Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I haven’t yet found a copy of whatever agreement they signed at Durban. But thanks to Kumi Naidoo, the radical head of Greenpeace International, I know that there’s nothing to worry about. He’s done the analysis for me.
Figure 1. Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International Executive Director PHOTO SOURCE NYT
DURBAN, South-Africa, December 11, 2011/African Press Organization (APO)/ [emphasis mine] — On the closing of the latest round of UN climate talks in Durban Greenpeace today declared that it was clear that our Governments this past two weeks listened to the carbon-intensive polluting corporations instead of listening to the people who want an end to our dependence on fossil fuels and real and immediate action on climate change.
“The grim news is that the blockers lead by the US have succeeded in inserting a vital get-out clause that could easily prevent the next big climate deal being legally binding. If that loophole is exploited it could be a disaster. And the deal is due to be implemented ‘from 2020′ leaving almost no room for increasing the depth of carbon cuts in this decade when scientists say we need emissions to peak,”
said Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International Executive Director.
“Right now the global climate regime amounts to nothing more than a voluntary deal that’s put off for a decade. This could take us over the two degree threshold where we pass from danger to potential catastrophe.”
A “voluntary deal that’s put off for a decade” that contains a “vital get-out clause”… as a compromise that works for me. The real threat now is the “Green Carbon Fund”.
I am curious, though, about the location and nature of the “vital get-out clause”, I want to know how that part works for when we need it … reader’s contributions invited. Anyone have a copy of the actual agreement? I heard it was 100 pages long at one point …
Overcast morning here … what a crazy world. It’s Sunday, I’m gonna watch football and hope the sun comes out.
w.
UPDATE: What I think is the final copy of the document is available here.
UPDATE II: How foolish of me not to realize that in the UN system, something only 55 pages long can only be a draft agreement. The actual agreement is 138 pages long, and is here (h/t Fred Berple). It requires developed countries to
Reduce global greenhouse gas emissions more than 100 per cent by 2040,
Truly, you couldn’t make up useful idiots like the Durban delegates if you tried. Me, I’m shooting for a 137% reduction in global innumeracy …
UPDATE III: Once again, fooled by the UN. That was not the final, final, really final document. What I find for the really final one is here. They’ve removed the requirement to reduce emissions by more than 100%.
gofer says:
December 11, 2011 at 2:03 pm
absolutely – but try getting greenpeece (say it with a mexican accent) or any of the tree hugging d*ckwads to agree to nuclear power, which is the only alternative to fossil fuels ‘on demand’ as ready to roll power generation! Muppets the lot of ’em – but I bet they all rely on their bleedin blackberries to tweet each other! aaaargh….I get so mad………..
I’ve worked as a public servant. The most incomprehensible documents are always prepared by committees that seem to take endless pleasure reassurring the members that they actually have half a brain by producing endless reams of meaningless drivel full of repetitive nonsense such as “mission statements” incorporating the views of all “stakeholders”.
Most of the verbage is meaningless gobbledygook – so why should we be surprised that the produce reams of documents instead of saying “we can’t agree – even to disagree”.
@gofer says:
December 11, 2011 at 2:03 pm
“Why is there no discussion from these “earth savers” just how we are supposed to end our “dependence on fossil fuels.”? Fossil fuels, not only are used for fuel, but as a base or key ingredient in untold thousands of products. Just about everything you touch has a fossil fuel connection and they are going to END all this??? It’s beyond insanity.”
======================================================================
No, no, no! You don’t get it all. We’re supposed to end our dependence on fossil fuels. They are exempt.
Got it?
Hey Hugh Pepper,
You appear to know a lot about climate disruption.Please show us what convinced you that there is really a problem with man’s CO2? I have looked for years and have never found evidence that man’s CO2 is causing climate disruption.
Please share your evidence with us.
(Please note that correlation is NOT causation. Computer models are NOT reality. And the leading climate scientists have been lying to us.)
Thanks
JK
crosspatch says:
December 11, 2011 at 1:17 pm
1. Climate is naturally stable. It is not. It varies dramatically on very short timescales.
I would suggest that while the climate is not statically stable, for as near as we can tell the geologic evidence is that the climate is dynamically stable since we keep returning to ice ages as one limit and have not lost our atmosphere as evidence that we have not come close to the other. All in all the dynamic stablilty seems pretty good to me.
Otherwise your points are well taken and I, like you, am tired of the drag on real economic progress these people represent.
davidmhoffer says:
December 11, 2011 at 2:42 pm
“It seems to me that some fairly pragmatic politicians have suckered the green movement this time around. ”
It only seems so. The Green movement is financed by Soros, Rockefeller, the EU commission, and do the bidding of their masters. This time, the masters had no interest in masses of Greenshirts yelling and storming the conference centre. Why not? Well, CAGW seems to have outlived its usefulness.
