World leaders kick climate policy into the long grass

A summary of opinion related to the UN conference on climate in NYC

Collated by Benny Peiser.

http://coreldesigner.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/long-grass.jpg

Copenhagen was essentially sidelined yesterday at another event, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s Climate Change Summit in New York. There, along with Chinese leader Hu Jintao, U.S. President Barack Obama more or less shuffled climate control policy off into the great dreamscape of unattainable plans and long range objectives. Like equality for all and peace in our time, the world will have to wait for sweeping and binding climate policy.

–Terence Corcoran, Financial Post, 22 September 2009

The UN Climate Change Summit in New York managed to produce a concrete result. It has nothing to do with CO2 reduction targets, however, but with a simple political insight: Forget Copenhagen! The chances that the Copenhagen summit will deliver more than just a non-binding framework agreement decreased further on Tuesday. They now tend towards zero. Therefore, it would be best to postpone the climate conference until the United States is ready to agree to clear progress in negotiations. Otherwise, there is a real danger that a compromise formula in Copenhagen would make any progress impossible for years to come because the big climate sinners could hide behind the agreement.

–Editorial, Financial Times Deutschland, 22 September 2009

Initially, many climate activists had hoped this year would yield a pact in which nations would agree to cut their greenhouse gas emissions under the auspices of a legal international treaty. But recent announcements by China, Japan and other nations point to a different outcome of U.N. climate talks that will be held in December in Copenhagen: a political deal that would establish global federalism on climate policy, with each nation pledging to take steps domestically.

–Juliet Eilperin and Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, 23 September 2009

The significance of the Chinese proposal is that it indicates that China is willing to join Europe, the United States and others in a fantasyland of climate policy detached from policy reality. It is hard to believe how that outcome leads some to greater optimism on climate policy.

Roger Pielke Jr, 31 August 2009

None of the alarmists and their supercomputer climate models ever predicted even a 30-year respite in their apocalyptic scenarios. Neither did they predict the sun, that thermonuclear furnace in the sky that has more influence on earth’s climate than any number of Ford Explorers, would suddenly go quiet for an indefinite period. Latif and others conclude that, at the very least, we have time to think about it and analyze and learn. We don’t have to fight global warming by inflicting global poverty. More things on Earth affect climate than are dreamed up in computer models.

Investor’s Business Daily, 22 September 2009

If you want to know what I think is going on inside Prime Ministers’offices around the world, it’s ‘Let’s kick this into the long grass.’ Because that is what it will take to approach the problem. The short-termism is gone.

–Benny Peiser, LTT, 14 November 2008

0 0 votes
Article Rating

Discover more from Watts Up With That?

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

81 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
George E. Smith
September 23, 2009 11:11 am

“”” None of which has anything to do with the simple scientific question: is it plausible that increased man made CO2 will lead to disastrous global warming? “””
Simple scientific answer; no it isn’t plausible. Even the most ardent supporters of CO2 warming seem to agree that without WATER VAPOR FEEDBACK, CO2 just can’t hack it. So CO2 is just the instigator; that annoying burr under the saddle, that prompts the dastardly ocean evaporation to do the dirty work. But then shucks; water also exists in the atmosphere as a liquid and solid, in the forms of various cloud types; and they demonstrably result in planetary cooling to disarm the evaporation monster.
But you see, anybody can see for themselves, that the ocean evaporation monster, needs no help at all from CO2 to get to work in GHGing the atmosphere, and warming us up out of our natural ice ball state.
All this could be resolved if Peter Humbug and his friends would simply construct a computer model of planet earth; instead of whatever it is they think they are modelling.

Douglas DC
September 23, 2009 11:15 am

As if you don’t think the Warmists aren’t the New Puritans:
FTP:”Otherwise, there is a real danger that a compromise formula in Copenhagen would make any progress impossible for years to come because the big climate sinners could hide behind the agreement.
–Editorial, Financial Times Deutschland, 22 September 2009″
Sinners in the hands of an angry Gaia…
H. L. Mencken -“The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
-regarding Puritans…

Bill Illis
September 23, 2009 11:32 am

Kyoto didn’t even put a dent in the CO2 numbers. Lots of countries have made it to their committments (lots haven’t) but there has been no change in the trendlines at all.
Until the recession hit that is. It looks like emissions will decline by 2.0% this year. That still means CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will increase by 1.96 ppm (instead of 2.02 ppm).
In other words, we need new technology that works (and works economically and works economically in large scale mega-project sizes that can be copied a thousand times over across the whole world). We don’t need more targets, more caps, more lightbulbs and more Agreements.

