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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So the IPCC, the official UN climate voice, states quite clearly that weather is *not* being impacted by AGW, yet the head of the UN is ignoring his own organization and demanding trillions from ‘wealthy’ states.
Wow. the mask slips just a bit and what is underneath is beneath contempt.
I sent a bill to the Philippines for damages caused by Pinatubo. They countered with a Haiyan gambit. Now do I play the deforestation card or wait to pick up the tsunami?
I really need that money
wws,
Excellent comment. We used to be able to rely somewhat on politiians’ statements. If they promised something, or assured us they were against something, we could generally count on them to keep their word.
But no more. The Obama Administration has destroyed that trust. Now, it is “Say Anything”. They are trading on the former goodwill built up by past leaders. Now they will promise for or against anything in order to gain a temporary P.R. advantage — and then go right ahead and do whatever they intended to do all along.
They have forfeited credibility for temporary gain. But I don’t see how that can last forever. Obamacare is a good example. No one believes the things they are saying any more. Words and promises are cheap. Actions are all that matter now.
Great insightful comments! We’re all being played again dialectically. Problem-Reaction-Solution.
Warmists in Warsaw have set up the “problem” as being the developed nations “causing” extreme weather events because of our high energy use, then they set up the “reaction” from the 130+ walkout nations that demanded that developed nations cover their weather-related property losses, and in 2015, the supposed “solution” being a binding climate treaty, binding all nations to lower carbon dioxide emissions, except for China, India, and maybe a few other “special” exemptions (we’ve seen this political favoritism before in cherry-picked health care (ACA) exemptions).
I believe that the only chance we have against this leviathan before 2015 is for a worldwide understanding of the most basic yet overlooked fact of weather & climate, a fact verified by billions of satellite readings, that Spaceweather is Electric Weather, and that Electric Weather causes Extreme Weather, not tiny changes in a puny fractional amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
We must instill into billions of people worldwide a firm understanding and conviction of those facts based on sound science; only then will we have a chance at preventing the warmist’s ecotyranny.
Only standing together, shouting THEM down with that truth, will their support completely crumble.
There isn’t anything we can do to stop electric weather effects, but we can better understand how our weather and climate respond to an ever-variable electric space environment, and how we can be better prepared for the subsequent extreme weather events when and where they happen. That understanding can only happen through a massive sustained effective communication effort.
For a introduction read this post at Tallbloke’s Talkshop and my comment thereafter: www.http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/tim-cullen-svensmark-vindicat
Bob Weber, that’s just great. I’ll bite. Now there is no problem with burning fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas, and in particular there is no problem with burning coal to produce electricity. Do you agree?
There is no chance whatsoever that supposed man made global warming/climate change will lead mankind back into the Dark Ages, as a result of a Thermageddon fantasy.
However, efforts proposed to combat this non-problem may well achieve this highly undesirable goal.
I cannot see where these huge payments are going, except into the grasping hands of new bureaucracies and the giant kleptocracy of Third World leaders, their pals, relatives and cronies.
What on Earth can you realistically do to combat change in the Third World? Answer: Almost nothing.
How do we recompense Third World for extreme climate events, which are rare but perfectly normal events? Have them build replacement new homes and infrastructure? If so, all I can hear is a huge sucking sound of cash winging its way to cuckoo clock land.
We live in a world gone mad.
Zeke, unless you or fellow travelers have a ready to roll energy source that will effectively replace every single source of usable energy we now have, your rather loaded question is irrelevant, moot, and simply rhetorical nonsense.
If you don’t have a solution that fits your mental outlook, why don’t you try to find a solution instead trying to force everyone to beleive what isn’t true about carbon dioxide affecting the weather and climate, and further forcing energy usage restrictions. Carbon dioxide is not pollution, period.
Zeke, this is what we’re doing, we’re burning stuff to stay warm and make electricity.
Do you have a problem with people staying warm, having an uninterrupted electricity power supply, and being able to travel freely?
Zeke, I have no problem burning fossil fuels because I know that the entire carbon footprint ideology is part of the mechanism to make humanity feel quilty and responsible for extreme weather events, and that it is utter nonsense to dictact to others on that premise.
Now the ball is in your court to prove me wrong and you right. Got facts?
Did I really say “quilty” – I meant “guilty”
And further, “dictact” was meant to be “dictate” (damn keyboard)
Can anyone claim compensation for what happens in computer model projections but that never really come to pass?
Thank you for your answer to my question. Those who pretend to be sceptics regarding the harmful effects of co2 emissions on climate and weather, and yet support the destruction of the fossil fuel energy sector and shipping, are deceivers.
Whatsmore, the destruction of the existing coal power plants forces owners and users to have to pay to replace them, which increases needlessly the cost of electricity for everyone.
For example, “strike prices” for building new power sources in the UK, including both nuclear plants and worthless windturbines, are double and triple current rates for electricity per Mw/h. However, there is no reason why, with frakking and coal, and other genuine technologies, energy prices in Britain could not come down by as much as 50%.
Stefan says:
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?
====
Short answer, money.
The Green Climate Fund is the treasury dept. to fund the U.N bureaucrat’s attempt at world government ( oops, I think we’re supposed to say “governance” now, since government may give the impression of elections or something silly).
