Best Terror Attack Ever.

At the start of the COP 20 Summit I identified Australia as a key figure within the negotiations. The largest per capita emitter of GreenHouse Gases (GHG's) in the World the Australian economy is very focused on mining things like coal which are then sold to other nations - primarily China - to set fire to releasing GHG's.

However Australia is also a nation that is very susceptible to the effects of climate change. Most of the centre of the country (the Outback) is already too hot for humans to live in and it is surrounded by coral reefs - the Great Barrier Reef being the most famous. Coral is very susceptible to changes in both ocean temperature and acidity which is caused by GHG's being diluted in water. Therefore coral is often considered the canary in the mine shaft for climate change because it shows the effects long before they can be seen elsewhere. Furthermore Australia was probably hit harder then anyone else by the hole in the Ozone layer of the 1980's and 1990's meaning that the population tends to be very aware of environmental issues.

This means that within Australian politics climate change is very much a hot button issue in the same way that abortion or gun control is in US politics. In fact a key part of current Prime Minister Tony Abbott's campaign last year was to do away with his predecessor Julia Gillard's tax on mining companies. That tax was supposed to tackle climate change even though it disregarded the market based mechanisms that absolutely everybody else is moving towards. We are still waiting to see what Abbott's climate change policy will be but I am hoping he will announce some sort of emissions trading scheme although I'm not hold my breath.

Obviously all this policy stuff is exactly the sort of thing that Australia should be including in its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) document that they will be submitting in the first quarter of 2015. However Australia appears to have gone in a very different direction.

At around 11:00 local time on December 15th (15/12/14)/ 22:00 on December 14th (14/12/14) GMT what we now know to be a lone gunman walked into a cafe in the centre of Sydney and took 13 staff and customers hostage in a siege that is still going on as I write. The near-by iconic Sydney Opera House was also evacuated amid a bomb scare because as with Kangaroos, hats with corks on them and casual swearing the opera house is one of the things most people associate with Australia. The purpose of this exercise was to exert huge amounts of pressure on the COP 20 delegates both to disrupt the process and help Australia find out where it stands. As a result I don't think there is an element of the story that you couldn't confuse as a coded reference to something else. However I think the main points are;

Economics: The cafe is located in Sydney's Central Business District (CBD). This brings up all sorts of discussions about urban planning and zoning. The fact that the CBD has been shut down during this siege promotes discussion about the possible economic impacts of climate change although the Australians seem focused on the impacts of action to precent climate change. Prime Minister Abbott has already assured Australians that it will be business as usual today. "Business As Usual" is a very big phrase in climate negotiations because one of the main objectives is to get GHG emissions below business as usual. The siege also caused restrictions to be imposed on the airspace in and around Sydney. This obviously re-visited the UK's stunt on Friday (12/12/14) when the closed all the airspace of the south of the country causing travel chaos. Whether the aviation sector is included in emission cuts is also a big issue in negotiations although I thought the point of NDC's was that nations were given the freedom to decide for themselves whether it was included or not.

Sexual Innuendo: Sydney is located in the province of New South Wales (NSW). This acronym is just one letter away from Not Suitable For Work (NSFW) which on the Internet is commonly used to mean pornography. Once you understand that all the references to the female hostages being pressed up against the glass, what they look like, what they're wearing and what they're doing automatically sounds a bit pervy. Added to that the cafe is actually part of a chocolate shop that sits on the ground floor of an office tower block. This could be interpreted as a reference to anal or gay sex particularly as we're all waiting to see if the police will roughly take the male suspect up the chocolate tower. Good luck maintaining an air of professionalism while you have that sort of discussion.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL): As is their position on most things at COP 20 the Gulf Monarchies particularly Saudi Arabia simply started threatening to unleash ISIL style Islamist terrorists on any nation that dares to sign up to an agreement. Officially an example of Islamic terrorism the Sydney siege is supposed to play up those fears by making it appear as though an urgent discussion about ISIL is going on in the US-led coalition.

For example the first thing the hostage taker did was place a banner bearing the Islamic Shahada in the window. Translating roughly as; "There is no god but Allah, Mohamed is his Prophet" this is simply a declaration of the Islamic faith that is used by all Muslims at the start of each prayer. Cleverly the way this banner was placed in the window seemed to use the logo of the Lindt chocolate company (not the brand identity they were looking for) to resemble the seal of Mohamed. This combination of the Shahada and the Prophets seal on a black background is used by ISIL as their flag. However it is also just a symbol used by all Muslims in the same way that all Christians use the Cross and all Jews use the Star of David. ISIL have stolen it in a effort to convince people they are Muslims - you could argue they are literally flying a false flag.

