From the GWPF
Green Agenda Kicked Into UN Black Hole
The climate change conference in Cancún has ended with failure to set a target date for the reduction of carbon emissions. The Mexican hosts persuaded 192 out of 193 countries to accept the “Cancún agreement” by the simple trick of aiming for the lowest common denominator — the agreement was secured by deferring decisions on all of the most contentious issues. –Ben Webster, The Times, 13 December 2010
Under the new Cancun deal, each country will be allowed to offer whatever it wishes to pledge for emission reductions on its own volition. There shall be no cumulative target to reach. No one shall ask if the individual targets are collectively adequate or not. The new regime will only check if the pledges have been acted upon or not. Rich countries, including the US, will offer emission reduction targets and others, such as India, will offer their mitigation actions as part of a new deal which can be said to be defined by the bottoms up approach. Under the agreement India will get off easy. Because it let others off easy as well. –Nitin Sethi, The Economic Times of India, 12 December 2010
That is the big news out of Cancun; the green agenda has fallen into a UN black hole and for now at least it cannot get out. The “success” of Cancun is a best case scenario from the skeptic’s point of view. The cost of funding endless UN gabfests in exotic tourist locations (next up: South Africa in 2012) is trivial compared to the cost of any serious efforts to deal with carbon emissions on the scale current scientific theory suggests would be needed. Bureaucrats will dance, journalists will spin and carbon will spew, and the greens will be unable to escape this dysfunctional UN process for years and maybe decades to come. –Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest, 12 December 2010
A new “green fund” to help poor countries adapt to the effects of global warming formed the centrepiece of a small package of measures on climate change agreed at the Cancún conference, which finished on Saturday. But although governments have agreed on the form of the fund, which should eventually supply $100bn a year to developing countries, the question of how the money for it will be raised has still not been resolved. –Fiona Harvey, Financial Times, 12 December 2010
Is there anybody on planet earth who thinks that $100 billion is going to be paid? –Walter Russell Mead,The American Interest, 12 December 2010
When it comes to UN climate conferences, I am constantly flabbergasted by the breathless naivety and forced optimism of certain politicians and environmental reporters, not to mention of green activists. It is as if Voltaire’s very own Dr. Pangloss had set sail to Cancún with Candide. –Philip Stott,The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 12 December 2010
UK businesses are facing a “perfect storm” from 2012 when they will be hit by a doubling in their energy bills at the same time as the UK government’s controversial “carbon tax”. —Nathalie Thomas,Scotland on Sunday, 12 December 2010
Powerfuel, which is developing the UK’s first commercial scale clean coal power plant, has gone into administration because of the crippling cost of the project. The administration is a blow for CCS technology, which the UK and EU see as vital to meeting targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions. –Andrew Bounds,Financial Times, 11 December 2010
Cancun Has Solidified Deadlock Over Post-Kyoto Treaty
The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 11 December 2010
The UN climate summit shows that there is no prospect whatever for a global and legally binding climate treaty.
All that the Cancun summit has done is to bless, formally, the Copenhagen accord, and roll it forward for another year.
Despite all the usual rhetoric by politicians and campaigners, the fact remains that yet another attempt has failed to reach a legally binding agreement.
The summit has postponed, once again, all real decisions and has solidified the international deadlock. What little that was agreed was without substance and is not binding in any case.
No other country has been as foolish as Britain to enact extremely aggressive and completely unrealistic climate targets. For the UK, to keep going it alone is not merely suicidal but pointless.
Nor does it make sense to make British industry – and manufacturing in particular – even more uncompetitive, or to drive it overseas, by gratuitously driving up energy costs.
The Government should now suspend its unilateral and extremely costly climate targets until such time as all other major nations have signed up to the same course.
Dr Benny Peiser
Director, The Global Warming Policy Foundation
The interesting think is that Cancun has barely if at all made any appearance on the BBC news agenda.
