Peter Foster: Doha is dead. On to COP 19!

Last week, it was reported that the U.S. chief negotiator for climate change, Jonathan Pershing, reminded environmental NGOs — at a closed-door meeting — of who paid for their presence at shindigs such as Doha. This was treated as outrageous pressure. More intriguing is just why governments would be paying for organizations to go to conferences and criticize them. The only explanation, apart from sheer governmental schizophrenia, is that perhaps governments quite like the idea of agitators whose whole raison d’être is to justify more and bigger government.

...corporations have also funded their ENGO persecutors by buying them off as “consultants” and kowtowing to a business model analogous to that of the Acme Window Smashing and Glazing company: create environmental hysteria, then offer your services on how to deal with hysteria.

If one wished to look at a truly dangerous example of the influence of non-elected groups on public policy, one might point to the 7,000 NGO “observers” at Doha. The conference website claims that through these groups “the citizens of the world have a channel for their voices to be heard.” In fact, they represent a relatively small number of voices with an obstructive and destructive agenda.

Twitter / LFFriedman: #COP18 President "I don't want ...

#COP18 President "I don't want to open the Pandora box." Says if parties want to open text, need to stay 2-3 more weeks

Twitter / RichardTol: 26 degrees Celsius in #Doha, ...

26 degrees Celsius in #Doha, 9 in DC, 5 in London, 3 in Paris, -5 in Berlin, -7 in Beijing. I'd keep talking till the camels come home.