementary to Kyoto and should not undermine the task of negotiating a new agreement under the UN process. The Howard plan for APEC to agree to some sort of ‘pledge and review’ system represents a return to the voluntary approach that the original Framework Convention showed cannot work, suggesting that the Government’s thinking is stuck at around 1995.

With Kyoto effectively bedded down, Europe is now turning its attention to what sort of structure will succeed it. Recognising the fluidity of the situation, including the expected transition to a pro-climate administration in the United States at the end of 2008, the EU understands that now is the time to adopt a flexible stance. This has important implications for the Howard Government’s decision to introduce an emissions trading system. One of the key criteria identified by the Prime Minister’s Task Group on Emissions Trading was that any domestic system should be able to be integrated into other systems, including Europe’s. Integration has enormous potential advantages for Australian firms with carbon reduction obligations.

Europe has always insisted that no nation would be permitted to take part in its trading system unless it had ratified Kyoto. This was done for pragmatic rather than political reasons, because ratification provides the same set of legal obligations on all Kyoto parties and thereby provides the basis for the harmonisation of trading systems. It is now reported that Europe has changed its mind and will allow the linking of trading systems regardless of whether they have ratified the protocol. Paul Kelly claims this represents ‘a sharp change in Europe’s mind set’ signalling the obsolescence of Kyoto. Like most of Kelly’s commentary, this misunderstands the politics of climate change and the practicalities of policies.

Europe is talking post-2012. If Australia wanted to integrate its trading system with the European one before 2013 then it would be required to ratify first. Europe is, however, taking a flexible view of what might lie beyond 2012. This is where Australia hopes it will be able to link its domestic system with others around the world, including the EU. In principle the EU has no objection; indeed, as a means of urging Australia to take a more serious approach to climate change, it encourages this thinking.

However, the Australian Government has not thought through the implications. The report of Mr Howard’s Task Group spends some time discussing the features a domestic system would need to have to be integrated into the EU system, and other systems being developed (notably in the US) that are also expected to be linked with the EU system in due course. The proposed Australian system is designed to make future links possible.

But the Task Group shied away from the most important consideration of all. What sort of targets will prevail in each country? When we pose this question it is apparent that there is no way any Australian system under the Howard Government could ever be linked with the EU system, and probably not those emerging in the US. Why is this so?

Earlier this year the Europe Union committed itself to a binding obligation to cut its emissions to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, with the option of increasing this to 30 per cent if other countries take comparable action. This target will require far-reaching changes to the energy economy in the EU 27. The Howard Government, blinded by its ideological hostility to Europe, is only now waking up to the fact that Europe takes climate change very seriously indeed. But any suggestion of an Australian target within coo-ee of the European one is met with howls of outrage from the Government. Words like ‘economic ruin’ are thrown around. The Howard Government’s proposed emissions trading scheme, to begin in 2012, will almost certainly have a very weak target, which will require much less of Australian emitters.

Hard targets in Europe and easy targets in Australia will mean that emission permits will be expensive in Europe and cheap here. Linking of the two systems would see European firms rushing to Australia to buy cheap permits, and the price difference would disappear on the first day of trading. One consequence would be the erosion of the integrity of the European targets, something the EU would simply not permit. In Australia, polluters who thought they had it fairly easy would find that the price of permits had doubled or trebled overnight. The only way to avoid this problem, which will apply to all attempts to link trading systems, is to harmonise not just the structures of the systems but the process of setting emission targets too.

Of course, this is precisely what happened at the Kyoto conference in 1997. Thus, implicit in the Prime Minister’s grand plan to develop a system to replace the Kyoto Protocol is a structural imperative to replicate it. This replication process even extends to the proposed method of integrating developing countries into a global trading scheme. The Prime Minister’s Task Group recommends a process based closely on the Clean Development Mechanism of the Protocol, which allows firms with carbon reduction obligations to generate credits by investing in emission reductions in poor countries.

So all roads lead back to the Kyoto Protocol or a structure very like it. Despite all of the ill-informed attacks on the treaty in this country, the protocol was in truth an extraordinary achievement, the essential elements of which will inevitably be imitated in any subsequent global system.

The SMH reports that the Rodent is backing Bush's new "climate strategy", which takes the rather useless tack of saying that reducing carbon emissions is a good thing (rather like world peace) but that concrete targets and actions are not needed (rather like world peace). Hopefully when their replacements are installed over the next 12 months or so we'll see a sudden shift in direction including the introduction of carbon taxes.