A $100 bn per year slush fund with no over-sight and no legal accountability? It can only go wrong, and BADLY wrong.
This has to stop NOW.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is quite right when he calls this the “greatest threat facing humanity.”
He should know.
observa says:
“The most recent data indicate that in 2010, 223 000 deaths from lung cancer worldwide resulted from air pollution. 2”
How in God’s name, can any research arrive at this conclusion?
Zeke, Greg and others, clearly the UN and its backers are only interested in increasing their power over everyone until such point humanity is enslaved, “allowed” to live, eat, stay warm, travel and prosper only at the whims and dictates of selfish narrow-minded narcisstic deceivers. That is the essence of the “greatest threat facing humanity” – the long-standing and relentless drive by the self-chosen to control everything and everyone, including what we know and believe.
Greg-
Government implies that the political power is in the hands of elected representatives who can be fired by unhappy voters. Much of the point from local school boards and city councils through national and international levels is to give binding decision-making authority to people who are appointed or otherwise immune to being fired by angry voters who want recourse.
But governance is the term being used consistently now and for that reason. Basically no effective ability to reject being bound and dictated to. And it is largely by people who have been Creatures of the State all of their working lives. Paychecks magically appearing courtesy of taxpayers or foundations or dues paying members who must join. My experience is they have no idea they can extinguish much of what actually creates prosperity or how absurd their steady-state economy models are.
Lemiere here or on Skyfall… still at it…
I have said this before, and will say it again. Orwell, although a socialist, was prophetic. And, funny enough, against big government. He stated that the way to control the people was to keep them in permanent state of fear. And, it works…….
How much tribute are we paying the World Empire (UN) currently? For that price, can we not even get a decent “Leader for Tourism”?
Robert Mugabe asked to be UN ‘leader for tourism’
The Zimbabwe president, accused of ethnic cleansing and bankrupting his country, asked to champion tourism
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/29/robert-mugabe-un-international-envoy-tourism
I have the solution here. The gov can send us forms to fill out – if we believe that man has caused the warming, we donate 10 percent of our income monthly. If we do not believe that warming is man made we do not donate. At the end of a year we submit another survey.
If it cools I do not know what to do other than donate funds to sceptics.
@Bob Weber. Thank you for clarifying your thoughts. Our sun does emit fast electrons during lower solar activity, and the behaviour of the Van Allen belts are not well understood. I think the interaction of the earth’s weather systems with the sun via the Van Allen belts are a promising area of inquiry. I think NASAs twin crafts sent to this region are still collecting data, and are worthy of study, but NASA will not connect the electrical currents in the two belts to the weather for you.
In a PC age where all perspectives are ‘respected’ and valued equally, the CAGW meme gained traction partly because it is ‘unfashionable’ indeed, ‘unacceptable’ to stridently, persuasively and compellingly disagree with the fatuous notion of justifying anything by ‘saving the planet’, ‘the wildlife’, ‘the reef’, whatever. No where, with the exception of the standouts that push-back against the meme does anyone lay claim to ‘saving’ indeed ‘driving’ the wider flourishing of spiritual and physical health, and the prosperity of all humanity. Without this as the pre-eminent focus, we are doomed to the eco-socialist nightmare that is the UN, the liberal progressive valueless utopia where an elite engage in their redistributive orchestration at a terrible price, pretending that it is for the greater good. It cannot and can never be. It is ‘unsustainable’, to use another meme term. The only beneficiaries are and will be the orchestrators.
Stefan says:
“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?”
In a sane world, you wouldn’t even need a UN. It was set up essentially to deal with the problem of lack of accountability with the governments of existing nations, which is why we invented democracy. But this doesn’t explain that, once you set up an external agency, who will then make the external agency accountable? The same people who are attracted to the power of governments for their own personal benefit and ideological cause will be attracted to the power of the UN. Human nature takes over, the same way it does with nations and governments.
The UN of course will claim that their own internal regulation suffices. Same as scientists do with peer review. But it doesn’t ultimately work sufficiently, as ideological blindness and ideology as a mask for personal self interest is much older and stronger.
I don’t know how you solve a UN once it has gone over to an ideological stance. Possibly some sort of stronger democratic accountability to the whole UN behemoth might work.
Zeke, NASA has done a great job making satellites and taking measurements, and following political policy directives as well. My hat is off to the scientists, engineers, and others who work in that industry, because without reliable data we’re flying blind. I don’t expect an overt statement of agreement from people who work for the government – not right away. The Thunderbolts.info people have regularly disagreed with NASA’s interpretation of its own data, and have provided a more robust explanation of how the universe works. Consider the silence that met Wal Thornhill after his definitive predictions based on plasma cosmology came true about comet Tempel. He was right and others wrong.
I’d tell them just where to stick their begging bowls.
Right up those idiots who agreed to this insanity.
“Zeke, I have no problem burning fossil fuels because I know that the entire carbon footprint ideology is part of the mechanism to make humanity feel quilty and responsible for extreme weather events, and that it is utter nonsense to dictact to others on that premise.”
Thank you for your contribution! Lewandowsky will be pleased!