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UN sings, dances and digs itself into a climate hole over its Ezra Levant veto

By Peter Foster

He is Nick Nuttall, head of communications for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, which is about to hold yet another cast-of-thousands climate conference, this time in Marrakech.

Nuttall, a former Environment and Technology Correspondent for The Times of London, was interviewed about his decision by Carol Off on the CBC’s As It Happens.

Nuttall said that he had looked at Rebel Media’s website, and it seemed to be just a platform for this chap Ezra, “I can’t remember his surname. I don’t live in Canada so I don’t know.” He said they got all sorts of application from people who “purport” to be journalists with “axes to grind.” He said that the Rebel Media website “was pushing a particular point of view. It made me wonder how it was funded, who backs it.”

Thus he slimily and typically implied that Levant might just be one of those fronts for the fossil fuel industry so beloved of climate fanatics. But while Levant has certainly stoutly defended Canada’s “Ethical Oil,” and fracking, he doesn’t seem to front for anybody’s opinions but his own.

Carol Off soon had Nuttall in a hole, whereupon he proceeded to keep digging. He declared that Rebel Media was all “Anti-refugee, anti-climate, anti this, anti that, and I just didn’t think it was appropriate in terms of better understanding of the public in terms of climate issues.” It didn’t represent “balanced reporting.”

So, Off suggested calmly, Levant was being rejected because Nuttall didn’t like his point of view?

Oh no, writhed the UN flack. It was just that Levant’s view was so “personal.” Off hit him with the clip of journalists breaking into applause when agreement was reached at the last UN conference in Paris. Didn’t that indicate bias?

Nuttall continued desperately to sing, dance and dig. Maybe they did have “a moment of cheering,” he admitted, but they weren’t going to go back to their desks and “become zombies in favour of some soft, beautiful, world of climate change.” Whatever that meant. He claimed those journalists would hold governments to account, but he clearly meant hold them to account for following the UN agenda, not questioning it.

Off noted that Levant also held governments to account, whereupon Nuttall attempted to draw her into condemnation of the feisty broadcaster. Off, to her credit, was having none of it.

Nuttall then waffled on about the complexity of the world, and the sad state of investigative journalism, before suggesting that he didn’t think Levant was being “helpful.”

Off quietly pounced. So to be accredited to the UN you had to be seen as “helpful”?

Nuttall was now flailing, and referred to “inflammatory headlines” in which Levant had described climate change as a “crock of something or other.”

Off then asked him if turning Rebel Media hadn’t given Levant’s position more publicity.

Nuttall admitted that was one of the reasons he had been “reluctant” to be interviewed. He said that all sorts of people had told him how adept Levant was at using this kind of thing to “generate more money from crowdfunding to keep his website going. I hope those people who listen to this interview might think twice.”

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