I expect a certain decline in funding for the climate scientists next. CAGW will be put out of its misery. Romm and the others will be assigned to new worthy causes.
It was somewhat amusing watching their “overtime” session yesterday. Clearly, some delegates didn’t know exactly what was in “the package” they were approving.
Willis, thanks for the link to the [presumed?!] package. For those who want to see the final
spinPress Release, it seems to be available here.Some highlights (or lowlights, depending on one’s perspective):
‘Gary Turner says:
December 11, 2011 at 2:30 pm
The grim news is that the blockers lead by the US …
[emphasis added]
Am I the last English speaker who knows the past tense of lead is led? I have noticed the miss-usage so often recently that what what was simply an irritation has become an inflammation, then an open wound and packed in salt.’
No, you are not . I was scrolling down to say the same thing when I saw your comment, which reassured me that I wasn’t the only one who despairs of this persistent ignorance (and it doesn’t only apply to alarmists I’m afraid). The same could be said of ‘loose’ used for ‘lose’.
I’ve read quite a few comments of people pulling out their hair over the durban ‘agreement’ or whatever it is being called.
In reality – it’s nothing. It’s meaningless – just a lot of empty words put down on a piece of paper that nobody has really agreed to, and that has no legal basis anywhere in the world.
For my exhibit A, I present the Copenhagen Accord, or whatever that was called. It was negotiated into being by none other than newly-minted Noble prize winner Barack Obama in person. And yet, just 2 years down the track – does anyone refer to it? NO.
For my exhibit B, I present the original Kyoto Protocol, which was agreed to by the USA but never ratified. Sure, the EU went for it and have suffered as a result (funny how the ECB bailout funds almost match the size of the Kyoto payments, but I digress) but – after Kyoto expiration very soon, it hasn’t changed anything, really, and was never going to be replaced.
So I wouldn’t be too worried – they couldn’t spend all this time and money and have nothing to show for it but some hangovers and rich prostitutes and limo drivers. So they trot out some agreement which talks about maybe agreeing to something in 4 years time and then maybe agreeing to something more in 9 years time. Of course Greenpeace and WWF are outraged – that’s their professional duty – to be outraged at anything that isn’t communal living in mud huts surrounded by lentil fields and campfire singing.
I do wish that representatives of big-talking Canada and no-talking USA had quietly pushed back harder, but then, what’s the point in making a target of yourself when your opposition is busy firing at their own feet?
Durban is just another pause on the inexorable and inevitable decline of carbon pricing and worldwide governance. In another 4 years the elections cycles of all the worlds big democracies will have churned over once more and the last vestiges of carbon-lovin’ governments will gradually be cleaned from house as the voters show them the door.
“This could take us over the two degree threshold where we pass from danger to potential catastrophe.”
According to my team of scientists, however, it is “highly likely” that we would instead pass from the danger presented by cooling, toward more closely approaching maximal conditions for the survival of Humanity. And even a Heaven on Earth Utopia! [personal communication]
Well, it looks like a Green Fund SHOULD be (not WILL be) set up paid for partly by shipping and aviation levies.
No agreement on how much, when and how this could possibly be instigated. Just plans to LOOK at it:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8948920/Durban-climate-change-last-minute-talks-produce-historic-deal-to-save-the-planet.html
I seem to recall the same statements made at Copenhagen:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6811881/Copenhagen-support-for-a-global-tax-on-shipping-and-aviation-grows.html
Wonder how much LOOKING into this we will be still doing at the next climate bunfight?
Also wonder if Wilbur and Orville Wright needed 15,000 bureaucrats to tell them to LOOK into powered flight or did they JUST DO IT? And was aviation told to go forth and multiply or did it evolve spontaneously through military and commercial competition?
I suspect that whatever replaces fossil fuels will do the same.
There was no agreement.
Given this recent (today) announcement from the OECD, I think we can safely assume that NO MONEY will be forthcoming anytime soon.
