By Tom Harris and Madhav Khandekar
Originally published in The Washington Times Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Bad science puts rich nations on the hook for trillions in climate liabilities
Delegates at the recent U.N. climate conference in Warsaw decided that $1 billion a day, the amount currently being spent across the world on “climate finance”, is not enough. Far greater funding is needed to save the world from what U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls the “greatest threat facing humanity.” That climate science is highly immature and global warming actually stopped 17 years ago was never mentioned.
Here’s what our representatives just agreed to:
Starting in 2014, the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund, a plan to divert an additional $100 billion per year from the treasuries of developed countries to those of developing nations to help them “take action on climate change,” will commence operation. The heads of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are scheduled to take part in a launch ceremony for the GCF headquarters in South Korea on Wednesday.
A timetable was accepted to pave the way toward the establishment of a new international treaty in 2015 that will force developed countries to spend untold billions more to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. The fine print in the negotiating text includes an escape clause for developing nations, indicating that carbon-dioxide emission targets their governments agree to will not be enforced. Developed nations do not have this escape clause.
The rules governing how developing countries will be financially rewarded, at our cost, for reducing deforestation were also established.
However, this is only the tip of the financial iceberg we will soon face. Last-minute concessions by our representatives have set us up for a potential liability of trillions of dollars. They agreed to the establishment of a new U.N. legal framework: the “Warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage associated with climate change impacts.”
In so doing, the door has been opened to requiring that we compensate developing countries for the impact of extreme weather events that are supposedly our fault. No one knows to what extent the charges against us will be retroactive, but for the first time ever, the costs of extreme weather events all over the world are about to be added to our bill.
This happened because developed countries did not challenge the scientifically flawed notion that anthropogenic climate change is thought to be responsible for extreme weather events. Consequently, Mr. Ban faced no opposition from delegates when he unjustifiably blamed the recent typhoon in the Philippines on man-made global warming.
Rather than accepting such mistakes, here are the sorts of things our representatives to U.N. climate conferences must bring up.
Extreme weather has always been an integral part of the Earth’s climate system. It is not within human control, and there has been no worldwide increase in such phenomena.
The U.N.’s own science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), stated in their March 28, 2012 Special Report on Extremes: “There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change.” In their September 2013 assessment report, the IPCC had only “low confidence” that damaging increases will occur in tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) owing to global warming.
The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change agreed, asserting in its September report: “In no case has a convincing relationship been established between warming over the past 100 years and increases in any of these extreme events.”
U.N. delegates also must ask critical questions of their leaders. For instance, extreme weather events occurred with about the same frequency during the 1945 to 1977 global-cooling period as they do today, yet no climate scientist pointed to human activity as being responsible in the earlier period. What is different now?
Why has the secretary-general not answered the 134 skeptical climate experts who told him in their Nov. 24, 2012, open letter: “Current scientific knowledge does not substantiate your assertions . Global warming that has not occurred cannot have caused the extreme weather of the past few years.”
To maintain political pressure for the new climate accord, there will be additional U.N. negotiations this coming spring, summer and autumn, the latter hosted by the secretary-general himself. Our negotiators must introduce the findings of real science at these meetings. Otherwise, we will soon be responsible for trillions of dollars in compensation for natural phenomena that impact rich and poor nations alike.
The right response is to help vulnerable people adapt to extreme weather events, to the degree we can afford. The idea that we cause them and can prevent them from occurring is science fiction.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Tom Harris is executive director of the International Climate Science Coalition. Madhav Khandekar, a former research scientist with Environment Canada, was an expert reviewer for the U.N.’s IPCC 2007 climate-change documents and contributed to the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change.
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“Why has the secretary-general not answered the 134 skeptical climate experts who told him in their Nov. 24, 2012, open letter: “Current scientific knowledge does not substantiate your assertions . Global warming that has not occurred cannot have caused the extreme weather of the past few years.” A No-brainer: Money.
It’s not about saving the planet it’s about redistribution. The future problem is what happens when western economies have been so degraded by CO² reductions that the poor and emerging nations have to pay us.
I honestly don’t understand what’s driving all this. Is it the madness of crowds? Is it western egalitarianism and third world dictators banding together at the UN? What?
This is fairy gold. The money will not come from the “rich” nations. The struggle for saving the climate has degeneratred into blackmail, and sobbing hysterics, as demonstrated by the representative from the Philippines. Next year more tears, but not more money, will flow in Peru. The media writes about decisions from Warsaw as if they were binding, in fact they are only last-minute compromises, and purely intentional. Otherwise no agreeement would have been made. It is all window-dressing to conceal the embarrasing failure of the conference. Just look at the declining number of high-level politicians attending. Where was Obama?
