When the Guardian, that champion of everything “green” says it, you know it was a failure.
Excerpt:
The UN climate summit reached a weak outline of a global agreement last night in Copenhagen, falling far short of what Britain and many poor countries were seeking and leaving months of tough negotiations to come.
After eight draft texts and all-day talks between 115 world leaders, it was left to Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, to broker a political agreement. The so-called Copenhagen accord “recognises” the scientific case for keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C but did not contain commitments to emissions reductions to achieve that goal.
American officials spun the deal as a “meaningful agreement”, but even Obama said: “This progress is not enough.”
“We have come a long way, but we have much further to go,” he added.
The deal was brokered between China, South Africa, India, Brazil and the US, but late last night it was still unclear whether it would be adopted by all 192 countries in the full plenary session.
The agreement aims to provide $30bn in funding for poor countries to adapt to climate change from next year to 2012, and $100bn a year after 2020.
But it disappointed African and other vulnerable countries who had been holding out for far deeper emission cuts to hold the global temperature rise to 1.5C this century. As widely expected, all references to 1.5C in previous drafts were removed at the last minute, but more surprisingly, the earlier 2050 goal of reducing global CO2 emissions by 80% was also dropped.
The agreement also set up a forestry deal which is hoped would significantly reduce deforestation in return for cash. It lacked the kind of independent verification of emission reductions by developing countries that the US and others demanded.
Obama hinted that China was to blame for the lack of a substantial deal. In a press conference he condemned the insistence of some countries to look backwards to previous environmental agreements. He said developing countries should be “getting out of that mindset, and moving towards the position where everybody recognises that we all need to move together”.
Read entire story at the Guardian here
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Now compare what the Guardian has written, to what Obama says:
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My summary of the Copenhagen Climate Conference is just a bit less wordy.
Like most Xmas parties I’ll bet a lot of deligates are waking up today wonder how much of a fool they made of themselves, and a little dread at facing the boss on Monday.
Oh deary dear!
maxx (22:20:09) :
I saw nothing posted at RC all day….but did see a tumblweed roll by….
Now they claim to be upgrading software and are down. Hmmmmm…….that’s certainly inconvenient.
Maybe they’re changing out harddrives, tidying up that unsightly incriminating evidence.
Scott Fox (23:50:54) :
Lord Monkton has a very different take on it.
What is it? Could you supply a link? It’s a video?
Please don’t leave us hanging without a link man.
Afghanistan, Copenhaganen , maybe he does deserve a Noble.
Here’s a briskly British brush-off from Monckton:
“Here, in a nutshell – for fortunately nothing larger is needed – are the main points of the ”Copenhagen Accord”:”
Nice touch.
Sorry OT, but I now would like to identify CRU mail(s) stating someone has actually deleted data file(s) to circumvent FOIA requests from “contrarians”.
Anyone in the know please help me.
In Politiken http://politiken.dk/klima/klimapolitik/article864206.ece (brief translation of headlines)
Loekke Rasmussen (Danish PM) is close to giving up. Total meltdown threatened. Lars Loekke Rasmussen close to throwing in the towel. The Agreement that USA and some big countries agreed on cannot generate support. etc.
“I have to accept with regret that the door is closed. I see no way of getting the text approved” said by the Danish PM a few minutes ago in the Bella Centre.
This was posted at 08.00 hours Danish time.
So no deal due to resistance from certain Latin American countries and low lying island states.
The Brits are trying to organise an acceptance where the “non accepting” countries get their objections listed.
They have negotiated the whole night.
I don’t suppose THE CLIMATE was paying much attention one way or the other.
Richard Lindzen on Copenhagen
“I’m pretty sure that they will sign something. Workable? I doubt it. Mischievous? Certainly.”
William Happer, physicist, Princeton University, on Copenhagen
“The best response would be to do nothing at Copenhagen and to go home to tend to real problems. As Climategate has made abundantly clear, the alarm about climate change has no scientific basis.”
I’m not convinced all the politicians are convinced that warming is anthropogenic, what seems to have happened is that anyone who challenges the AGW assertion is treated as though they were advocating wife beating, so they stay silent on the issue.
maxx (22:20:09) :
I saw nothing posted at RC all day….but did see a tumblweed roll by….
Isn’t it cool that skeptics/deniers/realists/optimists have ownage of this topic on the internet!
DR (21:10:50) :
“Who cares about Copenhagen when there is the EPA!”
Regarding the EPA; isn’t it true that congress votes their anuual budget? If EPA aggravates congress, then might it not go bad for them? Can anyone from the US help me with this?
Sean Peake (00:04:55) :
This battle may be won but the war still rages. Let’s not get too smug. There are powerful forces afoot and we are badly outnumbered.
Nah, we aren’t outnumbered. We’ve got Mother Nature on our side. She gets the last laugh no matter how hard you and I could fight.
‘Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen….’
cheers David
realclimate are alive and well and have published an article by a guy from Oxford University that is critical of realclimate. What’s going on? Do I detect a subtle attempt to try to move away from the dogmatic, one-sided, vituperative site we’ve seen since its inception?
Unfortunately for them they’ve left plenty of evidence of their single minded, and often ill-mannered advocacy of AGW.
