From Dr. Benny Peiser of the GWPF
Rich Nations Block Push To Count Past CO2 Emissions At UN Climate Summit
Japan set a new target for greenhouse gas emissions that critics say will set back United Nations talks for a treaty limiting fossil fuel emissions. The new target effectively reverses course from the goal set four years ago by allowing a 3.1 per cent increase in emissions from 1990 levels rather than seeking a 25 per cent cut. —Bloomberg, 15 November 2013
Japan’s decision added to gloom at the Warsaw talks, where no major countries have announced more ambitious goals to cut emissions, despite warnings from scientists about the risks of more heatwaves, droughts, floods and rising sea levels. —Reuters, 15 November 2013
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Slow-moving U.N. negotiations on fighting climate change can advance only if rich nations fulfill their promise to provide billions of dollars in finance to developing countries, China’s chief climate negotiator Su Wei said Thursday. He told reporters in Warsaw that developed nations should make good on pledges made in 2010 and immediately pay the promised $30 billion to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate change. Rich countries also need to clarify how they intend to scale that up to $100 billion per year by 2020, he said. “That would be a very important starting point and key to the successful conclusion of the negotiation of a (post-)2020 agreement,” said Su. —Reuters, 14 November 2013

The U.S. and European Union blocked a proposal supported by 130 nations including Brazil and China that would use [CO2 emission] levels dating back to the industrial revolution to help set limits on emissions in the future. The proposal goes to the heart of one of the most divisive concepts in the talks — the notion of equity. Developing countries say that because industrialized nations have been emitting greenhouse gases for 200 years, they must bear the most responsibility to rein in the pollution blamed for global warming. Richer countries see a focus on the past as a tool by poorer nations to avoid making bigger efforts to curtail their own emissions. –Alex Morales, Bloomberg, 15 November 2013
“Japan’s decision added to gloom at the Warsaw talks…”
I doubt if the weather is any better in Murmansk.
Therefor between now and the Nov. 2014 vote in the U.S. , Pres. Obama and the Democrats are going to double down with the EPA rules, push the CO2 scare, sell wind mills, push China’s solar panels, demand more corn to be made in to fuel and thus give an opening to the sane people to make the case to the U.S. voters.
Just may be that Obama is not so good at avoiding ambushes he sets for himself.
I can tell all that ambushes are not a good thing at all.
These people at COP are in total-disconnect mode, pushing the extreme weather-climate change link as if it were fact. This is basically lying to achieve their ends, with a healthy dollop of projected guilt. What a goddamn circus.
After Fukishima Japan has been trying to cut their dependence on nuclear power. They have to either break the CO2 target or have their economy grind to a halt … er … further to a halt.
You’re still using inflated population figures. D/L the actual UN Population Survey spreadsheet, and note it has 3 pages. Instead of the Medium, look at the Low Band projections. They’re the only ones ever even close to accurate. They project peak at ~8bn in 30 years, declining indefinitely (permanently?) thereafter. De-pop will be the real “crisis”.
Japan has reached the limit of deficit spending and ‘quantitative’ easing (printing money). The current US administration and the EU are trying their best to catch up with the Japanese. Politics changes when there is massive unemployment, a currency crisis, and forced balanced budgets.
The EU CO2 emissions are dropping due to massive loss of jobs to Asia. The EU is entering their next recession.
There is a race; will the CAWG madness be ended by forced balanced budgets or global cooling? Perhaps both?
As enviros are want to tell us: The Earth is sick; humanity is a cancer upon this planet. So I think we should change the name of the Kyoto protocol to the International Earth Health Care Act or maybe the International Earth Health Care Plan. Now, we certainly wouldn’t want to call it the Affordable Earth Health Care Act or ACA … oops, AECA … because everybody knows there is about as much chance of the scam … oops, scheme … being affordable as there is of a wicker basket surviving a supersonic plunge into hell. Now, to get all nations on board with the Earth Health Care Plan we can endlessly repeat that, ‘if you don’t like your Earth Health Care Plan you don’t have to keep your Earth Health Care Plan.’ Sounds a little bit as if Japan has had the sense to do that.
Japanese people have had a lot to do with the Govt decision. btw they weren’t impressed by this move earlier in the week :
12 Nov: Japan Times: JIJI: Plan to lower radiation readings OK’d
To facilitate the return of evacuees, the Nuclear Regulation Authority has approved a change in the way radiation doses are monitored around the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station that will effectively result in lower readings, but observers warn this could raise public mistrust.
The change calls for basing monitoring on data from dosimeters held by individual residents.
It was proposed by the regulatory commission’s secretariat at its meeting Monday and gained broad-based consensus…
The new method is expected to help promote the return of evacuees as well as reduce costs for decontaminating areas tainted by radioactive fallout from the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant.