Its tempting to say this is significant and the BBC is reassessing its position on so called global warming and AGW.
But equally they may have wanted to keep the whole thing out of the limelight whilst much of northern Britain is under some of the biggest earliest snow for years.
One thing they all agree on was no one left with a sunburn.
Not according to the UK Daily Telegraph’s Geoffrey Lean who was given a full page on P23 of the 11/12/2010 and I quote “Less than a day after the international summit in Cancun hit deadlock, a breakthrough agreement was reached amid scenes of tearful jubilation”
I don’t understand why this paper keeps giving this lot so much copy space. Chris Booker gets a decent amount but Lean and Gray are getting far too much space for their left-leaning diatribes for my liking.
Does the Telegraph have a Grauniad mole?
It seems to me that the the US can label much of its foreign aid as Climate Disruption Reparation. That way it can keep going to the African governments and if it doesn’t percolate down to the farmers, then nothing has changed, except the US gets international brownie points.
Next year I am not going to work, why should I ? My tax money goes into a black hole, I Need an operation, but have been told that on national health ( UK ) there is a 2 year waiting list, but if I want to pay 18,000 pounds they can do it next week.
If I go on unemployment I will after 20 years get back what I have payed in, so I am selling up and buying a small yacht and goodbye England,
the Government is going to raise 2.9 billion from tripling University fees, but they are giving 2.9 billion to Africian countries to buy windmills and Mercedes cars for the Africian politicians, I am geting out while the pound still has a little value.
As the UK paints it’s self into a carbon corner, one has to wonder if the minister for Climate Change ever speaks to the minister responsible for UK Plc competitiveness?
The level of incompetence displayed by our ruling class leaves me gob-smacked.
I can’t help but notice the IPCC is going further south to South Africa. I guess the best chance of making sure the winter doesn’t find you in late November and early December is to go to a place where it leaving spring and going into summer in those months.
Alan Chappell says:
December 13, 2010 at 5:37 am
If you’re getting out by boat, head downunder and seek assylum from the lunatic UK politicians.
Australian immigration camps are so full, new entrants are being accomodated in motels, you’ll be well looked after, free medical so you can get that op as well.
My feelings exactly Benny. If David Clegeron would answer my emails directly, I would say exactly the same thing, as I am a citizen and a business man subject to the triple wammy of his/their energy tax policies and his desire to see the countryside littered with his father-in-laws and other chums grant absorbing windmills.
Meanwhile I am selfishly off on holiday in that temperate country of Australia, to see my daughter before the UK makes even that indulgence so extraordinarily expensive through aviation surcharges. I offer my sincere apologise to all of you in the States suffering yet another bout of extreme “Climate Disruption” along with all those at home who, I believe are about to experience yet another period of unseasonal bitterly cold weather. If any one out there is listening, including you David, not that s**t head in 10 Downing Street, but my brother blessed with the same name, please ensure that our 94 year old mother and my 90 year old father in law keep their heating on over this period and sod to the cost.
AleaJactaEst says:
December 13, 2010 at 5:26 am
‘I don’t understand why this paper keeps giving this lot so much copy space. Chris Booker gets a decent amount but Lean and Gray are getting far too much space for their left-leaning diatribes for my liking.’
I think it’s called hedging your bets.
For UN Cancun documents and reports see:
United Nations Climate Change Conference Cancun – COP 16 / CMP 6
http://unfccc.int/2860.php
The BBC did their usual pieces on Cancun. They invited the WWF to their news bulletin and gave him a relatively big slot to espouse their usual crap and then put several articles on their web site for the clowns Black et al to get their say.
This Cancun summit was barely covered by any media outlets here in N america. The agreement itself was not posted on the net like Coopehagen’s was last year, at least I have not been able to find it. This was a secret meeting compared to Copenhagen.