COP is no fun anymore. Everyone, from warmist to denier, are utterly pessimistic about the outcome. Hence the recent focus from warmists that governments must go it alone, so goodbye to political consensus. In fact, governments already do, but the other way, like Australia, Japan and Canada. No doubt these heretics are silently hailed by many other nations.
It is not just a matter of an open letter from sceptical climate experts. Why does the UN Secretary-General not acknowledge that the IPCC, an instrument of the UN itself, has “low-confidence” that climate change causes extreme weather events? This is not a matter of cherry-picking. This is activism, plain and simple.
Stephen Richards makes a very good point. However, even in a cooling world this UN machinery will grind on, simply changing the ‘science’ to show that CO² is the cause. They have done it before, as this BBC doco made in 1988 details: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqsRD4HPtH0
How much will the developing countries pay for increasing their harvests up to 25% every year?
It’s seems to me like a massive sustainable global pyramid scheme, with compulsory participatory contributions by the tax payers of the world…what’s not to like? With the UN and most first world world governments, and even many third world governments on the ‘in’, behind it, it’s hard to see how it can be stopped from implementation? I feel for those billions of humanity who are destined to form the base of the pyramid and get nothing in return.
It,s all about $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and power
Americans – you have elections coming up in 2014 – THAT is how you stop this madness. Obama is directly responsible for this UN prostitution – he is pushing US climate change and has ordered his “officials” to be part of this mess. Same with the UK – you have elections coming up and if UKIP has a say in this matter then it is dead on arrival. The UN is merely a tool used by western governments to be their scapegoat – every single western power had their chance (many, many chances) to speak up and no one did. I do not blame the UN in any way – they merely reap the benefits of weak, leftists western governments looking to tax their own citizens to death for global warming schemes at home themselves. I see here everyone is blaming the UN – why? They can only operate at the discretion of western powers at every turn. The second and third world pay nothing – the west itself is the culprit and always was.
This is why the scam will continue. It is madness that is now beyond the reach/control of individual nations. The madness of crowds has gone supernational
It is quite clear that Ban ki Moon now feels that he can play God and control all the weather and climate around the earth, even if he does have to fake the facts. He is quite obviously the cuckoo in the nest, in trying to get a sensible and ballanced debate on climate matters, and until he stands down from his term of office, common sense on climate science from the all-powerful United Nations will not be allowed to prevail. The UN, led by Mr Ban, quite clearly has an agenda over and above the need to be accurate on climate matters. They do not want climate to be seen to be normal and with nothing to be alarmed about, When then does his term of office come to an end? Until that happens, and a new Secretary General with common sense is appointed, and the useless and stupid IPCC is disbanded, it looks as if all the proof in the world will be insufficient to change his mind into accepting that AGW is just not happening.
It’s not about redistribution or the poor or anything else, it’s about socialist world government. The watermelons having failed to get power democratically have captured the UN and are trying to impose rule undemocratically. The UN like the league of nations, should be disbanded and reformed differently.
HelmutU (at 1:46 am) has a great point. If the UN and developing world want to play games, then let’s play them.
Let’s sit down and figure out how much our CO2 emissions have improved the crop yield in the developing world. Most if not all of them are largely agricultural nations anyway, aren’t they? I can’t say for sure, but I’m willing to bet that the value of their increased crop yield from the higher CO2 levels is worth as much as (if not more than) what the developing world is blackmailing us for.
They might owe us, not the other way around. I would love to see their response to that.
@ur momisugly bobl et al.
It is about redistribution of wealth, the Socialists mantra! It is indeed about Global Guvment, Agenda 21, & the systematic dismantling & destruction of the United States of America. As I have said several times before, the poor people in rich countries will be taxed to oblivion, (the rich people will always have their blood-sucking lawyers & accountants to prevent them from being so taxed), & that money will end up in the hands of rich people in poor countries, their poor people seeing very little of the scam money in reality, & will probably remain pretty poor themselves! That’s why the Copenhagen fiasco failed, the poor countries didn’t want to sign up to a verification system to show where the West’s money goes! The problem appears to be an historic one. Spain extracted vast amounts of gold & silver from South America, enriching itself, but its “economy” was broke. When it lost its empire it became rather poor because it didn’t need to trade to become wealthy. Britain had to trade to become rich, regardless of its empirical challenges good or bad! On a plus note, we Brits didn’t lose our empire, we simply gave it back, although I still say we should never have let the Virginian Colonies go, pretty poor show, don’t you know! 😉
A timetable was accepted to pave the way toward the establishment of a new international treaty in 2015 that will force developed countries to spend untold billions more to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.
