The SB42 Meeting, Bonn.

On Monday (1/6/15) the 42nd meeting of the Subsidiary Body to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (SB42) began in Bonn, Germany. It is scheduled to last until Thursday June 11th (11/6/15). High on the agenda has been efforts to streamline and consolidate a text Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (ADP) that will form the basis for a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol which scheduled to be signed in Paris, France in November 2015.

As this deadline approaches US President Barack Obama's weakness on the issue has become more cruelly exposed and the US' diplomatic behaviour has become increasingly erratic.

For example the US has decided to schedule another round of talks over Iran's nuclear program in Geneva, Switzerland to coincide with SB42. Highly technical and often deeply secretive discussions over nuclear programs - particularly nuclear power programs - have a long history of having a distorting effect on climate change negotiations. The Iran talks are particularly destabilising because if the US fails to reach an agreement with Iran then the US will continue to be overly dependent on the Sunni Arab Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. These oil and natural gas producing nations will simply not allow the US to sign up to any agreement that limits greenhouse gas emissions caused by people buying and burning oil and natural gas.

On top of the Iran talks the US has decided that it is also an appropriate time to convene a meeting of the coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Paris, France. Apart from again highlighting the US' subservience to Saudi Arabia and Qatar this further increases the tension because as it is becoming increasingly apparent that the US has absolutely no strategy to defeat ISIL tempers within the coalition are starting to get distinctly frayed.

For example just yesterday the US was told - in so many words - by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) not to make any further accusations of chemical weapon use against the Syrian Government until the US can produce a shred of evidence to back up what are viewed as black propaganda claims.

By entering into a war against ISIL without the intention of defeating them has massively increased risk of terrorist attacks within the US and the US security forces are disrupting plots at a rate of around one per week. On Tuesday the FBI shot and killed Usaama Rahim - a young, black male convert to Islam - after he attacked them with a knife in an apparent attempt to behead them. As has become the sort of the Pavlovian response under Obama America's black and Muslim communities responded to this by accusing the police of racism and brutality.

Since the rioting in Ferguson which coincided with the start of the US' campaign against ISIL people - like me - who monitor this sort of thing have been watching ISIL trying to use the so-called "Black Lives Matter" protests as a way to recruit disaffected young black men to carry out lone-wolf terror attacks. Although linked the Al Sharpton rather then ISIL the killing of two New York City police officers in December 2014 bore all the hallmarks of a lone-wolf terror attack.

ISIL actually have quite a firm foundation in this effort because within the Black Supremacy movement that drives the protests there is the Nation of Islam who are easily identifiable by their natty red bow-ties, very camp marching and feverish anti-semitism. There is also the 5% Nation which teaches that 5% of black men and women have been chosen by Allah to rule over all other people on earth. The characters "Kareem Said" and "Supreme Allah" in the TV Show "Oz" give a pretty fair overview of their ideology. Both of these organisations are about as Islamic as ISIL.

At the root of the US' failure to fight ISIL is Obama's failure to seem them as a hate organisation that has flown in from across the globe to kill Shia Muslims. Instead he chooses to see them as a long suffering minority protesting against Shia oppression. Obama also seems to have similar problems identifying the rioters in his own country.

The US' big effort to disrupt SB42 though has been it's attempts to mount a coup within FIFA. As I've mentioned before the US' long-term objective here was to have Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan installed as FIFA President in order to strip Russia of the 2018 World Cup over it's opposition to ISIL and to prevent Qatar being stripped of the 2022 World Cup. Obviously this further illustrates the US' utter subservience to Saudi Arabia and Qatar which hardly builds confidence in UNFCCC circles.

Beyond that though football is truly a global sport followed by roughly half the earth's population. As result absolutely everybody has got an angle.

For example Russia was awarded the 2018 World Cup because it was in the right timezone and its dilapidated football infrastructure provided ample opportunity for legacy building. The cherry on top though is that there is quite a serious problem of Nazism and neo-Nazism amongst Russian and eastern European football fans. Holding a World Cup in Russia would allow this to be put in the spotlight and tackled in the same way the 2014 Sochi Olympics were intended to tackle homophobia. Unfortunately since then the US has thrown it's full weight behind eastern Europe's Nazis and neo-Nazis. Despite their obligations under the Minsk agreement Ukraine has even gone so far as to pass a law that would make the criticism of Nazi and neo-Nazi football fans a specific criminal offence.

Then there is the UK which has managed to get this mad idea in its head that if Russia is stripped of the World Cup it will be hosted in Britain instead. Failing that the UK thinks it will be able to host a rival tournament when everyone boycotts the Russian World Cup. Back in 2013 the UK hosted the UEFA Champions League Final. Despite being fully sanctioned no-one wanted to play in this final and big team after big team crashed out in the earlier rounds. In the end it fell to two Germans teams to come over and put on a passable exhibition match before leaving quickly.

Within UEFA the closest thing the UK has to an ally is Micheal Platini - the President of the group - who is massively corrupt having accepted millions of dollars in bribes to get UEFA to vote for the 2022 World Cup to be held in Qatar. Platini wants the FIFA Presidency in order to increase the amount he can command in bribes. Although FIFA ballots are secret it is widely understood that Spain broke away from Platini and voted against Prince Ali. So at the French Open tennis tournament all the Spaniards have been knocked out to allow the French player Tsonga and the British player Murray to share the glory in the final after Murray knocks out Djokovic whose Serbia nationality allows him to sub for Russia.

In its efforts the UK has clearly subscribed to the old adage that "He who wields the knife doesn't get to wear the crown." So yesterday (3/6/15) they revealed that Nike's Oregon centre has been massively involved in doping within international athletics/Olympics. This is an attempt to separate the UK from the US Soccer Scandal by making it appear as if the UK is protesting against the US' actions.

Obviously with the UK viewing football as just another political metaphor it's battles with UEFA have quickly got tangled up with the UK's relationship with the European Union (EU). In turn this has got tangled up with the UK's desire to extend EU sanctions against Russia which expire at the end of this month.

So up until now I haven't been unable to get involved in SB42 because although I can pretty much do it without thinking the US Soccer Scandal is using up a lot of my time and energy.

15:05 on 4/6/15 (UK date).