Alan the Brit
September 23, 2009 11:32 am

Stop Press!!!!
The BBC’s daily magazine programme, The One Show, currently airing, leftie-greenie UK Guardianista Journo Lucie Siegle has just pulled off an absoule lu lu! Whilst normally seeking every opportunity to push her left-green agenda, she has just done a “consumer” piece about a flueless gas fire, announcing in front of millions of viewers, that the fire cleverly converts the fumes into…………wait for it……….”harmless carbon dioxide & water vapour”!!!!!!!! Well blow me down. Who’d a thunk it. I bet for the first time in her life she has made such a pronouncement. It’s offical chaps & chapesses, CARBON DIOXIDE is a HARMLESS GAS, this from a greenie-leftie enviro-mentalist! She actually said it without wretching believe it or not. Could she be changing her stance…..naah, no chance. Whatever next.

Back2Bat
September 23, 2009 11:34 am

Sinners in the hands of an angry Gaia… Douglas
Whatever happened to Gaia?
Can it be she’s not?
Or did she leave the kitchen
when it got too hot?
I never believed in Gaia
but she kept the pagans quiet.
Now, a little change in temp
and they start to riot

kim
September 23, 2009 11:40 am

Paul V 11:10:35 There is always a lot of dissonance when a paradigm collapses. The twists and turns of the fall of belief will produce a lot of opportunities to make as well as to lose a lot of money.
Michel 10:52:28. First, you do not demonstrate that what I said was wrong, or in error. Secondly, I agree with a lot of the rest of what you say.
============================================

Vincent
September 23, 2009 11:41 am

Did anyone see the video of Brown on the phone with activist at avaaz.org? It was embarrassing.
You have this young, presumably sincere woman, who could barely muster a hundred protesters in Trafalger square, a place that has in the past swelled with the ranks of hundreds of thousands, begging the prime minister to go to Copenhagen to fight for the strongest possible climate deal.
“As a young person I’m really terrified that not enough is being done to reach an agreement” she said.
“I too am concerned and worried. I know that the commitment to two degrees is not enough in itself. We’ll continue to fight for a climate change agreement” he said.
Yet behind the sympathetic words of Brown, was he all the time thinking of ways to kick it into the grass?

Ron de Haan
September 23, 2009 11:54 am

U.N. climate meeting was propaganda: Czech president Vaclav Claus:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE58L6ID20090922

September 23, 2009 11:56 am

Best news I’ve seen all day.

Back2Bat
September 23, 2009 12:07 pm

Last person leaving the UK don’t bother turning the lights off, there’s no power anyway. Alan the Brit
Ah, justice! Did you guys think you could found the Bank of England and escape consequences?
Abolish central banking in the UK and I’ll pray for your quick recovery.

Gary Hladik
September 23, 2009 12:09 pm

Whether Copenhagen results in a real international agreement or not, domestic activists will still be pushing for unilateral economy-destroying measures. This fight is far from over.
WWS, thanks for the link to Gore-Al. When the movie comes out, I suggest Kal Penn play Kal-Al. 🙂

AnonyMoose
September 23, 2009 12:10 pm

Nice photo, although the invasive weed cogongrass might be more appropriate.
http://www.al.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/photo/for/veg/cogongrass3.jpg

Ron de Haan
September 23, 2009 12:22 pm
Tom in Florida
September 23, 2009 12:28 pm