I’m not convinced Copenhagen was a failure, we’re just slightly further towards the thick end of the Kyoto wedge, certainly not if it’s stated in the Gaurdian. No Govn’t anywhere will give up on that ultimate revenue stream by taxing our air and energy needs.
2010 is going to be an interesting year indeed.
No more ‘hope’ and ‘change’:(
Now it’s much more specific stuff like ‘progress’ and ‘momentum’:)
Depending on where you’re from, I guess… ‘Britain and many poor countries’
Maybe some present were unsure all being discussed was not as settled as top scientists like Pres. Obama and PM Brown say it was… er… is.
Speaking of whom, on the BBC just saw David King say that Gordon was neither right nor wrong to be pleased at the outcome. Uh-huh.
He does have a different take to most. Wonder why?
Fight to control Copenhagen climate change fund
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8419048.stm
Possibly it needs a world-saving financial genius?
And perhaps the fact that nothing is legally binding is no bad thing:)
A critical message needing to be followed by well-considered, high enviROI actions totally blown by the wrong folk for the job.
This was never about the science, it was always about money. The oucome at Copenhagen implies no judgement about the science at all. For the (often corrupt) LDC governments the process was just a way to extract money from gullible western governments who have yet to explain to their voters the implications for their lives of the carbon targets they want to commit to.
Oddly the UK government wants to continue with the 3rd Heathrow airport runway, for instance. And they have said slashing carbon emissions needn’t mean the end of cheap foreign holidays by plane. Go figure.
In the UK all three main parties believe in AGW. On the political front the pressure should be turned on them to detail what their policies would mean for the voters’ lives. For instance in the UK we get charged green levies on our energy bills, to keep the AGW costs off our tax bill, where they would be more visible.
There is a political battle to fight alongside the scientific one.
“The so-called Copenhagen accord “recognises” the scientific case for keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C but did not contain commitments to emissions reductions to achieve that goal”
Um… forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but this means they aren’t even using the pretext of reduction targets as a rough estimate for the cost of “saving the world”. It will now cost however much it costs to prevent a 2C rise (in the wise and all-knowing computer models, of course…).
I guess now in the post-Climategate era we can send a message to our leaders in the up coming elections.
Well, sorry to be a grouch but I was REALLY hoping for a stray asteroid to flatten the lot of them.
Failing that, for there to be global agreement that all Climate Alarmist “Climatic Research Units” across the globe should be taped off as crime scenes whilst the misdeeds of the eco-fascists and rent seekers who work there are fully investigated. And trials mounted. And punishment exacted. And the Rudds, Browns, Obamas and the rest forced to stand for re-election.
I know, I know. Crying for the moon again.
So I suppose the outcome could have been very much worse.
But, even though it is nice to note that the majority of commenters even on the Grauniad piece Anthony has posted here are calling BS on the whole thing, a more sensible front page story is seen on the Express:-
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/146922
which warns “Climate Nut Brown will Ruin Britain”.
So far as the UK is concerned, that says it all. And, no doubt, Cameron and Clegg will be slagging him off for not throwing even more onto the table. Make no mistake, we in the UK are absolutely stuffed.
Meanwhile, even our American friends need to be eternally vigilant. The real deal, behind the scenes, as Monckton predicted, is about money and World Governance.
Check out:-
http://www.prisonplanet.com/final-copenhagen-text-includes-global-transaction-tax.html
Check out:-
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/12/theatre-is-over.html
OK, we won a battle.
Now we have to win a war.
Some initial thoughts:
– Two years of negotiations, and at the end of it no legally binding agreement, just a last minute face-saving agreement, which Obama announced on TV – circumventing the UN protocol and apparently upsetting the majority of the member countries.
– The greens (and alarmist scientists) are far from happy at what they see as a very poor result.
– The Chinese are obviously never going to risk their desire for economic development by agreeing to legally binding CO2 emission targets.
– The Russians kept their heads down.
Some thoughts on longer term implications:
– had a legally binding agreement been signed, and CO2 emissions were significantly reduced (both unlikely) and the over the next 10-20 years the planet continued to cool (or remain at current temperatures) then the green groupthink and bad science would have been validated – the worst possible outcome.
– as the agreement is (from a green perspective) barely worth the paper it is written on, and if emissions contine to rise (very likely) and the planet’s temperature continues to cool (without any major volcanic activity) then it only gets more difficult for the warmists and politicians to sustain their green groupthink and continue this farce.
– if global temperatures are observed to rise in the the next 5 to 10 years, then it is very likely that the alarmist media and the unproven CO2 thesis will prevail.
So everything hangs on the global temperature trend. Given the stakes, (and despite the high cost of heating fuel, I just paid £500 for 1100 lites of kerosene!) I am hoping for continued and signifiicant cooling – it would be a very pleasant irony if it was Mother Earth (albeit with the help of a few sceptics) that ended this madness.
Consider it dead and buried.
Gerard (20:53:48) :
King Canute (Obama) eloquently telling the sun not to make the 2 degrees warmer – a snowballs chance in hell!
That’s 2 °C saved or created by the Obama Administration.
And this thing ain’t over by a long shot.