Press Release 14/12/14
Lord Lawson: After Lima, UK Climate Change Act Should Be Suspended
London 14 December: Dr Benny Peiser, the director of the Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF), has welcomed the non-binding and toothless UN climate agreement which was adopted in Lima earlier today.
Dr Peiser said:
“The Lima agreement is another acknowledgement of international reality. The deal is further proof, if any was needed, that the developing world will not agree to any legally binding caps, never mind reductions of their CO2 emissions.”
“As seasoned observers predicted, the Lima deal is based on a voluntary basis which allows nations to set their own voluntary CO2 targets and policies without any legally binding caps or international oversight.”
“In contrast to the Kyoto Protocol, the Lima deal opens the way for a new climate agreement in 2015 which will remove legal obligations for governments to cap or reduce CO2 emissions. A voluntary agreement would also remove the mad rush into unrealistic decarbonisation policies that are both economically and politically unsustainable.”
Lord Nigel Lawson, Chairman of the Global Warming Policy Forum, added:
“The UK’s unilateral Climate Change Act is forcing British industry and British households to suffer an excessively high cost of electricity to no purpose. Following Lima, it is clearer than ever that the Act should be suspended until such time as a binding global agreement has been secured.”
How do you people survive crouching so much rancor and deceit in your heart? You are a poison.
jed beetle,
What is your problem? I mean, beside your name?
“Crouching”?
Do you write copy for The Gruaniad?
crouch (krouch)
v. crouched, crouching, crouches v.intr.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/crouching
Dawtgtomis,
Yes, “crouching” is entirely inappropriate in this context. Strange, no?
Hey, but at least Socrates managed to google the word correctly. Why I don’t know, but I guess it might keep him out of trouble.
Jed beetle, please give examples of the deceit – with evidence.
In England questioning a person’s integrity is permissible only if you can back it up. We trust people to be honourable.
Because the dishonourable cannot be tolerated.
Please detail the deceit.
On another thread ‘jed beetle’ wrote,
You people are seriously deranged.
That’s all he wrote. Probably an escapee from hotwhopper.☺
Just because he disagrees with me and doesn’t like me doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
I want more from him so I can determine if he has a point. Minimalist Mosher-esque quips are of no value.
So I want to draw out more and find out what he has. A different perspective is always valuable. Welcome him and let’s see.
Mr. Beetle,
Welcome.
I enjoyed that exchange I predict the poor fellow is not yet capable of rational discussion, but he has been invited. I also predict that if he does engage “as his accuracy sinks, his ire will rise.”
Does this mean that China can keep increasing CO2 emissions after 2030? (-:
Drawing attention to the terms of China’s agreement and claiming it as a victory was about as powerful as you can get for evidence that one side is completely disingenuous and only concerned with imposing regulations in the US.
If one were truly concerned about increasing global CO2 emissions and the idea that severe cuts must be made immediately because of extreme weather and climate that are already happening, then one does not celebrate the biggest CO2 emitter continuing to increase CO2 emissions for another 14 years.
2030 or “thereabouts” as far as I understand the agreement, the exact year to be decided by China.
China will do whatever it likes and its more than happy to keep selling shoes who keep shooting themselves in the foot.
I wondered whether I should bother to read this post as I’m sure I’ll get to hear all about it from Nigel Lawson when he’s interviewed on the BBC’s next major news program – even on the TODAY program. Waddya mean, “idiot”? 🙂
You might hear Owen Paterson.
The King over the Water of the Tory party can get a hearing on the BBC.
MCourtney: I have time for Paterson. I just wish he would stick to the bigger picture – AGW as a scam – rather than the detail: smart metering, CHP, etc. Some of his solutions just aren’t – at least, not for the UK.
In the end, I often wonder, just how much longer this scam – this drive for UN government – will go on.
Naturally the green gang or Gang greene in canadian frence will hail this as a World Shaking Victory, as their pathetic anti humanist cause sinks from the world stage.
Soon I hope to see nations who respect law and order, extraditing those greenpeace idiots back to Lima for trial.
Time these eco-nasty propaganda organizations are described for what they be.
These are not charities as our revenue services(politicians) keep pretending, they are eco-terrorist organizations by their own words and actions, time we treated them as such.
irrespective of the quality of the science behind climate change, this can only be seen as an abject failure. They have effectively agreed nothing of consequence, save to meet again in Paris at no trivial cost.
