The Price Of Climate Hysteria
West Faces Liability Claims For Extreme Weather Disasters
Representatives of most of the world’s poor countries have walked out of increasingly fractious climate negotiations after the EU, Australia, the US and other developed countries insisted that the question of who should pay compensation for extreme climate events be discussed only after 2015. The orchestrated move by the G77 and China bloc of 132 countries came during talks about “loss and damage” – how countries should respond to climate impacts that are difficult or impossible to adapt to, such as typhoon Haiyan. –John Vidal, The Guardian, 20 November 2013
“The EU understands that the issue is incredibly important for developing countries. But they should be careful about … creating a new institution. This is not [what] this process needs,” said Connie Hedegaard, EU climate commissioner. She ruled out their most important demand, insisting: “We cannot have a system where we have automatic compensation when severe events happen around the world. That is not feasible.” –John Vidal, The Guardian, 20 November 2013
The devastation wreaked by Typhoon Haiyan has become a rallying cry at UN climate talks, where the Philippines and other developing nations are demanding aid guarantees for future damage from global warming. The demand has created another deep fault line in the divided negotiations, for rich nations see it as a potential trap, locking them into a never-ending liability for compensation. More than 130 developing states are now calling for an international “loss and damage” mechanism, bankrolled by wealthy nations, to be embedded in a 2015 global pact on climate change. —Agence France Press, 20 November 2013
Africa faces costs to adapt to the effects of climate change that will rise to $350 billion a year by the 2070s if governments fail to rein in runaway emissions, according to a report today from the UN Environment Program. The costs of adapting Africa’s infrastructure to the rising seas and stronger storms caused by global warming will likely total $7 billion to $15 billion by 2020 and “rise rapidly” thereafter because of ever-higher temperatures, UNEP said today in a report released at UN climate talks in Warsaw. –Alex Morales, Bloomberg 20 November 2013
The IPCC, despite the fact that it has made some missteps in the past, is exactly the sort of institution for providing scientific advice to help evaluate conflicting and uncertain empirical claims. In the case of loss and damage from extreme events, the evidence is extremely strong. There is at present no evidentiary basis to support demands for reparations.
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The proposal, advanced by the G77 plus China, that the US and other nations should pay tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars to poor countries that suffer disasters, is a central theme of the climate negotiations now taking place in Warsaw, Poland. Yet partial responsibility for the emergence of a debate on historical reparations lies squarely with President Obama. Despite the scientific evidence to the contrary, President Obama declared in his 2013 State of the Union Address that “Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods – all are now more frequent and more intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen, were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science.” –Roger Pielke Jr., The Guardian, 19 November 2013
Long drawn arguments through two days of almost continuous negotiations broke out over the key decisions that the Warsaw meeting would make. A draft of the decisions brought out on Monday became the new battleground as developed countries tried to remove any difference in the responsibility thrust upon the developing countries from that of the rich nations. –Nitin Sethi, The Hindu, 20 November 2013
20% of the EU’s budget will go towards fighting climate change, climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard announced in Warsaw today. This equates to €180 billion on climate spending between 2014 and 2020. Much of this will be spent on domestic projects, helping with the development of climate-smart agriculture, energy efficiency and the transport sector. Speaking at a press conference in Warsaw today, EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said that if the world is successfully going to tackle climate change “one of the things we need is to change is the whole economic paradigm, including the way we construct our budgets.” She added that Europe is the first region to construct its budget in this way. –Sophie Yeo, Responding to Climate Change, 20 November 2013
Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk dismissed environment minister Marcin Korolec on Wednesday as part of a government reshuffle. Korolec will be replaced by Maciej Grabowski, former deputy finance minister responsible for preparing shale gas taxation. “It is about radical acceleration of shale gas operations. Mr Korolec will remain the government’s plenipotentiary for the climate negotiations,” Tusk told a news conference. His dismissal raised questions over Poland’s position in the negotiations. —Reuters, 20 November 2013
Quite. You could also be sure that any ‘reparations’ paid would, in many countries, find their way to the personal bank accounts of those same corrupt officials and leaders who have done nothing to help protect their populations from severe weather.
Well, there you have it. I always said the AGW/Climate Change/etc was a wealth transfer scheme.
Now the wealth transfer is NOW openly debated as the central artifact of the UN initiatives.
Duh?
When the amount of wealth to be transferred is not enough, then the intended recipients walk out.
Good? Yes Good!!! Keep walking ya sponges!
