Here We Go Again.

Today, November 29th, the 16th Conference of Parties Summit (COP16) begins in Cancun, Mexico. Running until December 10th COP16 gathers together delegations from most nations on earth to discuss the causes of and how to solve the problems created by global warming and climate change.

The mere fact that this summit is being held is a victory in itself because there are a lot of powerful people who had hoped that the entire COP process would die a death in Copenhagen. That means that the first objective of the summit is to make sure that none of the delegates are driven to suicide by frustration at the sheer lunacy of it all. Beyond that I am looking for a commitment that there will be a COP17 summit, a sharing of climate data between nations, a discussion of how to mitigate the effects of climate change and hopefully an increase in signatories to the Copenhagen Accord.

It will be interesting though to see if the summit will even get time to discuss these matters because there's already so much else going on in the world at the moment.

Ireland's Bailout. Yesterday (28/11) the International Monetary Fund (IMF) formally announced a seven year economic recovery plan for the Republic of Ireland. The plan will see Ireland receive a total of E85bn in loans from the IMF (E22.5bn), European Financial Stability Mechanism (E22.5bn), the European Financial Stability Fund (E22.5bn) and Ireland itself (17.5bn) all which will be charged an interest rate of 5.8%. The bailout is dependent of the Irish government passing it's budget on December 7th. That budget includes plans to increase to Ireland's carbon tax creating a discussion about a carbon tax versus a cap n' trade style system of carbon pricing.

North and South Korea. On November 28th US/South Korea military exercises began and China called for a resumption of stalled six party talks while the North and South Korean governments exchanged verbal insults. I refer to my original post on the matter entitled; "That's not good."

Haiti's Election. Held on November 28th the results are not expected for a couple of days. However it immediately apparent that the election was an utter shambles. With almost 10% of the countries electorate having been killed or incapacitated through illness, another 20% being displaced and no real functioning state to speak of it was almost impossible to tell who was eligible to vote and where. That meant that a lot of people were unable to vote while others took advantage of the chaos to vote multiple times. As a result whoever wins will have little credibility with voters and the RNDP are already accusing the USA of rigging the election to install Jude Celestin as a puppet president. This is a shame because if the Americans had actually gone to the trouble of rigging Haiti's election it would be much less chaotic then this.

Wikileaks. Starting on November 28th the whistleblower website, Wikileaks, is planning to release 250,000 diplomatic cables between the US government and their embassies overseas. These are rumoured to include some very sensitive information such as what US diplomats really think of foreign diplomats and governments. Although I've only been able to read the 220 documents that have been posted on the website so far which contain nothing really juicy it's obvious that these documents are much more serious then the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs. For example 08STATE116392 explains exactly what sort of intelligence US diplomats are expected to gather on the Palestinians and the Israel/Palestine peace talks. Therefore I'm worried about how explosive documents released during the COP16 will be. I'm especially worried because Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, is currently being investigated by the Swedish authorities over some less then credible allegations of rape. That means that even by simple provocation alone the Swedish Monarchy has great influence over what Wikileaks will publish and when.

Iran Bombings. On November 29th Iran had one of it's nuclear scientists killed and another seriously injured in two seperate bomb attacks. Almost automatically Iran has blamed these attacks on US and Israeli intelligence agencies. Although I haven't looked at it in great detail the attacks are probably the work of Baluchistan separatists operating with intelligence support from either Britain, Israel or Saudi Arabia. Given the proximity to the COP16 and the Wikileaks story Britain or Saudi Arabia are the most likely suspects.

Student Protests. On November 30th UK students plan to hold a third day of protest against increases to university tuition fees. Incredibly disrespectfully they are calling this protests "N30." This name should sound familiar to a lot of people because the original N30 protests were an important event in modern history. On November 30th 1999 the World Trade Organisation held it's summit in Seattle, USA. What followed was three days of unprecedented protest and rioting that saw the public unveiling of the anti-capitalist/anti-globalisation movement. By tricking the students into holding a large and possibly violent demonstration under the N30 banner Britain is trying to send the false message to the COP16 that the public will not tolerate globalised summits. So I can only apologise for the protesters in advance. After all they are just students.

Ravi Gurumurthy. As a director of the Notting Hill Housing Group Gurumurthy has played a key role in the troubles I've been having over the last year. He is also the head of strategy on climate change for the British government. I've not checked to see if he's actually attending the COP16 but if he is he's only there to draw attention to himself. Therefore if you're not prepared to actually punch him in the face he's best ignored.

Britain's Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). Technically old news but I missed it at the time. Britain's CSR changed the way that revenue from something called the Crown Estate is distributed. Basically the Crown Estate is all non-privately owned land in the UK including the sea bed in UK territorial waters. Previously money generated by this land was paid to something called the Civil List which distributed it between minor Royals, Dukes, Lords, Bishops etc. The CSR changed that and now the money is paid directly to the Queen's personal fortune. Short version; if Britain builds off-shore wind turbines the Queen will make about £800million. So while I don't think the British delegation's position on global warming has changed dramatically at COP16 I expect them to be very big on wind.

Now I hope everyone's stocked up on aspirin, paracetamol and ibuprofen because I feel more then one headache coming on.