The fact that there has been a climate fund established is bad news. This money will be used by the UN to build new offices and biuildings in developing countries in order to ‘control’ the spending of the climate fund. This is a new governing body no doubt. And of course the countries receiveng the climate money will use it to erect a few wind turbines, because they know tubines makes the lefty media feel all warm and fuzzy when they seee them; while also using the climate funding to buy Chinese built Kalashnikov assault rifles at $5 each. The UN will be arming the developing world under the guise of climate justice. Gross.
Re: “Green agenda kicked into black hole.”
And I hope it never escapes.
Let the UK be the example for the rest of the world on how dumb policy cripples your country’s economic strength.
Just like the PIGS can show the rest of the world what happens when you spend beyond your means.
At least these governments are good for something – even if it is just a lesson for the rest of the governments on how NOT to run your country.
OT – The McShane & Wyner discussion is now available at the Annals of Applied Statistics: http://www.imstat.org/aoas/next_issue.html
There is a lot of fascinating material to read there – the original paper, criticisms from the Hockey Team, support from others and, what seems to me at least, a brilliant rejoinder from McShane and Wyner.
The BBC has had Cancun on the front page of its website for a few days.
Richard Black is trying his best to put lipstick on a pig – the comments on his blog are in the majority of being skeptic.
There is great wailing and gnashing of teeth over at the BBC.
Judging by the comments, The Economist has had a rather negative response to its green issue (with a farmer with a divers helmet on the front cover – the diver’s helmet presumably providing breathable air rather than all that toxic CO2 – yikes so SCARY).
http://www.economist.com/node/17575027/comments?sort=recommend#sort-comments
The tide has definitely turned.
(news item: $100 billion fund created to aid developing countries, source of funds to yet to be determined)
I hereby announce the creation of a fund which will pay every poster on Watt’s Up With That a Million dollars a year! I think everyone will be with me on that!!!
Now where will the money come from? Oh, that’s not important, who needs to plan that far ahead? Let’s just cheer what a good agreement we have made!!!! It’ll all work out if we just believe hard enough, right?
fly, tinkerbell, fly!!!
Sadly Frosty, it is not incompetence, it is treason.
Frosty says:
December 13, 2010 at 5:43 am
As the UK paints it’s self into a carbon corner, one has to wonder if the minister for Climate Change ever speaks to the minister responsible for UK Plc competitiveness?
The level of incompetence displayed by our ruling class leaves me gob-smacked.
As a loyal Daily (and Sunday) Telegraph reader I must take issue with AleaJactaEst (whatever that means), Geoffrey Lean is just one of many columnists who write for DT. He is entitled to his opinion as are all other the others. I suggest you read Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph, and others who have a different opinion to Lean’s, and also the Letters page where the overwhelming number of correspondents are on the non-warmist side!
key thing is not to get worn down by the bureaucratic machine, which will keep grinding on as long as there are conferences to go to, jobs to be had, feelings of superiority to dwell in, and power of any kind to exercise.
Relax, and let the continuing snowfall work its wonders with the electorate, who while acknowledging that weather isn’t climate, are increasingly realising they’ve been “had”
Soon enough, the politicians will run for cover…. (I hope)
You can’t say that no real progress came out of Cancun – that ban on DHMO is closer to reality than ever, thanks to all the signatories to the petition that was circulated.
As this sinks in it will, unnoticed, remove an obstacle to the writing, publication, and acceptance of non-warmist climate science. As long as there was a realistic prospect of a treaty, many climatologists, gatekeepers, and reporters were intent on not torpedoing its chances that they suppressed and marginalized dissent. Now, not so much, and there will be less pressure to stay On Message.
Anthea Collins says:
December 13, 2010 at 7:02 am
Alea Jacta Est – The Die Is Cast – read your Asterix The Gaul.
The D/S Telegraph has always been a right leaning paper with editorials & leads to match. Only very recently, certainly only in the last two or three years, have column inches in the news sections been dedicated to the warmest propaganda I would expect to see in the Guardian or on the BBC website with little balanced reporting from those who see through the green miasma.