It was never about environmental matters. It was always about getting money.
Russ R. says:
November 20, 2013 at 11:07 am
“Guaranteed Aid” will guarantee maximum loss of life, and property when typhoons hit.
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If the government paid money to one-eyed, one-armed, one-legged people, within a generation 20% of the population would have one eye, one arm and one leg.
I knew a long time ago all that “foreign” aid was nothing more then a doorway asking for trouble. Sending money to any of the “third” world nations is a loosing proposition and always has. Moreover, where did this idea that rich nations are the rest of the world’s piggy bank to decide as they will? We are responsible for the the physical boundaries inside our own nations, of which ALL rich nations are deeply in debt as it stand. How any sane nation can support the UN is insanity at best – the UN is the single most corrupt organization on this planet. You have to be a raving lunatic not to know that, or take steps to get out of that monstrosity.
@ur momisugly Tom J. — HAPPY THANKSGIVING, to you, too! #(:))
Re: bar exam (assuming you attempted to pass one) — From your posts (and I’ve read quite a few by now!), you did not fail to pass because of a lack of intelligence. I know from highly informed sources that MOST if not all of those who fail the bar exam do so out of test taking anxiety — and that– is– all. It was, in my opinion (not yours, if I recall correctly) a shutting of a door by God to make sure you ended up on a different path, the one He had planned for you. Such times are painful, but, I am grateful for them — later — (heh, much later, usually…).
(P.S. Hope the “comparables” issue is turning out okay.)
((P.P.S. Thanks, so much, for bothering to say “Hi.” You would not BELIEVE how many people I “talk” to here who never bother to say anything back (over and over, too) and that is soooo depressing. And that’s for me to work on, I know. You are a refreshingly friendly exception — as are a few others!))
Janice
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“Climate shmimate” (Bruce Cobb 11:59pm) — LOL. I always enjoy your posts, Mr. Cobb. You have a terrific sense of humor.
The vomit inducing hubris is despicable. The devastation in Philippines was caused by greed, corruption and incompetence. From the first bleat about, remote, difficult, lack of communication, the sad excuses rolled out.
Water melons sewed the seeds of CO2 damage, they can reap the rewards and get out of our lives
RONALD REAGAN Stopped Global Warming!
From Scientific American: “Ozone Hole History Offers Climate Lesson”
The Montreal Protocol aimed to fix the ozone hole, but it also delayed global warming.
…By the 1980s, folks like then Secretary of State George Shultz woke up to the threat, despite a campaign of denial from scientific doubters. He convinced President Reagan that the danger was real and that action was necessary. By 1989, the U.S. and the rest of the world had crafted an international treaty to curb CFCs known as the Montreal Protocol.
As a result, the hole in the ozone layer that forms above Antarctica has mostly stabilized.
Now we know that Montreal also bought us a little more time to deal with another air pollution problem: climate change. That’s according to a new analysis in the journal Nature Geoscience. The study found a statistically significant correlation between the onset of the Montreal Protocol and a reduction in the pace of global warming. Because CFCs are also greenhouse gases.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=ozone-hole-history-offers-climate-l-13-11-10
Yep, RONALD REAGAN stopped Global Warming
I was struck by the similarities between the folly of the Green Climate Fund in Warsaw and the recent report in The Mail Online on 10 October ,2013,”14 Caribbean nations sue Britain, Holland and France for slavery reparations that could cost hundreds of billions of pounds.”
It is debatable which of these truly depressing spectacles constitutes the greatest ambit claim in history.
I think it only fair that spending on reparations be proportional to Climate Impact–
NONE!
And it should forever be proportional!
We really need more climate scientists and scientists in related fields, as well as universities, who do not believe in AGW, and that we are not causing damaging storms etc., TO SPEAK UP!! Their level-headed opinions, views, and scientific research and data must be diseminated to the mainstream media, to halt the false and damaging climate change bandwagon.
How far back was it we were ‘poor’, comprised of only 13 colonies to begin with? Accepting help from a few European countries during a fight for independence?
How come these other ‘countries’ (MANY existing on this earth with a different name perhaps for many years before ‘the colonies’) need so much CONTINUED help all these years yet to remain strongholds for 3rd world dictators?
/rhetorical
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These Green Scams remind me of the old King Canute tale (Cnut,actually) Whose sycophants believed he could hold back the waves. The only diference is that, unlike our so-called leaders, Cnut actually knew how powerless he was against nature.