Alan the Brit (11:32:46) : “The BBC’s daily magazine programme, The One Show, currently airing, leftie-greenie UK Guardianista Journo Lucie Siegle has just pulled off an absoule lu lu! Whilst normally seeking every opportunity to push her left-green agenda, she has just done a “consumer” piece about a flueless gas fire, announcing in front of millions of viewers, that the fire cleverly converts the fumes into…………wait for it……….”harmless carbon dioxide & water vapour”!!!!!!!! ”
This is exactly what a catalytic converter does with auto exhaust and how it was sold as a requirement for all gas powered autos. But then somehow the physics of the universe self changed CO2 into an Earth destroying pollutant. Perhaps a reverse Andromeda Strain.

edward
September 23, 2009 12:36 pm

Don’t be surprised to see China more than willing to start setting CO2 limits in a few years. By that time, China will be the dominant supplier of solar panels, nuke power plants, CO2 sequestration and a host of other “green” technologies and they’ll make a bundle selling it to the USA and Europe or as a condition of going along with limits on their CO2 emissions.
In 5-10 years China will have enough Nuke plants built or in the pipeline so that their emissions will start leveling off anyway.
Besides the raw materials found in the USA and the Steel and Cars produced here isn’t everything else consumed in the USA already made in China?
When China finally ends up owning the USA they’ll be happy to supply Obama mandated technology to their USA based companies such as GM, GE, Westinghouse and Apple.

Roger Knights
September 23, 2009 12:55 pm

“Now begins the long task of purging the literature and the institutions, and restoring credibility to science.”
There’s material here for 1000 sociology dissertations on how this madness was accepted, aided, and abetted, and how heretics were marginalized and stigmatized.

Don S.
September 23, 2009 1:30 pm

The papers, since it’s the end of the month, are creating a veritable snowstorm in the skies above the journals. If there is no organization or direction or coordination among these authors, this is the most remarkable set of coincidences in my experience.
http://www.physorg.com/news172937155.html
According to this, we are already over three of the nine barriers leading to inevitable death to the human race (my conclusion). No actual papers to support the study here, just anecdotal material.

Wayne Delbeke
September 23, 2009 2:05 pm

“When China finally ends up owning the USA” Sorry to tell you mate. China and Japan already own the USA. If the USA does anything to displease China, China holds enough US currency to demand a change. Look it up on the web. It’s kind interesting who holds the most US debt.
As a footnote, the President of the Maldives spoke at the UN yesterday talking about how AGW was going to destroy his country but read the scientific article following it:
The President of the Maldives, the Indian Ocean islands threatened with extinction by rising sea levels, told the United Nations climate-change summit yesterday that the country’s appeals for help had fallen on deaf ears for 20 years.
“Once or twice a year we are invited to attend an important climate change event such as this one — often as a keynote speaker,” Mohammed Nasheed told world leaders at the UN headquarters in New York.
“On cue, we stand here and tell you just how bad things are. We warn you that unless you act quickly and decisively, our homeland and others like it will disappear before the rising sea, before the end of this century.
“We in the Maldives desperately want to believe that one day our words will have an effect, and so we continue to shout them even though, deep down, we know that you are not really listening,” he said.
Mr Nasheed had again been invited to address a UN climate summit, in the approach to the Copenhagen conference this December at which world leaders hope to “seal the deal” on reducing gas emissions. His speech was sandwiched between those by the two leaders best equipped to save his island nation: President Hu of China and President Obama of the US, representing world’s No 1 and No 2 greenhouse gas emitters respectively.
But Mr Nasheed argued that developing nations must be ready to accept binding targets even if rich countries do not act. “We ask world leaders to discard those habits that have led to 20 years of complacency and broken promises on climate change, and instead seize the historic opportunity that sits at the end of the road to Copenhagen,” he said.
However, the facts tell us otherwise:
XVI INQUA Congress
Paper No. 93-14
Presentation Time: 1:30 PM-4:30 PM
THE MALDIVES SEA LEVEL PROJECT. II: PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE
MÖRNER, Nils-Axel, Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm Univ, Stockholm S-10691 Sweden, morner@pog.su.se.
The Maldives have a uniquely position in sea level research (as discussed in Integrated Coastal Zone Management, No. 1, 2000, p. 17-20). In the last decade, they have attracted special attention because, in the IPCC-scenario, the Maldives would be condemned to become flooded in the next 50-100 years. Our research data do not lend support to any such flooding scenario, however. On the contrary, we find no signs of any on-going sea level rise. Our results comes from visits to numerous islands including extensive work on Hulhudoo and Guidhoo in the north, in Viligili and Loshfuchi (the site of “the reef woman”) in the middle, and in Addu in the south. This includes coring, levelling, sampling and dating (35 C14-dates). Present sea level was reached at about 4500 BP. In the last 4000 years, sea level oscillated around the present in the last 4000 years. At 3900 BP, there was a short and sharp sea level high-stand at about +1.2 m. For the last millennium, a detailed sea level record is established: +0 m 1000-800 BP, +60 cm 800-300 BP, 0 to just below 0 in the 18th century AD, +30 cm 1790-1970 AD, fall to 0 in ~1970 up to today. At about 1970, sea level fell by 20-30 cm (presumably due to increased evaporation). This is recorded in storm level, high-tide level, mean sea level and in lake and lagoon levels (from the north to the south). In the last decade, there are no signs of any rise in sea level. Hence, we are able to free the islands from the condemnation to become flooded in the 21st century.
Co-authored with the Maldives Project Team Members.
XVI INQUA Congress
General Information for this Meeting