This meeting simply builds on previous ineffectual conferences (eg Kyoto). Until there is a real consensus between politics, economics and scientists based upon self evident adverse climate impacts there will be no real progress.
You know… They don’t really believe in it, do they?
Those who study subtle rhetoric would agree. However, those people are too often employed as molders of opinion- propagandists, if you will, but not even they can plug all of the leaks in the bulwark of lies surrounding the “Green” agenda.
Just read the CNN version of this. Basically reads that they agree to agree on something next year in Paris. The something is that rich countries (no definition for rich) will help (no definition for help) poor countries (no definition for poor), but not how or how much. Whatever it is, it doesn’t start until 2020. Plus the proposed $100 Billion green fund got only $10 Billion in pledges (a pledge being a promise that has no legal requirement to be fulfilled).
richardscourtney has been right all along. CAGW died with COP17. Its just a headless chicken now running around the barnyard, giving the illusion of life. The fundamental physics never supported the alarmism, and the more data we have, the more obvious that will become. 2020 is another 6 years of data, and likely another 12 to 14 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere doing very little (if anything) more than it is doing now.
For the historical record, richardscourtney believed it was slain by Climategate and was persuaded that the failure of COP17 was more significant (or even as significant) by me.
Even so, he has a more subtle perspective. He feels that we cannot distinguish the effects of COP17’s failure form he impact of Climategate and also that we cannot know what effect Climategate had into the failure of COP17.
But he did clearly see that once COP17 and Climategate occurred then cAGW was dead.
I mention this purely so as those who one day research the history of this neo-Lysenkoism can have details of an interesting conversation that happened offline.
Even so, he has a more subtle perspective. He feels that we cannot distinguish the effects of COP17’s failure form he impact of Climategate and also that we cannot know what effect Climategate had into the failure of COP17.
I’d agree. Unfortunately, history is a lot like climate. We cannot run a parallel earth sans climategate to see what would have happened at COP17 without it, anymore than we can run a parallel earth with differing amounts of CO2 in it to see what difference it would make.
Copy that.
Richard called it well, we have witnessed the natural inertia of a criminal bureaucrat being exposed.
An agonizingly slow drama with many entertaining acts.
Australia,Canada and soon the USA, when a duly elected government choses to “investigate CAGW”, all hell will break loose on the parasitic front.
I call upon all to agitate their elected idiots for such,criminal investigation of our governments part in this UN scheme, as this will amplify the fear, insecurity and self loathing that this whole meme is built upon.
Fools and bandits fear exposure as such above all else.
Implosions are increasing in frequency, retractions, blaming fellow “researchers” and denying ones own words are a growing sport.
Witness the cynicism of the taxpayer, global warming causes everything, the absolute confusion of the poll chasers and ever growing hostility as the true costs come home.
The conversation the alarmed ones claim is necessary is coming, not from visitors here, not from the government propagandists, but from the impoverished and hoaxed taxpayers, users of government monopoly utilities and suddenly unemployed.
So save the records, as the bureaus try to CYA, they will seek to erase all history, control of the net is a current priority of our kleptocratic class.
MCourtney
And I am very aware that the ‘negotiations’ at CoP17 were derailed mostly by the Chinese. I answered their requests to me for information that were part of their preparations for CoP17.
I remind you of a much more recent offline conversation you and me when you correctly said that Greens “hate” me. You may care to ponder why they direct such strong emotions at me whom most have never met. And – as I also said in that conversation – I am now at a stage where what people think of me no longer matters.
Richard
Richard, I know you do not post as much as in the past, but I wish you to know that I always appreciate your comments regarding the failed science of CAGW.
I haven’t noticed a comment regarding the priests of the Catholic Church and their position on this topic. Not that I object to helping others but by hooking their donkeys to the UN’s climate-wagon their concerns will splinter along with that vehicle when the next wheel comes off.
I can’t believe the Vatican could swallow the notion that ‘man with computer trumps God’ when it comes down to “sustaining God’s children”.
UN’s climate-wagon their concerns will splinter along with that vehicle when the next wheel comes off.
The wheels came off the wagon with ClimateGate/COP17. The jury rigged something together with some square wheels to replace the round ones, and have been bumping along on them ever since. Next year in Paris, they will change out the square wheels for triangular ones, and market it as an improvement with one less bump per revolution.