Booker gets a good slot every week at the rear but is currently being swamped with “point of view” from CAGW which is out of character for the journal I once knew and loved.
If these inches are as you say an opinion of the journalist they should be in the editorials not in dedicated inches as “news” which implies factual correctness.
Lean makes his beliefs well known in his missives and simply does not “report” any other side of the argument.
It is terrible that we must wish for prolonged cold weather, as it causes poverty, misery, and deaths. Yet the alternative is worse, because of the bizarre politics of our time. Only repeated bouts of unseasonable cold will slowly turn the CAGW ship of fools on to a more human-friendly course.
Record cold in in NA, Europe, and especially Cancun has probably done more good than all of the clear scientific evidence the CAGW is not happening.
The BBC usually refers to WWF (re: Stephen Richards, 06:09am) as an “independent charity”. It’s a charity only because it’s registered with the UK’s Charity Commission and not because it’s funded by pennies put in collecting cans, and the reference to “independent” is to imply that it’s impartial, which we all know it certainly isn’t.
Sadly, I see little hope for the economic future of the UK in the actions and statements of any of the current political crop (I very nearly mis-spelt ‘crop’!) who seem to think that the pre WWII tactic that wrecked Chamberlain – appeasement – is the sensible way to deal with the petty but vicious dictators of the world such as Mugabe and is, sadly, merely an incredibly silly way to wreak further damage upon the long-suffering taxpayer without affecting the climate one tiny iota.
As a Kiwi of English-Scots extraction, I would love to see the ‘Mother Country’ do something at least a little intelligent to persuade people like me to stay on and assist, in our own small way, with an economic recovery from the depredations of the Banksters, but it seems that the UK establishment has learned nothing since the long-ago bursting of the South Sea Island Bubble.
I have reached the age where extremely cold weather in the UK is more than a little frightening; the prospect of this allied with huge rises in the costs of energy plus shortages in supply, merely to fulfil the lunatic goals of ‘carbon reduction’ and to line the pockets of discredited regimes for the lie of ‘climate compensation’ from Vanuatu to Zimbabwe are enough to persuade me that the time for my wife and I to return to the Antipodes is fast approaching.
wws 6.54
That is pathetic-what good is a million dollars 🙂
Can you please refine your scheme so we have at least 10 million each? I don’t care how it’s done, that’s not my department.
Tonyb
We Brits will sign any document, support any cause, follow any daydream, whatever the cost to the life, limb or purse of the people, provided it is in a “good” cause. That is why we are in the EU, Afganistan, Irish Banks (and, in due course, Greek, Portugese, Spanish, etc, banks), Rogue States (Overseas “development”), 2012 Olympic Games and, of course, the daddy of them all, Climate madness; none of which we can afford. Only when the USA pulls the plug on this UN driven bandwagon will the UK (and most of the rest) see sense.
I’m afraid the Daily Telegraph has lost me as a reader some time ago..it has gone rediculously CAGW with many days coverage each week…I still get the Sunday Telegraph but ONLY for Christopher Booker and HE is a voice in the wilderness as far as the MSM is concerned…it really needs a few writers to list all those IPCC forecasts that have Not come to pass..e.g. continuous rising temps with C02…rising sea levels…increases in hurricanes…all arctic ice gone in summer……the trouble is the goal posts are constantly moved e,g now snow is caused by ‘climate change’ of course here in the UK we have a particularly stupid ‘grandstanding’ government trying to show how green they are and probably going to run us out of money and almost certainly energy supplies in the process!
$100 bill to the UN’s Brutal Dictator Support Fund? That’s an accomplishment. Who says nothing gets done at the conferences? Will they take Carbon Credits as payment?