But a change in the monitoring method could heighten local residents’ mistrust of the government, observers said…
Decontamination costs are estimated at Yen2.53 trillion to Yen5.13 trillion in Fukushima Prefecture, excluding radioactive waste disposal
In the city of Fukushima, Ichiro Kowata, 77, an evacuee from Iitate, called for the government to more fully explain the proposed method change. “Younger people say they can’t trust statements that suddenly declare areas to be safe when they have been called dangerous until now,” he said.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/12/national/plan-to-lower-radiation-readings-okd/
People who are dismayed by Japan’s statement should really read Nigel Lawsons “Appeal to Reason : A Cool Look At Global Warming”. There is this wonderful part towards the the end where he basically states that there is no technical, economic or political mechanism to put in place what is required – the de-industrialisation of the west. Anyone who thinks there is “doesn’t need to worry about saving this planet ….. they are already living on a different one”. The move by Japan just illustrates this reality. There is absolutely no point putting in place targets and making ‘commitments’ if there is no mechanism to make them happen.
It can’t have been a very good summit in Warsaw …..lets look at the facts. Japan reneges on previous commitments, Australia moves to scrap carbon tax and doesn’t even turn up – which Canada applauds, 50,000 Poles demonstrate against environmentalism, coal conference next door, US blocks wealth re-distribution plan, Europe wrings hands in angst as it looks into the black hole of impoverishment and global irrelevance. Oh yes, and meanwhile we are now in 17th year of no global warming, ironically almost exactly the same number of years these stupid conferences have been taking place. Its over folks.
johanna says:
November 15, 2013 at 6:01 pm
Mario, leaving aside the absurd use of “damaging”, the point is that they make the ridiculous assertion that 14,800 times an input has 14,800 times the effect.
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Johanna: We’re on the same side. I am sickened when people use the term CO2 as a demonized certainty –as if it were in fact damaging. That they ignor what we do know about CO2, that it is without a doubt a precious molecule (which is short supply), and without which there is no life at all.
Mario
I live in Japan and I can report first hand that a majority of the ordinary Japanese I know are in favor of abandoning nuclear power. The main reason for this stance is fear of radioactive contamination which has been hyped in the media in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. Former Prime Minister Koizumi has been advocating this policy publicly recently, suggesting that greater energy saving and efficiency is the way to go. Form Prime Minister Kan, who was in charge at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, also advocates Japan ending its reliance on nuclear power.
Most of Japan’s 50 or so remaining reactors are currently offline and fossil fuel-powered generation is taking up the slack. That means higher CO2 emissions, of course, but more importantly it means that the electricity generating industry is running at a loss and so fuel bills are on the rise. Also, as these corporations are not operating in the black, they are not paying local taxes. When the various cost increases go ahead and the knock-on effects work their way through the economic system, I suspect the anti-nuclear sentiment will soften, but in the present “climate of fear”, the government and the utilities are in no mood to directly challenge “the will of the people”.
Given this situation, fossil fuel consumption is expected to remain higher in Japan for some years yet, regardless of any modest future progress in reducing energy consumption brought about through energy efficiency and negative population growth. I think the recent decision to revise the CO2 emissions target upwards is simply a reflection of that reality. People in Japan are facing a choice between three—consume more fossil fuels, consume more nuclear power, or endure a lower standard of living. Set beside this choice, the “need” to reduce CO2 emissions simply isn’t an issue.
johanna says:
November 15, 2013 at 5:33 pm
“To give you an idea of how potentially damaging this could be, the EIA estimates that HFC-23 is around 14,800 times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide.”
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Around 14,800 times more damaging to the climate? What does that even mean?
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CO2 damage to climate = 0.
14,800 * 0 = 0
ImranCan says:
November 15, 2013 at 8:44 pm
“it’s over folks”
It is. Except that it keeps going like some kind of perverted energizer bunny.
“Japan’s decision added to gloom at the Warsaw talks…”
I thought they liked gloom.
The more negative gongs Australia gets at this Warsaw warming fest the better.
Australian Prime Minister Abbott has made it perfectly clear that Australia will have nothing to do with “UN socialism masquerading as environmentalism”.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/16940-australia-rejects-un-socialism-masquerading-as-environmentalism
“China’s chief climate negotiator Su Wei said … that developed nations should … immediately pay the promised $30 billion”.
Foreign Aid – That’s what poor people in rich countries pay to the rich people in poor countries – Joseph Luns in Der Spiegel, 1969.
