Home > bali, climate, CO2, corporations, enviros, Kyoto, Murdoch, watermelons > Bali: Murdoch & 149 Other Top Vile Collectivists/Capitalists Call for Global Poverty …

Bali: Murdoch & 149 Other Top Vile Collectivists/Capitalists Call for Global Poverty …

and for a legally binding UN framework to tackle climate change.  Just who are these vile collectivists, red enviros, misanthropes, and others caught up in the totally groundless AGW hysteria?

[Snark Alert!]

Let’s go to FOX News – which headlines “Top Corporations Demand Action on Global Warming”  Fox says that “more than 150 global companies — worth nearly $4 trillion in market capitalization — have signed a petition urging “strong, early action on climate change””.  Amazingly, the news report ends with a disclainer:  “FOXNews.com is owned and operated by News Corporation, which is among the signatories of the Bali Communiqué.”  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314224,00.html

Just what the heck is going on?

On November 30, UK and EU Corporate Leaders Groups on Climate Change (spearheaded by the Prince of Wales) published the “Bali Communiqué”, by which leaders of 150 global companies encouraged world leaders to work for a comprehensive, legally binding United Nations framework to tackle climate change.

The Bali Communiqué calls for:

  • “a comprehensive, legally binding United Nations framework to tackle climate change”;
  • “emission reduction targets to be guided primarily by science”;
  • “those countries that have already industrialised to make the greatest effort”; and
  • “world leaders to seize the window of opportunity and agree a work plan of negotiations to ensure an agreement can come into force post 2012 (when the existing Kyoto Protocol expires)”

The vile collectivists provided the following business case:

“The scientific evidence is now overwhelming. Climate change presents very serious global social, environmental and economic risks and it demands an urgent global response.

“As business leaders, it is our belief that the benefits of strong, early action on climate change outweigh the costs of not acting:

“The economic and geopolitical costs of unabated climate change could be very severe and globally disruptive. All countries and economies will be affected, but it will be the poorest countries that will suffer earliest and the most

  • The costs of action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change are manageable, especially if guided by a common international vision
  • Each year we delay action to control global emissions increases the risk of unavoidable consequences that will likely necessitate even steeper reductions in the future, causing potentially greater economic, environmental and social disruption.
  • The shift to a low-carbon economy will create significant business opportunities. New markets for low carbon technologies and products, worth billions of dollars, will be created if the world acts on the scale required

“In summary, we believe that tackling climate change is the pro-growth strategy. Ignoring it will ultimately undermine economic growth.

“It is our view that a sufficiently ambitious, international and comprehensive legally-binding United Nations agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will provide business with the certainty it needs to scale up global investment in low-carbon technologies. We believe that an enhanced and extended carbon market needs to be part of this framework as it offers the necessary flexibility, allows for a cost-effective transition and provides financial support to developing countries.”

Companies supporting the communiqué included the following:

US-based: Coca-Cola, Dupont, Gap, GE, Johnson and Johnson, Nike, Pacific Gas and Electric, Sun Microsystems and United Technologies.

European-based:  Anglo-American, British Airways, F&C Asset Management, Ferrovial, Nestle, Nokia, Rolls Royce, Shell, Tesco, Virgin and Volkswagen.

Australian-based: Insurance Australia Group, Macquarie, National Australia Bank, News Corporation and Westpac.

Chinese: Shanghai Electric, Zhufeng Technology and Suntech.

More here: http://www.balicommunique.com/communique.html

Well, it’s clear that they are all deluded and don’t care about impoverishing the rest of the world.  They certainly know nothing about science, economics or the potential difficulties that their companies might confront in facing the challenges that they allege.  They’re just sycophants and fellow-travellers of the evil, misanthropic “watermelon” enviros.  http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/12/17/holiday-joy-quot-watermelons-quot-roasting-on-an-open-pyre.aspx.

 In other words, there’s nothing here folks; move along.

  1. TokyoTom
    December 8th, 2007 at 03:33 | #1

    Contumacy and Stephen:

    Thanks for your comments. I am sorry if I have misled you with my snark. I actually think the issue is quite complex. You might try taking a look at my comments on Sean Corrigan`s recent post, “Carbophobic Socialism”,
    http://blog.mises.org/archives/007482.asp, and then some of my earlier posts on my blog.

  2. TokyoTom
    December 8th, 2007 at 03:27 | #2

    Kyle, I agree that we should have our eyes open on the points you mention. But we should certainly not close our eyes either, and pretend that this all a perfect storm of idiots, collectivists, misanthropes and the misuinformed.

    The people who signed this statement are obviously well-informed and while some may have rent-seeking purposes tha`s a hard sale to say of all of them.

  3. Stephen.Cramer
    December 7th, 2007 at 04:12 | #3

    but what these collectivists are really saying is that they want a global tax on individuals so that their costs in reducing GHG. They make themselves look good for “caring” about the environment and yet we pay for their ability to carry out and take credit for saving the planet.

  4. December 6th, 2007 at 21:53 | #4

    Wow I almost wrote a post on the exact same article. The difference is that I was going to point out what rent-seeking bastards the business leaders are.

    Local governments won’t stop people from competing with you? No problem! At least not when you have a socialist world state that (you hope) can stop new competition everywhere!

    I also appriciated their use of the broken window fallacy. Sure action would create business opportunities…but along comes at least 10x as much cost. Just think of all the good could be done with the money fed to the global warming gods.

    I put these men on the same level as military industries pushing for war so they get more business.

  5. December 5th, 2007 at 11:37 | #5

    Is there no room between global warming is a farce and global warming will be catastrophic?

    Sun Microsystems’ opinion carries no weight with me. These are the goons that wrote Orin Hatch’s anti-trust suit against Microsoft for him, claiming that Microsoft was harming consumers by giving away a free web browser which was eventually taken down by open-source competitors of all things (and has any company actually committed the second stage of predatory pricing?).

    Some of the largest energy companies welcome the regulation as increased (imposed) operating costs will bar new competitors from entering the market.

    There is a lot of hysteria that comes from the environmentalist crowd’s desire to have all bow to their larger wishes–the founder of Greenpeace quit the organization saying that it had been hijacked by political interests using the evironment as a tool for other aims.

    Al Gore won a nobel prize for a making a film claiming ocean levels would rise 20 feet in the next hundred years, while the IPCC’s report gives a 95% chance of a one foot rise over that time span with a worst-case scenario of two feet. With many in the international community, and especially the NGOs that represent no constituency in particular and their enormous influence in the U.N., celebrating such hype as a step in the right direction, instead of properly treating it as a step backwards that complicates a rational solution to the problem, I don’t think distrust of the U.N. is unwarranted.

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