This article explains all
http://landshape.org/enm/copenhagen-a-failure-think-again/
IF there is a climate regime change to cooling global mean temps, the Arctic sea ice heads upwards towards the 1979-2000 average and storm intensity decreases. What then? Will more conferences be held? Will Mann and Jones et. al. continue to binge on public funds? We live in interesting times.
I read the comments and it was utterly unbelievable. Over 90% harshly sceptical of Cancun, IPCC, UN and AGW.
“Will they take Carbon Credits as payment?”
Or Calif. IOU’s?
Alexander K says:
December 13, 2010 at 8:26 am
…enough to persuade me that the time for my wife and I to return to the Antipodes is fast approaching.
We’re with you on that. Pity the NZD/GBP is so pitiful at present. Really need it back closer to 3:1 to make the economics stack up.
Durban is a truly excellent next meeting place for the AGW cult, as it is also a truly excellent place to get mugged.
A good mugging is one of the few sure cures for woolly minded liberals.
If they go even further south the might fall off Antarctica.
Alexander K says: December 13, 2010 at 8:26 am
Sadly, I see little hope for the economic future of the UK in the actions and statements of any of the current political —–I have reached the age where extremely cold weather in the UK is more than a little frightening; the prospect of this allied with huge rises in the costs of energy plus shortages in supply, merely to fulfil the lunatic goals of ‘carbon reduction’ and to line the pockets of discredited regimes for the lie of ‘climate compensation’ from Vanuatu to Zimbabwe are enough to persuade me that the time for my wife and I to return to the Antipodes is fast approaching.
——————————————————————————–
Alexander K. I’m sad to tell you that it is not much better here in N.Z. We just copy England (blindly) – just 5 years behind that’s all. Sorry to disappoint you.
Douglas
Here’s Booker’s column about Cancun and what we poor Brits are going to have to cough up to put windmills on the high veldt:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8196410/Student-fee-savings-will-fund-windmills-in-Africa.html
We’re taking 2.9 billion pounds out of education and putting a strangely similar amount into Huhne’s (Minister for Climate Change and Energy, in that order) crackpot schemes.
We are about to enter the “deep freeze” of another bitterly cold winter, with soaring energy demands such have never been encountered before, and our ‘Energy Minister’ is talking blithely about closing coal and nuclear power generating plants in order to meet some fatuous EUSSR demand!
I despair, I really do.
A major objective of COP16 was accomplished.
There’s enough work left to do to justify COP17.
For next year’s venue, I think the attendees should bear witness to all the good this climate fund can accomplish, by seeing up close the downtrodden destitute in their developing country, those who have been so brutalized by the developed nations’ selfish use of fossil fuels and resultant deliberate decimation and disruption of Earth’s climate.
Do they have enough four star hotels to accommodate all the attendees in Venezuela?
Mexican Leaders Save UN Climate Talks By Forging Broad Deal
The International Agency (2010) is transitioning from projecting future cornucopia steadily increasing crude oil production.In its World Energy Outlook 2010, IEA now recognizes that crude oil production reached a maximum in 2006. IEA now projects FLAT crude oil production – with all growt coming from natural gas liquids etc.
Now that these Cancun agreements have been achieved, and IEA has de facto acknowledged “Peak Oil”, could the international community deign to consider the rapidly looming issue of rapidly declining light oil exports from the few remaining oil exporting countries?
See: Peak Oil Versus Peak Net Exports–Which Should We Be More Concerned About?
The Oilwatch Monthly graphically depicts these oil and fuel trends.
Will we heed Robert Hirsch’s warnings in time?
One area of confusion for me – was the weather colder than historical records or was the climate colder than historical records?
I think we’d all should remember Monckton’s Missive #3…
If this green agenda has fallen ‘into a black hole’ ~ that’s perfect for it.
A black hole (when turned inside-out) brings with it, a whole bunch
of new energy. The greenies THRIVE in black holes, Guys.