THE Prime Minister, John Howard, has backed George Bush's new global climate-change strategy to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a plan that calls for all big emitters to cut greenhouse gases, but avoids imposing binding targets on developed economies. Their agreement was announced yesterday after the US President and Mr Howard met in Sydney, putting Australia squarely in the US camp on climate change - and at odds with European leaders, including the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who have backed firm targets for the developed economies. ...

The Greens leader, Bob Brown, attacked the agreement, calling Mr Bush "a climate dunderhead". Senator Brown said the President was the "world's worst performer on climate change". ...

The 21 APEC leaders are expected to release a declaration at the end of the summit that recognises the risks posed by dangerous climate change and proposes action on energy-efficiency targets and technology exchanges. But even plans for an "aspirational" goal to cut global emissions may be ditched from the final declaration, as deep differences remain between the US and Australia on one hand and China and Japan on the other.

The SMH also has an article on some locals in the Hunter Valley with a burning desire to put the coal industry out to pasture.

MURIEL HALSTED and Marjorie Eather have been worrying about coal for a long time. Like others in the Upper Hunter, the Scone residents are well aware the industry has been a lifeblood for the region. But that lifeblood is in danger of turning septic. Greenhouse gases generated when coal is burnt are a major contributor to climate change.

The women were among almost 400 Scone residents yesterday who heard the scientist and Australian of the Year, Tim Flannery, talk about the dangers of climate change. Professor Flannery said communities such as Scone could play an important role in a carbon constrained future. ... But Australia would make no progress on climate change if it continued to burn coal with impunity. "Within 40 years we need to have weaned ourselves off fossil fuels, at least in the way we burn them today," Professor Flannery said. Australia, he said, needed to sign the Kyoto Protocol. "Everything else will flow from that. As Australians, we have been spectacularly bad at taking part [in the global] discussion on climate change."

Professor Flannery urged people to put pressure on all political parties to adopt tough climate change policies. "I would not vote for anyone before I had the chance to talk to them about their position."

Miners have applications before the State Government to extract 558 million tonnes of coal from mines across NSW. A mine north of Scone owned by Bickham Coal Company has been given permission to extract 47 million tonnes. That proposal prompted the Department of Planning to study the effect of mining on land used for grazing. When burnt, the coal will release 1.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of putting 446 million cars on the road for a year.

The Australia-China relationship is getting a lot of press this week, absent all the controversy that follows Bush around.

The Australia-China negotiations this week will cover three broad areas: long-term regional security, energy security and environmental security. Both sides anticipate they will find enthusiastic common ground on the first two topics because they cover mutual interests, particularly trade and investment. It is the third topic, the issue of the environment, that Australian officials acknowledge will be the most challenging. Senior sources told The Australian yesterday that Mr Howard and his senior ministers would assure the Chinese that economic development and tackling climate were not mutually exclusive. ...

Mr Hu symbolically chose the boom state of Western Australia, supplier of 40 per cent of China's iron ore, as the first stop of his week-long visit to Australia. In a generous speech on Monday night, he toasted “the friendly co-operation between China and Western Australia”. “As an important energy base and a key state of agriculture, animal husbandry, services and hi-tech industry in Australia, Western Australia has made steady progress in economic and social development,” he said.

Mr Hu said China's relationship with the state had “borne fruit in recent years”. “China is now Western Australia's largest export market and second-largest trading partner,” he said. “There are a number of large projects of energy co-operation between China and Western Australia which have contributed to the economic development of both countries,” Mr Hu said. “Our co-operation in culture, science and technology and education is growing profusely and has a bright future.”

The Australian reports that Woodside has announced a $45bn China export deal for LNG gas from the Browse development. It seems the Browse/Pluto projects are duelling with Gorgon (who announced a similar tentative deal yesterday) to see who gets over the line first - though maybe all 3 will at this rate, leaving the East Timorese stranded and broke.

WOODSIDE Petroleum has cut the largest export deal in Australian history, with plans to sell up to $45 billion worth of gas to China. The agreement with PetroChina is for the potential sale of two to three million tonnes of LNG a year from the Browse project, offshore Western Australia, which Woodside operates. The agreement will facilitate the sale of LNG to PetroChina over 15 to 20 years and bring revenues of $35 billion to $45 billion into Australia. ...


