Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In the run-up to the next-to-last big meeting of the UNFCCC (United Nations Frequent Climate Change Carnival) held in Copenhagen in 2009, I showed the following graph under the title “Why Copenhagen Will Achieve Nothing”
Figure 1. Carbon Emissions 1970-2006 by Region, and Global (red).
At that time it was clear that if the entire industrialized world cut back to 1980 emission levels, the climbing global emissions would scarcely change.
We are now coming up on the 17th UN Climate Change Carnival … so many clowns … so few circuses. This Carnival will be held in Durban, South Africa. How have CO2 emissions evolved since the Copenhagen Carnival? The latest figures are just in. Many electrons are being sacrificed in anguish about the numbers. “Record High 2010 Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Fossil-Fuel Combustion and Cement Manufacture Posted on CDIAC Site” shouts the headline from … well, that’s actually the self-referential headline on the CDIAC page itself. The CDIAC site says that the CDIAC site says that the CDIAC site says that a record …
Our friends at the UK Guardian newspaper enthuse that “Greenhouse gases rise by record amount.” Elsewhere the hype rises roughly proportionally with the distance from understanding what the numbers actually mean.
So how did we set this new record for carbon emissions? Figure 2 shows the information from the CDIAC site.
Figure 2. Changes in emissions from 2008 to 2010.
Hmmm …
In interpreting these numbers, it is useful to remember that carbon emissions measure what is generally called “development” —access to all of the good things that energy brings to the citizens of the country. Medicine, and food, and shelter from the sun, and heat when its cold, and transportation, and communications, and refrigeration, and farm tractors … the list is long. It’s development, and it runs on and is synonymous with energy.
So when the developed world asks India and China and Brazil and Indonesia to cut back on carbon emissions, we’re asking them to cut back on developing their country’s health and well-being and infrastructure and manufacturing … good luck selling them that line of what my step-grandpa used to call “bull-dust” …
Remember that the Kyoto Protocol expires soon. The dream of the carbon alarmists is to extend Kyoto. They want to see a new set of global binding restrictions on the increase in carbon emissions. That is to say, they want to see binding restrictions on the increase in energy use in the developing world.
Me, I think that is one of the most inhumane proposals ever floated. The great masses of India and China and Brazil and the rest are finally clawing their way out of abject poverty, and the carbon alarmists want to put binding restrictions on their access to energy?!? Get real! The good news is, they will never, never agree to that. That carbon is what is fueling, quite literally, their rise out of the mire.
In addition, consider that agreements like Kyoto keep energy use from increasing. That approach sounds reasonable, at first blush. And for the developed countries, that’s not much problem, our use is plenty high already. But for China and India and the like? It means we’re saying they can’t ever catch up with us. I can assure you that they see the rank hypocrisy in that approach.
So if Kyoto is thankfully dead in a global sense, what does that leave? Well, I hate to be crass and crude about it but the bad news is that just leaves …
Money. Euros. Greenbacks. Simoleons. Follow the Benjamins.
What will happen in Durban is that the developing countries will pull out all of the stops to convince the developed world to give them money. We’ll hear endless heart-wrenching stories of climate refugees and dying reefs and ecological zones being uprooted and moved polewards without so much as a by-your-leave. And not forgetting, people in polar bear suits. Can’t have a UN Climate Change Carnival without polar bears.
And if history is any guide, in all probability, the carbon activists and quiche-eaters and Eurotrash we have representing the developed world will be unable to bear the guilt of actually being developed, and they will cave in to the demands and promise some money some time down the line … and then, thankfully, most countries likely won’t honor the promises, leading to diplomatic complaints and strongly worded protests.
(As an aside … Dear US Congress-Persons … can we stop funding the IPCC? They’re giving away the taxpayers’ money and getting nothing in return. That’s supposed to be your job, could you at least get rid of the competition? — TIA, willis.)
I leave it to the reader to consider further implications of these numbers. The sun is shining. I’m going outside to build something.
w.
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Mr Eschenbach: you have a colourful and engaging way of highlighting the warmunist idiocracy.
Thank you! 🙂
Sounds a lot like Dr. Richard Muller’s stance.
I take it when the graph says “carbon emmissions” we’re tlking about “carbon dioxide emmissions”… A woman having a baby emits a little bundle of carbon-based life. Loads of carbon in that mewling puker.
And, the country emissions difference table look like anomalies for each country’s carbondioxide emmissions calculated against some sort of base line. That’s pretty sound climate science you got there!
Not to mention economics, and politics too! Well done Willis, always worth reading, please keep it up.
On re-reading, it is possible my previous comment might be construed as containing sarcasm, it did not.