“Eve says:
November 15, 2013 at 3:19 pm”
Although Abbott here in Australia took the repealing of the price on carbon to an election, and won, he still has to get that legislation through both houses (I don’t see any action on that much before July next year, but who knows, with the indications out of the latest climate change gab fest in Poland favourable, Abbott might be able to push though the legislation sooner, but there is still no guarantee of success). Regardless, the price on carbon is still in place, now at AU$24.15/tonne CO2 since July, with 10% of that revenue going to the UN (Thanks Combet). The estimated revenue raised in the first year, from July 2012, was AU$8billion (AU$800mil, maybe that’s the price Australia had to pay to get that temporary seat on the UN security council).
I also don’t get the distinction between “rich” countries and “poor” countries. It’s all relative. I am in no way rich with 30%-40% of my income extracted, directly or indirectly, by taxes/levies in one form or other (Income tax, medicare levy which was raised to pay for the flood recovery in Queensland, GST etc) but I would seem to be richer than someone in similar employment in say Kenya, Africa. Note that the two countries with the most number of millionaires/billionaires are India and China.
This is interesting. The wily developing countries are asking that the CO2 emissions for each country to be calculated as the accumulated total from 1850 to present. As the US, UK, and Germany developed early they would need to make greater cuts to compensate for past sins and they will need to send more money to developed countries to waste on green scams.
U.S., EU, Reject Brazilian Call for Climate Equity Metric http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-11-14/rich-nations-block-push-to-count-past-pollution-at-warming-talks Under the measure first proposed by Brazil, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would devise a methodology for nations to calculate their total output of greenhouse gases since 1850 to determine their historical responsibility for global warming. This would help inform their own pledges for reducing future emissions.
The proposal to use historical emissions as a guide isn’t going to go away, according to Jennifer Morgan, director of Climate at the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based research group monitoring the talks. “It’s an indication of the level of importance given to the issue of equity,” Morgan said in an interview in Warsaw. “The countries who have emitted the least are the most vulnerable to climate change, like the Philippines. They haven’t done anything, and they’re suffering from the emissions that others produce.”
Measurement Program
Under the measure first proposed by Brazil, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would devise a methodology for nations to calculate their total output of greenhouse gases since 1850 to determine their historical responsibility for global warming. This would help inform their own pledges for reducing future emissions.
Deaths due to the earthquake & tsunami ~20,000.
Deaths due to radiation from Fukushima 0.
@Magicjava
CO2 damage to climate = 0.
14,800 * 0 = 0
+++++++++++
Perzactly! It is like saying, “The storm was caused/made worse by global warming,” when there hasn’t been any warming.
Worse x 0 = 0
Storms x Temperature increase of 0 = 0 worseness
Hurricanes x no statistical increase in temperature = no statistically worse hurricanes
I still find the information displayed in Gapminder World enlightening. The URL is long so go to http://www.gapminder.org/ and see the wealth and health of nations improve from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Karl Marx would have observed the UK workforce (which would have been the majority) and the conditions they were in. It seems worse than ironic that the descendants of the many generations of that workforce (still the majority) are now at fault for acquiring wealth, ignoring the fact that they worked hard for it and earned every penny they worked for.
To add insult to injury it seems we in the UK are at fault for exporting pollution by buying goods from so called 3rd world economies like China and India (China has a Maglev train and India is sending a rocket to Mars, and the UK?). If we must pay for exporting pollution then we must be in credit for all the years other countries exported their pollution to the industrialised world.
..only if rich nations fulfill their promise to provide billions of dollars in finance to developing countries, China’s chief climate negotiator Su Wei said Thursday
Perhaps Mr Su has a notion those developing countries would spend their new found billions of dollars on cheap TV’s and AK47’s? Personally I think the billions would more likely be spent in their countries of origin. If a government sends hideously over-priced, locally made, whacky green gizmos instead of hard cash, one spending can be counted as green, foreign aid, local infrastructure investment and UN funding all at the same time.
Tada,
I have never voted for Japan’s LDP (the current party which supports Mr. Abe), but I agree with the Abe cabinet’s energy plan which includes policy on CO2 emissions and running nuclear power plants as soon as possible. I am relieved to find that our government is not affected by moody propaganda.(Although the fact that Japan spends a lot on renewables is my concern)
Mark Urbo says:
November 15, 2013 at 6:11 pm
“What’s a little Co2 when you’re openly leaking radiation into the environment…”
You do know that the environment *is* radioactive?
cgh says:
November 15, 2013 at 5:45 pm
“Kyoto has never been about CO2 reduction as its principal goal. That was merely the means to an end, which was and is a fundamental realignment of world trade patterns. And the author of all this lunacy? “Uncle Mo” Strong?”
Kyoto was designed entirely by the German Bundestag; for very Realpolitikal reasons.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/secret-history-climate-alarmism?page=1
It was designed in such a way that Germany didn’t need to do a thing except for closing down obsolete DDR industries. Which we already had.