Well at least you have the benefit in the States, that just because your government signs up to things like this, doesn’t mean you actually pay it. See for example the commitment of the G20 nations to spend a set percentage of gdp on foreign aid, which only the UK and one other kept to. The UK might get to take the high moral ground but everyone laughs at us for being suckers.
I think we should all take responsibility for the pause in warming. It is obvious that the late 20th century warming was mainly natural, but the pause is man made. Come on, own up.
/sarc
The UN will effectively take money from the poor in rich countries and give it to the rich in poor countries.
Perhaps the biggest inequity of this agreement is that well intentioned foreign aid budgets will inevitably be sacrificed with moneys being diverted into the climate fund. Unless a country needing foreign aid can make a specific case for a climate related loss, then these poorest nations will be the biggest sufferers. On the other hand, rules may be pitched so wide that all developing nations will benefit, which means that 100 billion dollars will be small change under the circumstances.
Perhaps another unintended consequence will be that nations like America and Britain will be much less proactive in providing immediate disaster relief, because again, funds will have already been assigned to the climate fund and these nations may be reluctant to provide the immediate response that is highly necessary in such situations, perhaps having to barter to ensure that any contribution is appropriately assigned before belatedly authorising aid. Or individuals may become reluctant to contribute to disaster relief through charitable emergency relief. Non climate related disasters such as earthquake disaster response could also suffer because such budgets will have been stretched by the requirement to prop up the climate fund.
Excellent news for the German economy!
More Mercs for alpha males.
Our tormentors have an agenda and it’s called UN Agenda 21.
They don’t want the developing world to industrialize and they want the West rigged, poor and retarded.
Any common sense that doesn’t fit the Agenda is a waste of time because nobody will listen.
Only an overthrow of Government will solve this which means that Obama Care will save the World. How much irony can a man bear in these crazy times: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/expert-testifies-to-congress-that-obamas-ignoring-laws-could-lead-to-overthrow-of-government/
The last sentence of the piece is ” The idea that we cause them and can prevent them from occurring is science fiction.”
Let us put the blame for this scientific nonsense where it belongs. It belongs on the doorstep of The Royal Society. This is the most ancient and respected scientific organization in the world. For some unknown reason, it endorsed CAGW a few years ago. Now if is behaving like another juvenile delinquent, metaphorically putting it’s fingers in it’s ears and shouting “La, la, la, I can ‘t hear you”.
Until this noble institution returns to the scientific method of Galileo and Newton, by relying on empirical data, instead of meaningless hypothetical estimations, this sort of nonsense will continue.
Stefan says:
December 4, 2013 at 1:35 am
“I honestly don’t understand what’s driving all this. Is it the madness of crowds? Is it western egalitarianism and third world dictators banding together at the UN? What?”
The UN was founded in 1945 to become the dominant military power of the world and basically the world government as described in the Fabian Socialists plans (as published by the Fabian H.G. Welles in his book “Shape Of Things To Come”; there is also a UK movie of that title depicting the vision of the book, which is a must-see for its cringeworthyness; the movie was made under H.G.Wells oversight).
The UN then went on to subdue the breakaway Kongo province of Katanga, killing 100,000 insurgents, helping the socialist Lumumba government. The West was aghast. The UN had to stop its military strategy and developed a deception strategy, which they rolled out at the 1971 Stockholm conference for the environment under Maurice Strong, where the Green NGO’s for the first time became the sockpuppets of the NWO.
So, todays watermelons emanate from the UN, not the other way around. The Green movement was designed from the start as an enabler for the NWO.
The UN was conceived by the CFR, one of the round-table groups created by Milner to create the “secret society” desired by Cecil Rhodes in his 7th will (which is online and searchable).
It’s a multi-staged power structure about 120 years old that follows its plan in a gradualist way. CO2AGW is just one tool in the box.
What happens when the AMO turns cold and temperatures start to fall not just plateau? What happens if the oceans cool and reabsorb the CO2 they realeased in the warm phase. We are also close to if not entering a Bond event its been 1470 and change years since the last one.
Lastly who are these rich nations the UN speaks of we are broke beyond belief and Europe is even worse off.
It is much easier if people willingly submit to slavery than to enslave them by a force of arms. But you need a cause. And the cause is global warming. The greatest threat to humanity is incompetent bureaucrats using bad science to scare people into relinquishing their liberties.