Comments Aubrey Meyer has made

C&C Animation Links

The feedback on these animations has been very heartening and encouraging. "Awesome" "Very scary" and from a colleague in the US media, "better than anything El Gore has ever done" . . .

However, because some people have reported difficulty with the links, I have reposted the animation for pc and for mac at: -

http://www.gci.org.uk/Animations/BENN_C&C_Animation.e ...

http://www.gci.org.uk/Animations/BENN_C&C_Animation.h ... On The Bali meeting, and the lessons learned posted 1 year, 11 months ago 11 Responses

Al Gore Espouses C&C?

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
Is it Al Gore espousing C&C?

http://www.gci.org.uk/briefings/Gore_C&C_Live_Earth.p ... [this link has the images referred to in the comments below].

Words and numbers full of wonder . . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Al Gore, "Moving Beyond Kyoto" - Is he simply reinventing UNFCCC?

As Satchmo told Danny Kaye about Joseph Haydn, "well let'im c'mout."

So - citing the bill of rights, Gore's international model of engagement is stated thus: - " . . . . we should demand that the United States join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy Earth." So, at last - Gore catches up with UNFCCC.

He attempts to reinvent UNFCCC without acknowledging it, then jams in a couple of targets. At best, his proposition could be seen as a next-play on UNFCCC, but it is completely unjustified and way short of UNFCCC compliance. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find any reference to the UN treaty in his "An Inconvenient Truth". Kyoto is there, as is the Montreal Protocol, both prominently so.

UNFCCC established the standard for a full term international agreement in 1992. C&C met this standard over ten years ago. Gore is still nowhere near it; but, yes, he could from here attempt to reinvent C&C.

What is the `methodology' whereby the Gore treaty formulation is calculated? The Contraction and Convergence (C&C) model is in effect a bill of rights - equal under the limits that save us and using the C&C model, the graphic below plots Gore's 90% cut in the developed countries in the same period that there is a global reduction of 50% under a ppm concentration limit and source:sink ratio that might yet save us.

Is this Contraction and Convergence (C&C) or not? [Encouraging hint - you are doing better than the UK Government]. In fact Al Gore says many good and necessary things. However, when previously asked about C&C he said, "I don't buy it!" OK, so if he doesn't', does what he calls for in the international treaty mean something different and something different from what is shown in the graphic? If it is not C&C that he buys, what is it?

Gore writes fascinating polemics entitled, "The Assault on Reason." In the editorial in the New York Times [see the end] he writes, "The United States and the American people have provided moral leadership for the world. Establishing the Bill of Rights, framing democracy in the Constitution, defeating fascism in World War II, toppling Communism and landing on the moon -- all were the result of American leadership."

This is heady stuff, yet how is it that his rejection of C&C has not actually become part of the assault on reason? And this assault must have reason, yet this reason is never stated. Moreover, his `different' climate treaty formulation must have a reason but it isn't stated either. So while he condemns the assault on reason, he espouses it by remaining with the assault on C&C and without providing an alternative explanation.

Is he just selling more leadership by rhetoric without reason? Why is he hidin'? Let'im c'mout! Leadership this ain't. Life under limits but without reason is already becoming very unreasonable and it is worsening. Historic grievances are already measurably aggravated by climate change and the worsening global upstairs downstairs lessens the chances of agreement.

Mr Gore could consider that the 90% cut by the Developed Countries he calls for should be achieved sooner in the timeframe of the 50% cut globally that is the reciprocal. This would be politically more attractive to the Developing Countries now included by logic in the global carbon market that he also urges for the next treaty. Accelerating convergence would be seen to account a little more intelligently for the issue of `historic responsibilities for emissions', around which issue so much obstruction to progress has now accumulated. For example, intelligently using and citing C&C, the Greater London Authority now calls for full convergence in the same global contraction integral by 2030. In this case the arithmetic looks like this: -

C&C is a reasonable and numerate way of calculating for consensus and global agreement. To help this, numerous permutations of C&C under different stabilisation scenarios with different rates of convergence [printed images from the APPGCC DVD] are downloadable: - http://www.gci.org.uk/APGCC/test_booklet.pdf

C&C itself [as a whole] is the `numeraire' or the relevant unit of measurement. It was conceived in the defence of reason, civilization and survival. Al Gore will have matured when he goes to this beyond mere words and numbers full of wonder. He doesn't have to `buy-it' - it has been freely available to him and anyone else for well over ten years free of cost. He's said what he counts for and just needs to say what he counts with.

His contribution has improved since he monkey-wrenched the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. At that time he demanded the EC halve its commitments just to get him into the negotiating room. This was to make a deal that, because it excluded developing countries, was dead-on-departure as far as the US Senate was concerned. C&C overcame that and was live at COP-3. Gore knew all this then and kept his head down. It is still true now and I do know that the Chairman of the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change gave a copy of the APPGCC C&C DVD ["The Incontestable Truth"] to Al Gore when he came to `recruit trainees' at event hosted by the Cambridge Programme for Industry earlier this year. What happened? "The great man paled and changed the subject." Gore also went to the management to urge that the journalist from the Sunday Independent be removed because that journalist had been at Kyoto, had witnessed Gore's performance then and wanted to talk about it!

The constructive response to Gore's half-baked proposition would be for developing countries (with others) to call for C&C. It is the UNFCCC-compliant framework that they have asked for over the years and exceeds his aspiration by far. We need a treaty formed by North-South consensus, with Americans leading the way on emissions reduction and the rest following with heir "differentiated commitments".On An editorial in the NYT posted 2 years, 4 months ago 10 Responses

Contraction and Convergence

As the author of "Contraction and Convergence" [C&C], I register that C&C is a framework before it is a market.

The definition statement for C&C is here: -
http://www.gci.org.uk/briefings/ICE.pdf

General referencing for the C&C provenance is here: -
http://www.gci.org.uk/links/detail.pdf

A context animation is here: -
http://www.gci.org.uk/images/CandC_model_context_animatio ...
[Please note: - Touch buttons to advances within scenes and . . . touch logos to advance between scenes].

A heuristic animation of C&C and risk is here [large file - overnight download]: -
http://www.gci.org.uk/images/Contraction_and_Convergence_ ...

The interviews with many eminent spokespersons commenting C&C on the DVD - The Incontestable Truth - distributed by the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change [who commissioned it] is here [large file - overnight download]: -
http://www.gci.org.uk/images/Contraction_and_Convergence_ ...

Alternatively, copies of the DVD are available on request for 10.00GBP - name and postal address are required for this.
On It runs together several distinct things posted 2 years, 6 months ago 7 Responses