Despite the fact they've been disowned by pretty much all branches of Islam in the west there is still some debate over whether are ISIL are Muslims or not. For example in the UK on December 5th (5/12/14) Yusuf Sarwar and Mohamed Ahmed were jailed for travelling to fight in Syria. This prompted a wave of complaints by the MI6 allied Muslim groups who have been recruiting people to go fight in Syria. However what was really interesting about this particular case is that part of the evidence against the pair is that they knew so little about Islam before they left they had to buy books with titles like "Arabic For Beginners" and "The Qu'ran For Dummies." Australia is obviously trying to feed into this argument and when this all over I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that the suspect is actually a Protestant Christian.

Also referencing things the UK have been up to last Monday (8/12/14) British police in Birmingham were dramatically recalled to base over rumours of an ISIL inspired terror attack. This was a stunt intended to accompany UK Prime Minister Cameron's trip to Turkey. What was embarrassing about it though was that I heard about it hours in advance from several nations none of whom were Britain. The version I heard was that there were two suspects who were planning to either kidnap and then behead a police officer or simply behead a police officer in the street Lee Rigby style. However after lots of reassurance that it will be business as usual the police determined it was a hoax call and arrested a single suspect. In the early hours of the Sydney siege there was of confusion over whether there was one or two suspects involved.

On something of a related note this type of incident highlights why I often end up feeling a bit sorry for the police. Although everyone knows this is nonsense they have to treat it as if it was just normal crime. In those circumstances their priorities are the safety of the public then the safety of their officers followed by the safety of the suspect who still has the right to a fair trial.

So while I think it would be very funny just to shoot him in the head I suspect we're going to be in for a long wait amid lots of hushed rumours about negotiations.

12:00 on 15/12/14 (UK date).

Edited at around 16:05 on 15/12/14 (UK date) to add;

The siege in Sydney has now ended. Badly. Details are still emerging but it appears that the police raided the cafe and two people have been killed and three others are seriously wounded.

Roughly an hour before this took place the police confirmed the hostage takers identity as Man Haron Monis - an Iranian exile. Although I don't have any evidence to support this Monis will be recognised by people in the business as the type of guy the intelligence services keep on the payroll to carry out just this type of stunt. His equivalent in the UK is a guy called Amjen Choudary.

Monis seems to have been chosen for today's task because his name comes from the Latin word "Mons." If you've read my posts about ex ante and ex post review processes you will know that a lot of Latin phrases come up in climate change discussions often confusing a lot of the people involved. The Latin term "Mons" means "higher then that which surrounds it." Australia's GHG emissions are of course much higher then the nations that surround it.

Where the Australians have gone fundamentally wrong in their handling of this situation is that throughout they've treated it as a stunt which they wanted to go on for as long as possible. For example I suspect there would have been a chapter where we were forced to speculate whether Monis was reading this post despite the fact that cutting telephone lines and shutting down cellphone networks is standard practise in this type of situation. Also the US have joined in with their own hostage situation in Pennsylvania which was no doubt intended to carry on in stereo to Sydney.

Therefore I suspect that the police were ordered not to draw up an entry plan to bring this situation to an end at the time of their choosing.

This flaw was massively exposed when the hostages were split into two groups. While Monis' back was turned one of these groups tried to escape prompting Monis to open fire on them. This forced the police to rush an entry while Monis was executing hostages. We are still waiting to hear if Monis was killed or captured in the raid.

Sadly although I've been trying to keep the mood light I've always felt this sort of ending was part of the plan. The big debate about ISIL is whether Commonwealth countries like the UK, Canada and Australia should put the lives of their citizens at risk by allowing the fighters they've sent to Syria to return or simply accept those fighters choice to renounce their citizenship in order to become citizens of another, albeit unrecognised, nation. If Monis has survived while hostages have been killed that represents the fundamental dilemma in microcosm.

I of course think that if there is any decency left in Australian politics most Australians will now be waking up to the news that both Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the UK Queen's representative to Australia Peter Cosgrove have resigned in response to these events.

After all I genuinely thought that a police sniper would have shot Monis in the head a couple of hours after I went to bed last night.