@JJM Gommers
…As Richardscourtney pointed out there is no peak problem in theory, but as result of the dissipation issue(dS), in the very long run it will become more and more expensive to reclaim resources…
I wish people would stop misusing the word ‘resources’. Resources are things humans use. RAW MATERIALS are the things which might ‘dissipate’.
And of course they don’t, because technology counters this. Look at something like iron ore. How much did a tonne cost to process in the Middle Ages, compared to the cost of a processed tonne today? Things that we need ALWAYS get cheaper…
I hope we have reached peak alarmism, as the cost has been very high. Strangely though peak alarmism is a lot like peak oil, they keep finding new sources.
This “peak” nonsense has happened many times before. In Elizabethan times, England suffered through “peak wood”. To quote the Encyclopedia Brittanica, “Throughout medieval times coal was exported from Newcastle to London, but it was not until the wood shortage of Elizabethan times that coal became important as domestic fuel and trade increased dramatically.” (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/611589/Tyne-and-Wear). And as others have noted, we still have ample supplies of stone, bronze, iron, industry, and information.
For all non-Westerners, all agreements have always been and will always be, non-binding. Contracts are a Western idea and are followed only as necessity dictates.
Traditional Chinese, Korean or Japanese cultures do not permit the breaking of one’s word. In fact, almost no-one allows one to be an oath breaker.
The only exception I can think of may be some interpretations of loyalty to the Kuffar – but that certainly doesn’t apply to China.
Read recently a phrase (cannot remember where, sorry) that “the stupidity is so dense it has it’s own event horizon”.
It was in relation to the Greenpeace Peru stunt but it applies equally I guess…
Village Id10t raises an interesting point.
He links to a list of scientists that have stated that one (or more) of the major tenets of Global Warming is false. I haven’t been able to find a similar list for those scientists that believe that every one of the majors tenets is true.
Does anyone know of such a list?
Are there any scientists that have publicly stated that they believe in everything the IPCC opines? Maybe Hansen and Mann?
🙂 Doubt that it exists…I do like the question.
Martin,
I think you have missed the point of the UN-IPCC. This is not a science activity. The purpose is to extract money from a certain few countries, take a big slice of that for UN activities they don’t want to tell about, pass a part of the remaining money to regimes that support the UN’s agendas, and loudly publicize a few token projects on which they have wasted money. They start with a statement that some humans caused a problem by using coal, oil, and gas to develop. The UN is attempting to be both the moral and financial arbitrator to correct this and to impose a world government so they can continue the work.
Major tenets of GW, scientists, lists – not to be found.
richardscourtney
December 14, 2014 at 9:40 am
Silver ralph
I had prepared the note below for Silver Ralph but then came across the wonderful response by Richard Courtney that covers the essential ground for those would understand how the resource system actually works. Some small additions and this would make a good separate post to hang out in front of Malthusian misanthropes with a new world order agenda. One addition would be that copper prices in real terms and almost everything else have remarkably declined with time, despite the manifold increases in demand!
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/historical-statistics/ds140-coppe.pdf
The price of copper went from ~$7,000/t in 1900 (in 1998$) to an all time low in 2002 of $1,510/t in 2003. The phenomenal take off in demand during the past decade in China pushed it back up to over $5,000/t, but this too will flatten down again. The first world war demand temporarily pushed the price to near $10,000/t but it fell off again after the war. Similarly, the 1974 oil embargo by OPEC pushed commodity prices up temporarily. Also check out food prices and other commodity prices for such an article. This decline in almost all commodity prices has been a vexatious fact for Malthusians and they have published “studies” they claim debunk this decline – don’t be taken in. One thing to note, though, is that government interference can wreck this wonderful economic system and they are working furiously at doing just that.
