(((Boy, now THERE's a headline for the later part of 2007.
OPEC versus climate change. Well, at least they've got the spare cash.)))
(((Check out these petrocrats crowding up the mike to rehearse their new brand of rhetoric.)))
Link: Planet Ark : OPEC Summit to Back Fight Against Climate Change .
OPEC Summit to Back Fight Against Climate Change
SAUDI ARABIA (((where else?))) : November 19, 2007
"RIYADH - OPEC will back the fight against global warming and affirm its commitment to stable oil prices when its heads of state meeting ends on Sunday, but only Saudi Arabia has so far pledged cash for climate change research.
"Saudi King Abdullah said on Saturday the world's top oil exporter would give US$300 million for environmental research, but other leaders have yet to make similar promises. "We are not committing anything. We don't know what the proposal is," Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil said. "As far as I am aware, nobody else has committed anything either." (((Hey guess what: Algeria isn't bulletproof against changes in the atmosphere.)))
Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa said on Sunday the world's richest nations should pay for programmes to protect the environment in the world's poorest countries. He proposed a special tax on oil-consuming nations to pay for environmental protection measures elsewhere, with OPEC coordinating spending.
((("OPEC: The Green Tax Bureau South Americans Can Trust")))"It annoys us a bit, all this moralising 'don't cut down your trees' from the first world, when they've already done it," Correa told a press conference in Riyadh.
(((Hey yeah.)))"If Europe wants to breathe pure air from Amazon countries then the Amazon countries shouldn't have to pay for it." (((("Pay up or choke, Brussels. It's the new tropicalia greenmail.")))
According to a draft final communique read by phone by an OPEC delegate, the group will say it "shares the international community's concern that climate change is a long-term challenge" and seeks "stability of global energy markets". ((("OPEC: Organization for Pulverizing Everybody's Climate.")))
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday he expected the summit to affirm commitment to "stable and competitive" oil prices, and warned that prices, already near US$100 per barrel, could double if the United States attacks his ally Iran over its disputed nuclear programme. "If the United States is crazy enough to attack Iran or commit aggression against Venezuela ... oil would not be US$100 but US$200," Chavez told heads of state including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Saudi capital Riyadh....
(((Remember the halcyon days of the Washington Consensus, when people used to say that Kyoto cost a lot of money?)))