The sun is shining here too. In Calgary, the temperature is 2 degrees Celsius. The bank of tall windows on the south side of my house is flooding me with free heat, My furnace is off, well sort of. While I was away the pilot flame thermocouple failed, and the heat was off for a number of days. The pipes in my basement slab are cold…so I have my furnace blaring away pumping some heat into the slab. Using gas I’m glad I have access to. Once that initial heating is done, it takes a tiny amount of furnace time to maintain it. What has this got to do with Climate Carnivals? The very ingenuity that results in my house being so easy to heat, is now something that gang of Durban Occupiers will apologize for. While China attempts emissions blackmail in the face of the same carnival. Meanwhile as I quiety reduce waste and emissions, this group exemplifies both. Jetting from all over the world to an exotic location to hash over a completely unproductive fantasy with a negative bottom line. How Quaint. I hope and pray that they fail miserably, and I really don’t like the tax dollars that went to pay for it.
Wealth transfer by any other name…
This just in: A refinery fire in Durban shortens supply of LNG to Mozambique. Hmmmm…..
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?hpf=1&a_id=112467
Of course there is no connection, is there…..?
Good post W.
I’m going outside too.
Should be clear already but just in case…could you add another line to the emissions graph, showing Global minus Industrialized? As if the Green Dream came true and the USA, Europe and Japan were to disappear from Earth.
Sure you are allowed to build something as long as you comply with the BANANA rule.
Thats Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.
Good luck
The climate alarmists want to to the developing world continue to cook their meals over dung fires instead of using gas or electricity. I wonder what the total carbon emissions are on those sources?
Peter Dunford says:
November 8, 2011 at 1:18 pm
No, it’s millions of tonnes of carbon. In general, the CDIAC figures are in tonnes of carbon (C) rather than carbon dioxide (CO2).
w.
Sorry, there was to to much in my previous comment…..
A few hundred billion a year is all they need. Aussies are probably up for it.
There are a couple of confusing items in the part you link to: “The latest figures are”
The first is:”Globally 9,139 Teragrams of oxidized carbon (Tg-C) were”. This would be no problem if they did not then convert to CO2 afterwards. So exactly what is this 9139 Tg? Is it pure C or CO2?
The second is “the 2010 estimate is about 104.5% of that, or 391 Tg-C more”. The 391 is only an increase of 4.5% over the 2008 value of 8749.
P.S. I just saw your reply to Peter. So why do they call it “oxidized carbon”?
Chart seems to have a high correlation with economic growth, as the countries at the top have reduced beneficial emissions due to recession, and the two at the bottom are growing furiously.
Superb post Mr. Eschenback. This perspective portraying the reality of global carbon emissions has been dishonestly concealed from the public by the main stream media for decades. The climate fear media still tries to push the position that the U.S. and Europe can make some big difference in world emissions which is just plain absurd.
The U.S. and Europe makeup only about 1/3 of total global emissions with Asia dominating both total emissions as well as annual emission increases. Asia is accountable for nearly 60% of the emissions increase that occurred in 2010 with China alone making up more than 40% of the 2010 increase. China’s 2010 emissions increase exceeds that of the U.S. by more than a factor of 3.5 with China’s total 2010 emissions being more than 50% greater than those in the U.S. The 2010 U.S. emissions are more than 3% below those of 2008 and the proportion of U.S. and Europe emissions will rapidly decline in the future becoming more and more irrelevant in the global picture. Asia’s extensive and growing use of coal accounts for the bulk of their increases.
The fact that global CO2 emission increases during the last 10 years which were more than triple the emission increases in the prior decade has resulted in a standstill in global temperatures since 1998 strongly supports that CO2 emissions are not controlling global climate or temperatures.
Well done Mr. Eschenbach!!
Am I reading that right? Did the US cut its carbon emissions by more than the next 3 combined?
I wonder what he built outside….. A quiche-munching-Eurotrash-carbon-activist stomping machine (for carbon sequestration) perhaps?
Mike, the Chinese noticed that correlation long ago. The Greens understand it too, the more open of them cheerfully admin that they are opposed to technology and civilization, their ideal society being a small village with low footprint.
If you took Fig 2 and just showed those with a negative change you could title it:
“SUCKER LIST”
So where is one of these fancy dancy graphs for “green house gases”?
Eurotrash? Qu’est-ce que c’est?
It became obvious in Copenhagen that the nations of the globe have self-divided into three groups: the nations which have developed and deployed efficient, low emissions technologies; the nations which want access to those technologies at the expense of the developers; and, the nations which just want the profits from the deployment of those technologies.
Willis, we’re still talking about CO2/carbon….but no one is talking JAXA
Is there something wrong with their results? something else?
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/30_13.html