Ironically, Change Catches Up With Climate Change Alarmists in Lima

Guest opinion; Dr. Tim Ball

The outcome of the Conference of the Parties (COP) 20 in Lima was ironic, which is defined as “happening in the opposite way to what is expected, and typically causing wry amusement.” The tragic thing is, there is nothing amusing about the damage being done to climatology, science, environmentalism, economies and worst, people’s lives. However, it was totally predictable. It’s also inevitable when you predetermine an outcome, both economically and scientifically, in a world of feedbacks. As my grandmother warned, “Your sins will find you out”.

Organizers struggled to come up with a communiqué. Why? Mostly, it was because they had to justify doing nothing, or worse, appearing to fail. But failure was inevitable, given the history leading to that point. They continued to accept without question all the lies, deceptions and failures of previous gatherings of the COPs and the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). They bypassed the corruption, collusion and malfeasance carried out to produce false science, as exposed in 2009 by the leaked Climatic Research Unit (CRU) emails. They ignored and deflected from the continuing and growing gap between IPCC predictions (projections) and reality. They had to keep the politicians and media fooled, to ensure continuation of funding.

At the last minute, they cobbled together a four-page document that simply, in today’s cynical political phrase, they kicked the can down the road. They did what most political meetings do; they met and agreed to meet again. It is what politicians always do, regardless of their politics. As Soviet era Russian politician Nikita Khrushchev said,

“Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.”

The problem is that, in the case of the COP, there is no can to kick. It is the scientific equivalent of the Emperor with no clothes. Purportedly, the can is the work of the IPCC presented to the politicians in their Summary for Policymakers. But the corruption of that document, designed to hide the truth and exaggerate the threat, is well identified. What happened in Lima is not surprising because it was all orchestrated to play out this way. The irony is that almost everything else has changed, since the play was written. The warming trend has stopped as CO2 levels continue to increase. Countries have changed their economic and political status. Left are moving to the right and right to the left, richer to poorer and vice versa. Alternate energy and green economies touted as the solution are failing. The claim of “peak oil” has been completely shattered. Despite all this, the only things that haven’t changed are the goals, procedures and denials of reality by the COP. The goal has not and cannot change, without admitting the fraud. Blindly pursuing a goal was also the pattern of the IPCC research. They established the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis and set out to prove, rather than disprove it. The fiasco in Lima is a result of all these changes being ignored, in a desperate attempt to maintain the indefensible. The COP was set up for change, but it wasn’t the one they expected.

Organizational Structure Designed to Pre-determine An Outcome

Everything I’ve read and everybody I’ve spoken to who worked with or for Maurice Strong, acknowledges his organizational skills in setting up the necessary political and science agendas. In 2001 Neil Hrab wrote, Strong achieved this by:

Mainly using his prodigious skills as a networker. Over a lifetime of mixing private sector career success with stints in government and international groups…

It began in 1977 at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment Stockholm Conference. As Hrab notes:

The three specific goals set out by the Secretary General of the Conference, Maurice F. Strong, at its first plenary session—a Declaration on the human environment, an Action Plan, and an organizational structure supported by a World Environment Fund—were all adopted by the Conference.

After spending five days with Strong at the UN, Elaine Dewar concluded in 1995, that

Strong was using the UN as a platform to sell a global environment crisis and the Global Governance Agenda.

The Conference of the Parties (COP) on Climate Change and the IPCC were creatures of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The COP is the top body of the UNFCCC and meets once a year to review the progress, but is dependent on the “science” the IPCC created. In years when the IPCC Report is due, it is always released before the COP meeting, but not the critical part, which is produced by Working Group I, The Physical Science Basis. It identifies some of the serious limitations of the science, but just in case somebody reads it, the release is always delayed until after the COP. The Summary for Policymakers, which appears before the COP, is distorted and manipulated to justify what the COP is going to do.

This is why the timing of the release of the leaked emails from the CRU in November 2009 was so important. COP 15 was scheduled for December 2009 in Copenhagen. The Kyoto Protocol, which only survived because of the blackmail by European nations of Vladimir Putin, was in trouble. COP 15 was not sidelined but seriously diverted. Despite the diversion, the plan to redistribute wealth continued. It involved collecting money from the 43 developed nations (Annex I), a global carbon tax, and giving it to the developing nations through the World Bank. The next year in Cancun (COP 16), the now contentious, Green Climate Fund (GCF) was established. A GCF Board, based in Incheon, South Korea, governs this money, which is supposed to be $100 billion by 2020. Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC says the amount is nothing and should minimally be $1 trillion.

What were the problems that culminated in Lima?

The world has changed since the AGW hypothesis was created to prove that human CO2 was causing global warming. It hasn’t changed as the UNFCCC planned, the global temperature has gone in the wrong direction, and major developing and developed nations are reversing positions and roles.