From: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4e0a21fc-2261-11e1-acdc-00144feabdc0.html
OECD warns on global funding struggle
By David Oakley in London
Markets and governments face an uphill struggle to fund themselves next year amid extreme uncertainty over the eurozone and the global economy, as new figures reveal that the borrowing of industrialised governments has surged beyond $10tr this year and is forecast to grow further in 2012.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which represents the leading industrialised nations, will warn in its latest borrowing outlook, due to be published this month, that financial stresses are likely to continue with the “animal spirits” of the markets – their unpredictable nature – a threat to the stability of many governments that need to refinance debt.
https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Kumi-Naidoo/129350313772716
This guy’s Facebook page. He’s a bit of a hero…
here’s the CFR weighing in:
“It’s also worth taking a step back to look at the broader contours of the talks. It is distressing to see how much attention has become devoted to form rather than function. The fact that people are so are fixated on the future of Kyoto and the potential for a new legally binding treaty – neither of which, depending on its specific content, need have any impact on emissions – is extraordinary. It is particularly worrying that so many parties were willing in Durban to risk their real substantive progress because they could not agree on what are, in practice, largely symbolic matters. Congratulations are in order to those diplomats who found a face saving way for everyone to back down so that they could consolidate important incremental advances that they had made elsewhere. But the Durban outcome does not auger a “remarkable new phase” in the climate talks. Its most celebrated elements largely mask dysfunction as usual.”
http://blogs.cfr.org/levi/2011/12/11/a-misplaced-climate-celebration-in-durban/
this is the conclusion of a long post by their climate guy. there were agreements made (climate fund etc.) which are incremental. But that’s a worrying thing. Incrementalism has a way of working out rather poorly for dynamic, decentralized societies. So I guess I’m happy that all the right people are unhappy…but they tend to be the hard core ‘I want it now’ folks. I’m not expecting this to disappear. We can laugh about the stupidities of the young woman saying that she represents half the world’s population, before doing a mic check, and the people who write this twaddle:
“The Climate Action Tracker estimates that global mean warming would reach about 3.5°C by 2100 with the current reduction proposals on the table. They are definitely insufficient to limit temperature increase to 2°C.”
but, let’s not celebrate, they are still capable of grinding it out.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/12/10/386824/durban-updates-final-hours-of-negotiation/
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/12/10/386944/speaking-on-behalf-of-half-the-worlds-population-youth-delegate-mic-checks-climate-summit-to-get-it-done/
@ur momisugly Urederra “The event coincides precisely with a catastrophic decline in carbon dioxide levels, which fell from 3500 ppm in the early Eocene to 650 ppm during this event.
This drop initiated the switch from a greenhouse to the current icehouse Earth ; the Arctic cooled from an average sea-surface temperature of 13 °C to today’s −9 °C,”
If true, I would think that the CAGW crowd would find this wonderfully, enormously, extraordinarily, encouraging! Doesn’t that say that with 650 ppm, the Arctic SST was the same as today? Isn’t that good news? The climate is not so sensitive as was thought, we are not on the edge of a tipping point, in fact we are over 250 ppm away. We do not have to worry about catastrophic changes until AT LEAST 650 ppm is exceeded. Yippee! Spread the good news! Armageddon has been delayed a century or two!
@Hugh Pepper says:
December 11, 2011 at 12:03 pm
Heh. I see you don’t have any business experience. Any good contract should have a “force majeure” provision, at least, to stop joint ventures (and this agreement is just that) and let parties change or terminate the contract. For example, what if the “world average temperature” starts plummeting tomorrow morning and continues on for the next ten years? Do we just blindly move forward spending billions? Another out is implicit in this thing – the United States Senate is never going to agree to it, no matter how our “representative” to this thing kicks and screams (I suspect that applies to most other nations too, but who knows?). This “agreement” is no more than an advance invitation to the next orgy. Let’s see now, they haven’t been to Dubrovnik or Perth (WA) or many other party spots. I think they now have a ten-year planning horizon.
Keep them away from Perth in WA please……. hummm on the other hand we do have some very large man eating sharks in that area……..
Translation: let’s postpone this till the next junket. I need the airmiles…
Consider the enormous risks
What are these “enormous risks” and how do you know that they exist?
This climate justice seems like a real fine idea. how do we tax paying citizens go about bringing these scam artists to justice? Should Canada set aside an area of land for the climate criminals to demonstrate their intellectual purity by living a carbon free lifestyle?
This just in, after extensive study a scientific consensus has been reached, Hemoglobin has been determined to contribute to Catastrophic Climate Change. It has been agreed that all future use of Hemoglobin will be restricted with the Planet Saving Goal of reducing all use of Hemoglobin by 50% before 2120.
A further goal of eliminating Hemoglobin from all human systems by 2150 has been agreed to. Further, an International Hemoglobin Court WILL BE be created to eliminate ANY FUTURE USE of Hemoglobin in any way, shape or form after 2150, or maybe 2153, or if we can’t all agree to the date then 2162, but at the very very least 2372, unless we can’t all reconcile our calendars to meet in a nice warm tropical place for 2 or 3 weeks to eat all those delectable species that will, I repeat, will most definitely disappear within a decade (or so) of our next meeting. You must of course see clearly that it is critical that we conclude these confabs BEFORE all the really tasty food becomes extinct………..
Cheers, Kevin.