C.L. Thorpe
The delegates at the climate change conference in Cancún expected to achieve nothing of any substance and in that respect it was a total success.
We also have ‘binned’ the Daily Telegraph. Now we might just buy the Sunday Telegraph for Booker (and Wogan!)(and Matt, of course). We became sick of the Warmist lefties; all the dolly birds writing tripe; all the ridiculous waste of newsprint and magazine paper with creepy, unshaven smirking young ‘men’,and all the ridiculously ‘dressed’ sulky-looking zombie-like ‘girls’. Also we became sick of the sheer quantity of unwanted advertising that came with it. Lean and Gray are ‘reporters’, but just feed opinionated garbage, and I want no more of it. We’ve sure cut down on our paper-recycling!
Douglas, since I became old enough to vote I realised that politicians of all colours are dodgy sods, no matter what country one happens to live in – my Dad used to warn me that “voting for the buggers only encourages ’em to think that you take them seriously” and while I know some of the NZ pollies are a bit strange, the extreme tribalism of politics here in the UK is like a rerun of NZ in the 1950s, but on steroids, and the sense of absolute entitlement of the political class (which led to the Parliamentary expenses fiasco) is beyond belief.
The climate in the UK makes cheap energy vital for survival – here in the South-East in suburban London , the weather is not too different from the lower North Island until the Winter turns nasty; when that happens, central heating is no longer a luxury but an essential. Anywhere with North in it in the UK will not be a good place to be living in during the coming Big Freeze that most newspapers are currently banging on about. Somwhere in the Bay of Islands looks good to us right now!
Considering NZ Greenism, that may be a frying pan/fire choice politically … but the actual climate is likely to be more survivable! In the meantime, here’s a coping mechanism: you can save up to 40% on heating/cooling costs by putting a small fan in your largest heated room(s), directed upwards if designed for that (special bearings in vertical fans), or just aimed at a deflector sending the air up the corner. Mixing cool floor air and heated ceiling air makes for a far more comfortable air temperature, and means not having to ‘fill’ the house from top-down. (The original design I saw in a Homes mag used built-in hollow columns in corners with small internal fans, but the DIY version works fine.)
R. Hirsch;
There have always been 50 yrs of recoverable reserves, and always will be. That’s the “tipping point” economically which stimulates new exploration or adjusts prices to bring old pricier reserves back into “recoverable” stocks.
But the mechanism has been broken. Frac gas will last centuries, and is gawdawful cheap to extract. Everywhere.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/1108/opinions-steve-forbes-fact-comment-energy-crisis-over.html
Hence the ~66% drop in gas prices in the last year or two, and falling. (I gather the UK has virtuously locked itself in to old pricing for some time, etc., but this is an “earthquake” level change, and will fungibly defeat even the UK Greenie mass energy suicide efforts.)
Sorry!
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=556625&p=1
An interesting and informative article by Phyllis Schlafly of INVESTORS .COM as posted on ICECAP
Amusing lyrics by “gator” in the comments:
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2010/12/revkin-on-cancun-climate-hoax-fest.html
I’m Beginning to be Annoyed by Gringos!
I’m beginning to be annoyed by gringos
Everywhere I go;
Take a look in the tiki bar, drinking once again
With bloodshot eyes and Hawaiian shirts aglow.
I’m beginning to be annoyed by gringos,
Drunks in every bar, But the sorriest sight to see, the UN IPCC
On the damn dance floor.
A pair of rude yahoos both wearing patent white shoes
trying to buy Spanish Fly again;
Tightwads that will flock in here round the clock
and they treat tipping as a sin;
And cannot wait for the buffet to open once again.
I’m beginning to be annoyed by gringos
Everywhere I go;
There are dozens in each hotel, none would be realy swell,
These nerdy pseudoscientists really blow.
I’m beginning to be annoyed by gringos;
dressed for ole Wal-mart,
And the hope to which we cling is that next year will be Beijing
And they’ll soon depart.