Woodside's preliminary agreement with PetroChina sets the key commercial parameters normally included in a sale and purchase agreement, including LNG price. “The parties will negotiate in good faith to conclude an LNG supply agreement based on the key terms agreement,” Woodside said. “Supply is targeted to commence during the period 2013 to 2015.”

The agreement is subject to conditions, including a final investment decision on the Browse project and relevant government approvals. “The Browse joint venturers have not been party to the agreement to this point, however the agreement provides the opportunity for commingled sales,” Woodside said. The key terms agreement was signed in Sydney this morning by Woodside chief executive Don Voelte and Zhou Jiping, vice-president China National Petroleum Corporation on behalf of PetroChina. ...

Mr Voelte said Woodside's agreement strengthened the company's position as an LNG supplier in the Asia-Pacific region, as China seeks to use more LNG to support its energy needs. “An agreement with such a significant foundation customer provides increased certainty to enable Woodside to move the Browse development forward,” Woodside said. The Browse basin is off the Kimberley coast of Western Australia. The development, which is expected to cost up to $10 billion to develop, is due to deliver its first gas to Japanese customers by the end of 2010.

Woodside's plans for a Californian LNG offloading terminal also continue to plod along.

BHP BILLITON's plan to break into California's hungry gas market with its $US800 million ($973 million) Cabrillo Port proposal may be dead in the water but the rival "OceanWay" proposal from the North-West Shelf project operator Woodside lives on - for the time being at least.

Cabrillo Port was knocked back in May after it became something of an environmental, safety and real estate value cause celebre for Hollywood stars who call beachside Malibu home. OceanWay has yet to attract that sort of high-profile attention and, to Woodside's way of thinking, it is sufficiently different to stay that way. But the environmental assessment of the project has only just begun now that Woodside's application for a deepwater port licence has been "deemed complete" by US authorities.

OceanWay involves LNG being converted back to natural gas after being unloaded on to a regasification tanker floating 45 kilometres off the coast. After regasification, the gas would be unloaded into underwater buoys connected to pipelines feeding into the existing southern California market through an entry point near Los Angeles International Airport. ...

There was also a friendly reminder from Woodside that developing what would be California's first LNG receiving terminal meant a secure and reliable energy source covering 15 per cent of demand. "This should guard against the price spikes that occurred in past California energy crises," Mr Larson said. Woodside said that California's energy future was at risk.

Ron Paul has stuck to his guns at the latest debate between Republican presidential contenders, telling the torture brigade that they are all doomed to be defeated and that the time to leave Iraq is now. Apparently Fox "News" has been trying to play down Paul's winning the post-debate vote by coming up with the usual spurious allegations of Paul supporters spamming the polls - unfortunately pictures showing this can't be done are already circulating.

Republican presidential contenders voiced support for the Iraq war Wednesday night despite a warning from anti-war candidate Ron Paul that they risk dragging the party down to defeat in 2008. ...

Alone among the contenders, Paul, a veteran Texas congressman with a libertarian streak, made the case for withdrawing troops. That drew a sharp challenge from Chris Wallace, one of the debate questioners, who asked whether the United States should take its marching orders from al-Qaida. "No! We should take our marching orders from our Constitution," Paul shouted back, pointing his pen at Wallace for emphasis. "We should not go to war without a declaration" by Congress.

Occasionally interrupted by applause, Paul doggedly stuck to his point. "We have lost over 5,000 Americans over there in Afghanistan, in Iraq and plus the civilians killed," he said during his exchange with Huckabee. "How long — what do we have to pay to save face? That's all we're doing, is saving face. It's time we came home," Paul said.

Links:

* AFP - Battle lines drawn on climate change at APEC summit
* SMH - Chinese leader endorses Kyoto
* SMH - Corporate bosses seek lead on carbon
* Crikey - Australia: uranium mine one day, nuclear dump the next
* Falls Church News Press - Peak Oil Crisis: Minimum Operating Levels Redux
* Washington Post - Coal Rush Reverses, Power Firms Follow: Plans for New Plants Stalled by Growing Opposition
* Boston Globe - Mount Stripmine ?
* New York Times - What Is John Dingell Really Up To ?. Is the carbon tax warrior for real ?
* Christian Science Monitor - A New Hampshire mom walks her talk for Ron Paul
* Crikey - George Bush on Iraq: liar or fool?
* The Onion - CIA Realizes It's Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years