The federal cabinet has ruled that Australia will not sign up to any new contributions, taxes or charges at this week's global summit on climate change, in a significant toughening of its stance as it plans to move within days to repeal the carbon tax. This rules out Australia playing any role in a wealth transfer from rich countries to developing nations to pay them to decrease their carbon emissions. The decision hardens the nation's approach to the UN's negotiations amid a renewed push from less-developed countries this week for $100 billion a year in finance to deal with climate change. --Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 11 November 2013
Australia's cabinet ministers have decided to reject any measures of "socialism masquerading as environmentalism" after meeting last week to consider a submission on the position the government would take to the Warsaw conference. --Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 11 November 2013
A major UN climate change summit opens in Poland today amid warnings talks could collapse because of a lack of financial support from rich nations. The USA’s chief climate diplomat Todd Stern admitting last month that the “hard reality” was funding was unlikely to rise soon. “The fiscal reality of the United States and other developed countries is not going to allow it,” he said in a speech in London. “This is not just a matter of the recent financial crisis; it is structural, based on the huge obligations we face from aging populations and other pressing needs for infrastructure, education, health care and the like.” --Ed King, Responding to Climate Change, 10 November 2013
India will work closely with the emerging group of Like-Minded Developing Countries and the BASIC nations to demand that there be a clear timeline for how the promised finances from the rich countries will flow to the poor. India will work closely with the emerging group of Like-Minded Developing Countries and the BASIC nations to demand that there be a clear timeline for how the promised finances from the rich countries will flow to the poor. The developed countries had promised the annual flows of $100 billion starting 2020 but are yet to provide details on how these would be transferred and generated. --Nitin Sethi, The Times of India, 7 November 2013
The chemical company BASF has threatened with a partial relocation of its production abroad if it will no longer be exempt from green levies on electricity. BASF’s CEO Kurt Bock demanded from the German government to maintain existing exemptions for energy-intensive industries. According to the head of the chemical giant, BASF fears additional costs of nearly 400 million Euros alone at the production site in Ludwigshafen. --Focus Magazin, 10 November 2013
Supermarkets are seeing a squeeze on spending by the poorest households in Britain as rising utility bills force families to make a hard choice between energy and food. Asda, Britain’s second biggest supermarket by market share, and Wm Morrison, another of the UK’s top four grocers, say a growing number of their customers are being forced to make trade-offs between buying food for their families and heating their homes on the back of galloping energy bills. --Elizabeth Rigby and Andrea Felsted, Financial Times, 10 November 2013
The landfall of supertyphoon Haiyan has led to a predictable upsurge in attempts by unscrupulous environmentalists to turn the drama into a political opportunity. For example, Jamie Henn of 350.org calls the storm a wake-up call for the upcoming UN climate summit. Meanwhile, we learn of this 2004 paleoclimate reconstruction of hurricane landfalls in South-eastern China. The conclusions seem to contradict the wild claims of the drama greens more than somewhat: “Remarkably, the two periods of most frequent typhoon strikes in Guangdong (AD 1660–1680, 1850–1880) coincide with two of the coldest and driest periods in northern and central China during the Little Ice Age.” --Andrew Montford, Bishop Hill, 9 November 2013
