Kevin’s Eleven in Copenhagen
December 10, 2009
The IPA’s man in Copenhagen – Tim Wilson – tells me he keeps bumping into Australian bureaucrats. Maybe that’s because the official Australian delegation is 114 people – here’s the list.
By comparison, the Americans have sent 195 people and the British 71. Tim counted Kevin Rudd is taking to Copenhagen:
- 11 personal staff
- a personal photographer
- an ‘Ambassador for Climate Change’ AND a ‘Special Envoy for Climate Change’ (what’s the difference?)
- a ‘Political Advisor’ from the Department of Climate Change! (Yep – I’m serious – that’s what they call themselves.)
No wonder he needs a ‘Transport Liaison Officer’, an ‘Accommodation Liaison Officer’, and a ‘Passport / Baggage Liaison Officer’. And 7 media advisors!
Here’s Tim’s latest video blog direct from Copenhagen he sent overnight. And on Tuesday the Wall Street Journal editorial covered Copenhagen and Climategate. And this piece from Bloomberg last week is why I’m cynical about merchant bankers trading ‘carbon credits’.
Everyone’s talking about nuclear power. Here’s a quick summary in the Washington Post from a few weeks ago. This is what the IPA said in 2005 about the politics of nuclear power.
Jeremy Clarkson always provokes a reaction – here’s an interesting (and hostile) profile from last month’s Prospect Magazine.
And from the Nanny State files:
- in Britain, on Monday, a government minister wanted to ban shops selling pink toys for girls
- also in Britain they banned a woman in September from looking after her friend’s children
- and here in Australia last weekend there was talk about fining people who don’t walk their dogs every day.
The Claremont Review of Books from California is some of my favourite reading. Here’s their Christmas Reading Guide – it’s a great list.
This is what IPA staff have been writing about this week: In The Age on Tuesday, Julie Novak looked at the dire fiscal record of the Victorian Government. In Online Opinion last Wednesday, Richard Allsop asked politicians to stop picking on pokies.
And have you missed some Liberty Sessions? Here’s the videos of the talks on John Locke, and Karl Popper. And all the videos from the IPA’s Climate Change conference are now on our website – you can see the presentations by Terry McCrann, Richard Tol, Christopher Monckton, Alan Oxley, Brian Fisher, and Alan Moran.
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