GP NOTE: Ralph, copper didn’t peak in the bronze age. We produce more copper in a year today than was produced in the bronze age. Bronzers had to work with rich, recognizable deposits of copper, largely native copper and had no idea of the enormous amounts within modern mining depths and low grade. I’m sure you have a link or source but links and sources nowadays are available for whatever ideological use you may wish to employ them for. The internet has basically been filling up with ‘progressive’ and malthusian bull since the outset. I don’t need a link to tell you that your peak copper in the Bronze Age doesn’t pass the smell test level for an idiot. Anyway, here is a link that tells you that the copper resource base has increased 25 fold over the past 100 years.
http://www.slideshare.net/RichardSchodde/growth-factors-for-copper-schodde-sme-mems-march-2010-final
Here is one with no link: the ten top producers have ~10million metric tonnes a year of refined copper output. You do the homework. Don’t consult Wiki or Club of Rome, or any other sources corrupted by ideologues. These civilization viruses take the “reserves” reported by companies, add them together and then divide by the annual consumption rate. Reserves sufficient for mine evaluation and planning, generally no more than 20 years’ worth, are drilled off. Drilling off more than this at a cost for diamond drilling exceeding $100/metre, is not an economic (check out “present value” accounting) thing do do with your money. Just go back to an annual report 10 years from now and, ‘presto’, they still have the same amount of reserves. Linear thinking nimrods always report peak X to be only a couple of decades away. Well, duh, do I need to say why?
It was that Dodo “Red Ed” Millibrain, leader of the rent-seekers, skivers and crypto-communists (Labour Party) who enacted the Climate Change Act when Labour was last in power. This Act was the wet-dream of an obscure English literature graduate and eco-fascist called Bryony Worthington (now Baroness Worthington, for services to the destruction of British Industry increased fuel poverty and resultant deaths of the elderly).
Regrettably our Parliament is so-stuffed with incompetent cretins, that the Bill attracted overwhelming support.
Time for some clear-thinkers to clear out the numpties. Roll on the General Election!
The reality is that Milliband ( responsible for the Climate Act) will be in power in 5 months time , possibly in coalition with the SNP who want , not just 80% renewables , but 100%. The future is appalling for the UK .
It has been estimated that to generate 35GW from onshore wind would require 7 times the area of the present Greater London – and we have also to squeeze in all the new garden cities that LIB- Lab want.
I have mentioned before the paper that WUWT first brought to my attention, that by Weissbach ,which showed that a backed- up renewables – based power system is not compatible with the quality of life that we have become used to in the developed world and is sheer fantasy for the under developed , primarily agricultural societies with a low population of educated technicians.
All this I found in a few days after alighting on this site as a complete lay person – so MPs , who have generous expenses to allow them to hire an army of researchers, should all be aware of the unaffordable nature of the Climate Act demands . Yet they remain willfully ignorant.
The Germans are heading down a very painful route. WTF would any one want to go there?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/10/the-unsinkable-german-anti-co2-titanic-just-found-its-iceberg/
Kon Dealer
I suspect that your post is intended as a thread bomb.
For the benefit of non-UK readers, I point out that the “Bill attracted overwhelming support” from all the major political parties and that the present Tory & LibDem coalition government has continued to enforce the Climate Change Act and to promote wind powered and solar powered subsidy farms.
These are NOT a party political issues and are NOT left v. right issues in the UK.
Richard
Absolutely hilarious – we support the Lima process 🙂
davidmhoffer@12:56p – The square to triangle wheel analogy is an absolute laugh riot to envision! Kudos!
There is plenty of energy in the world. The problem is too many self-serving politicians supported by hand wringers wining about oil and coal consumption. Those who are objecting to Richard Courtney clear and compelling arguments offer only muddled thinking and seem more intent on forcing a crisis to achieve self-serving purpose. Although it shouldn’t be, in all likely hood oil and coal will be the primary source of energy for over a hundred years; and no we are not in sight of the end of coal or oil. Except in niche markets sun and wind will never be a major source of energy and the handwringers’ objection to conventional fission power and development of fusion energy for fear it will encourage population growth, which offends their misguided Malthusian and Gaia beliefs. We have solutions to our energy problems if only the self-servers would get out of the way. The green movement is doing nothing constructive and only standing the way of progress. They know they are losing on the merits and seem more interested in a scorched earth policy. Would suggest they do some real good and find solutions to others problems we don’t know how to solve, like potable water supplies. They would have the field to themselves and can win converts; who knows I might even be one of they if they make intelligent proposals.
Silver Ralph
Review the bet between Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager
Seeing as we’re all comparing prices I’m seeing 90 cents a litre plus the extra 9.5 cents off if you are a CO-OP member (so close to 80 cents) out in the prairies north of the 49th.
I’m very curious how long oil will stay low. The shale oil in production will stay in production but the drilling has all but ceased. Just conventional plays that are profitable over $40 barrel. The tar sands are very long term plays so you can’t stop once you’ve started developing that but projects where ground has not been broken or money spent yet would probably be on hold.