Since the first COP in Berlin in 1995, China has increased CO2 production and its economy, so now both are the biggest in the world. India has also increased CO2 production and its economy significantly. Neither is listed in the 43 nations in Annex I, defined as “industrialized countries and countries in transition”. Many of them are now in trouble as their economies fail, especially those who fell into the green hole of alternate energy plans.

Nations like Russia, India and China, originally listed as developing nations, wanted the money promised in the transfer plan. They had no intention of cutting back on development and as the Indian Prime Minister said, they had people starving to death, which was a much greater priority than a slim possibility of a slight warming 50 years ahead. Here is how the Indian government state it.

•Prime Minister has stated that India’s per capita emission levels will never exceed that of the per capita emission levels of developed countries

• India cannot and will not take on emission reduction targets because:

· –  Poverty eradication and social and economic development are the first and over-riding priorities

· –  Each human being has equal right to global atmospheric resources (i.e., Principle of Equity)

· –  “Common but differentiated responsibility” is the basis for all climate change actions

I have worked with Russian, Chinese and Indian climatologists and learned they know and understand climate better than western nations. Remember, it was Yuri Israel, President of the Russian Academy, who refused to issue a public statement about global warming in the campaign organized by Lord May of the UK Royal Society. As a reward at a climate meeting,

“The Russian scientist was immediately and disrespectfully admonished by the chair and former IPCC chief Sir John Houghton for being far too optimistic. Such a moderate proposal was ridiculous since it was “incompatible with IPCC policy”.

Chinese and Indian politicians chose to play Maurice Strong and the IPCC gang at their own game. India and China paralleled what they did with the Montreal Protocol, which was a test run for the Kyoto Protocol. They said, you’ve reduced food losses by 30% with refrigeration, now you are saying we can’t do the same with CFCs. They proposed the west reduce their use while they increased theirs. The response was no. Now they are told to reduce their CO2 levels by a west that has already built its industries and economies. They were subtler this time. They didn’t say no. They counter-offered by agreeing to lower their levels proportional to those achieved by the west.

Another measure of the shift is the change in attendees at the COP meetings.

It appears that, as the political and scientific evidence fails, a hard-core group of environmentalists don’t want to face reality. One of the masterstrokes of Strong was to resurrect the concept of the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) to participate in the political activity. It began with their attendance at the Rio 1992 UNEP conference under a Consultative Status designation. The increasing political nature of the COP is apparently reflected in the attendance data. In a recent article by Till Neeff titled “How many will attend Paris? UNFCCC COP participation patterns 1995-2015” he says,

The COPs to the UNFCCC (the Conferences of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) have evolved into environmental mega-conferences (Gaventa, 2010). They have become the key networking opportunity for environmental professionals of all colours, and attract increasingly large numbers of diverse participants (Okereke et al., 2009). Beyond the negotiations, it seems to be the desire to network, to exchange information and to be part of a larger climate change constituency that drive attendance (Schroeder and Lovell, 2012).

Figure 1 shows the statistical analysis and the significant increase Neeff identifies.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 2 shows some of the same statistics but illustrates more clearly the dramatic change in attendance.

Further evidence of the shift was the fact that only 119 of 190 sent ministers to Lima. As one commentator observed,

Political interest in the UN’s climate talks has shrunk this year, in spite of increasingly urgent scientific warnings and a tight deadline for signing a new climate deal.

The ranking of the delegates sent by a country to the UN negotiations can be seen as a barometer of how seriously the country regards the threat of climate change.

All 190 countries sent delegates, but it is clear, the persuasion of the urgency of the threat, is shifting. Different priorities depend on the economic trend. If the economy is declining it and jobs are top. If the economy is growing they want that to continue, as India identified. No doubt, they are also finally, paying attention to the polls that consistently show global warming/climate change, and spending money for alleviation, are not a priority for the public. We are back to irony again, because the UN produced one of the polls. As Willis Eschenbach said,

The revealed truth is that of the sixteen choices given to people regarding what they think are the important issues in their lives, climate change is dead last. Not only that, but in every sub-category, by age, by sex, by education, by country grouping, it’s right down at the bottom of the list. NOBODY thinks it’s important.

This is consistent with findings of the Pew Center polls (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Notice that the priority, at least for the US public, was at the bottom five years ago in 2009. Despite this politicians have paid no attention for five years. Almost all of them continue to put it high on their list of concerns. It is part proof that they don’t care what the public think and are more afraid of being accused of not caring about the planet.

Lima’s failure is a culmination of the deliberate attempts to predetermine the science and the politics overtaken by reality. Neeff summarized what went on there in a heading that says, “COP participants are part of a climate-change – club.” The public knew a few years ago, but the politicians continued to punt a non-existent can, at enormous costs. The real lesson from Lima is that once government takes up an issue it will expand and never be resolved. There is nothing ironic about the fact that, as always, the people will pay the price and the politicians and deceivers will not be held accountable.

It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. – Noel Coward