@crosspatch says:
December 11, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Wow, thanks for that mention of the Azolla Event. I’m sorry to say, I’d never heard of it, but on quick reading it seems at least a plausible – perhaps significant – contributor to the tremendous change in the Earth’s atmosphere and climatic environment over the last 50 million years. We went from 3500 ppm CO2 to 650 ppm, and the temperature fell something like 22 deg. C, among other things (lots of plate tectonics movements and new seaways formed, at the least), and glaciers waxed and waned on huge scale. The wiki article and this one:
http://www.azimuthproject.org/azimuth/show/Azolla+event
have some interesting graphs and links. It appears we have many degrees to add to this frigid ball before there is any danger of Antarctica melting away. And in fact, we’re so low on the CO2 scale today that plant life is threatened. Maybe we should have an Endangered Plant Species Act aimed at getting CO2 back to around 1000 ppm. 1000 PPM or BUST! PLANTS NEED IT – IT’s A MUST!
And on a humorous note, the wiki article contains these gems:
“…While a verdant Arctic Ocean is a viable working model, sceptical scientists point out that it would be possible for Azolla colonies in deltas or freshwater lagoons to be swept into the Arctic Ocean by strong currents, removing the necessity for a freshwater layer….” (I didn’t think it was allowed to mention sceptics on Wikipedia in relation to anything climatic).
and
“…Much of the current interest in oil exploration in the Arctic regions is directed towards the Azolla deposits. This means that much money is available for the study of this event…” (Oh those horrible oil companies, throwing money at destroying Gaia).
Despite 1500 journalists being involved in the Durban party, there was almost no coverage with any real content in the MSM. As I have said elsewhere on WUWT, their editors are apparently unaware that their industry is facing extinction. Can I add, who do you have to be sleeping with or have the videotapes on to get a 2 week holiday in Durban where you produce almost nothing?
From a journalistic perspective, the real tragedy is that Hunter S. Thompson is dead, and apparently nobody had the guts or initiative to go to Durban and do a bit of gonzo journalism. There were enough freaks and weirdos (not to mention hypocrites) there to make Hunter S. salivate at the prospect. Fear and Loathing, or descriptions of the US political process, would pale in comparison.
How about it, Willis? If funds can be found, would you be interested in using your deep knowledge of human failings to report from the next UN lovefest?
johanna says:
December 11, 2011 at 8:12 pm
Like the song says,
Sounds like fun.
w.
Anyone else notice the eerie similarity to the way the People’s Front of Judea [Monty Python’s Life of Brian] works. The Python boys virtually wrote the script for Durban 30+ years ago.
Reg Right, now, eh. Item four: attainment of world supremacy within the next five years. Eh, Francis, you’ve been doing some work on this.
Francis Yeah, thank you, Reg. Well, quite frankly, siblings, I think five years is optimistic, unless we can smash the Roman Empire within the next twelve months.
Reg Twelve months?
Francis Yeah. Twelve months. And let’s face it… as empires go, this is the big one, so we’ve got to get up off our arses, and stop just talking about it.
PFJ Hear Hear!!!
Loretta I agree. It’s action that counts, not words, and we need action now.
PFJ Hear Hear!!!
Reg You’re right. We could sit around here all day talking, passing resolution, making clever speeches, it’s not going to shift one Roman soldier.
Francis So let’s just stop gabbing on about it, it’s completely pointless, and it’s getting us nowhere.
PFJ Right.
Loretta I agree. This is a complete waste of time.
——–[Judith runs in, panicked.]
Judith They’ve arrested Brian!!
PFJ What?
Judith They’ve dragged him off. They’re going to crucify him.
Reg Right. This calls for immediate discussion.
Judith What?!?
Rebel1 Immediate.
Rebel2 Right.
Loretta New motion?
Reg Completely new motion. Eh, That, ah. That there be, ah, immediate action,
Francis … ah, once the vote has been taken.
Reg Well, obviously once the vote has been taken, you can’t act on a resolution ’till you’ve voted on it.
Judith Reg, for God’s sake, let’s go now, please!
Reg Yeah, yeah. Right, right. In the, in the light of fresh information from ah, sibling Judith.
Loretta [Who’s taking notes.] Ah, not so fast, Reg.
Judith Reg, For God’s sake. It’s perfectly simple. All you’ve got to do is to go out of that door now, and try to stop the Romans nailing him up. It’s happening, Reg. Something’s actually happening, Reg. Can’t you understand? Aaawoooooo!!!!!
[She rushes out in a rage.]
Francis Ooh. Ooh dear.
Reg Hello… and a little ego-trip for the feminists.
Loretta What?
Reg Ah, oh, sorry, Loretta. Aah. Aah, read that back, would you?