As to the Lima conference it is obvious to all by now that the good ship “Wishful Thinking” has hit the iceberg called reality but the band still plays on. With this being a mild el-Nino year then la-Nina should arrive just in time for Paris to get a chilly reception.
You forget that oil companies sell short and make money to offset the losses, if they are smart. they must be hedged with put options or short futures contracts, i don’t believe that they are that reckless.
The Lima Conference has officially crashed and burned, summed up best by Shakespeare’s famous line, “Much sound and fury signifying nothing.”
The CAGW world-wealth redistributionists have been relegated to using Casablanca’s famous line, “We’ll always have Paris”….
The Paris Conference will fair no better than Lima because people around the world are slowly realizing CAGW hypothesis has become a complete joke:
-No global warming trend for 18+ years.
-Falling global temp trends for 14+ years.
-No global increasing trends of severe weather for 50~100 years.
-Arctic ice is recovering and isn’t ice free.
-The Antarctic set a 35-yr record size this year.
-Sea Level rise stuck at 6 inches per century.
-Ocean pH stuck at 8.1.
-Kids still know what snow looks like…..
-Households are sick of paying “skyrocketing” electricity bills because of “green energy” fiascos.
All the CAGW world-redistributionists have left are: the long-debunked “97% meme”, a supportive MSM, waning leftist government support and busted doom and gloom models:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT-5-yr-means1.png
Other than a compliant MSM, they got nothin’, and even the MSM is starting to lose faith.
Academia’s tacit CAGW support is still troubling, but even this is starting to wane.
How can the CAGW hypothesis possibly survive another 5 years when virtually all CAGW’s predictions will be well outside their 95% confidence intervals for a statistically significant duration by 2020?
2020 will also be the year when a plethora of natural climatic cooling phenomena will be collectively be conspiring against “The Cause”:
-Start of the weakest solar cycle since the Dalton or perhaps even the Maunder Minima.
– PDO cool cycle will be in its coolest phase.
-Fewer/weaker El Nino cycles because of 30-yr PDO cool cycle.
-Cooler and more frequent La Nina events because of a 30-yr PDO cool cycle.
-The AMO 30-yr warm cycle (started 1994) will be winding down or even be starting its 30-yr cool cycle.
-Because of the AMO and PDO cool phases, Arctic Ice Extents will be slowly continue to recover.
“The planet plus plastic”
As of late and past there has been reports of several bankers ‘ jumping ‘ from 10th floor . I suppose a tinge of honour and integrity causes it .
In my fifty five years as an adult i don’t recall a politician or professor in academia ‘ jumping ‘ !
Here’s an easy test of the peak theory. Name five minerals that are needed in today’s industry, that are no longer available. If there is anything to peak oil, we should be able to name other resources that have been lost through over exploitation.
There may be some that are required for Chinese Traditional Medicine.
It seems that substitution is difficult there.
Ralfellis: good try. But logic rarely leaves a mark on ideologically driven dogmatism. You say: if we use some of a finite resource, that means there is less left; which is incontrovertibly true. They say, however: no matter how much we use of a natural resource it will never run out (this is the minimum they claim- but we’ll go for that) . . . which might be true on the grounds that we’ll move onto something else when it becomes uneconomical to extract it. But it is still as true that there is less of it left, and similarly when we use a lot of it that means there is lot less of it left, as you obviously imply.
And just because previous peak oil predictions have been wrong that doesn’t mean that all future peak oil predictions will be wrong, which I also suspect you’ll agree with being a logical kinda guy . . More than that there is little point in saying. . .. the rest is just as obvious. I admire your stamina . . . but there is no point in arguing with people who can’t see simple things because of ideological blinkers. . .
jim hogg
You say to Ralfellis
Yes, but nobody argues ‘peak oil’ with Ralfellis in hope of getting him to understand that ‘peak oil’ is illogical and ideological nonsense with no relation to reality: his “ideological blinkers” blind him to that truth.
The ideological nonsense of ‘peak oil’ asserted by e.g. Ralfellis is refuted so people are not misled by his twaddle.
There are real problems to address in this world. Efforts to deal with them should not be deflected by non-issues such as goblins under the bed, or unicorns eating the food supply, or ‘peak oil’, or etc..
Richard