Ron de Haan
September 23, 2009 2:13 pm

IPPC table refutes claim that humans are prime source for CO2 increases:
http://www.iceagenow.com/IPCC_table_refutes_claim_that_humans_are_prime_source_for_CO2_increases.htm

Ron de Haan
September 23, 2009 2:42 pm

Don S. (13:30:45) :
The papers, since it’s the end of the month, are creating a veritable snowstorm in the skies above the journals. If there is no organization or direction or coordination among these authors, this is the most remarkable set of coincidences in my experience.
http://www.physorg.com/news172937155.html
According to this, we are already over three of the nine barriers leading to inevitable death to the human race (my conclusion). No actual papers to support the study here, just anecdotal material.
Don S,
Thanks for the link, but don’t worry, it’s all BS (BAD SCIENCE)
The entire concept of the earth not being able to sustain a large (consuming) population is a hoax.
There are a few items we have to tackle but we can deal with them.

rbateman
September 23, 2009 2:51 pm

hunter (09:16:23) :
Yes, yes, of course: They are looking for a kinder, gentler AGW.
edward (12:36:43) :
GE, Westinghouse AND Sylvania went to China in the last Energy bill.
It was the sweetener applied to get the votes.

Ron de Haan
September 23, 2009 3:08 pm
Back2Bat
September 23, 2009 3:20 pm

“We still have so much oil to burn!:”
Not to mention all that methyl-hydrate (methane).

Richard
September 23, 2009 3:25 pm

The best of the opinions:
“..Chinese leader Hu Jintao, U.S. President Barack Obama more or less shuffled climate control policy off into the great dreamscape of unattainable plans and long range objectives. Like equality for all and peace in our time, the world will have to wait for sweeping and binding climate policy.
–Terence Corcoran, Financial Post, 22 September 2009
None of the alarmists and their supercomputer climate models ever predicted ..the sun, that thermonuclear furnace in the sky that has more influence on earth’s climate than any number of Ford Explorers, would suddenly go quiet for an indefinite period. .. We don’t have to fight global warming by inflicting global poverty. More things on Earth affect climate than are dreamed up in computer models.
–Investor’s Business Daily, 22 September 2009”
This last bit – priceless

Philip_B
September 23, 2009 3:30 pm

The Maldives is a curious case. Pretty much the entire economy is longhaul tourism. If the CO2 emissions from these flights were included in their ‘carbon footprint’ they would have one of the world’s highest CO2 emissions per capita and probably the world’s highest per unit of GDP.
They are currently going through a severe recession because tourist numbers are down. The Danes had to pay for their president to fly to Copenhagen. Yet they are advocating CO2 emissions reductions which would likely wreck their economy completely by making long haul travel much more expensive.
I find it hard to credit people can be so irrational especially in light of the scientific evidence that no appreciable sea level rise has occurred in the Maldives.