Guest essay by Don Aitkin
A few weeks ago the G7, meeting in Bavaria, issued a statement about climate change. It was widely reported, and I wrote about it myself, here (http://donaitkin.com/the-problem-with-really-long-term-planning/). What no one much commented on was that the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, had plainly agreed to it, yet his position is skeptical. That is to say, he is opposed to carbon taxes, has repealed or let lie dormant greenhouse gas measures that his predecessors had introduced, and has said that Canada will not do any thing further after the Kyoto accord. Yet he agreed to the G7 statement, which among other things called for ‘deep cuts in global greenhouse emissions’.
Or consider Australia’s Tony Abbott, who famously said that the arguments supporting climate change were ‘crap’, and whose government actually repealed Australia’s carbon tax. Australia is not in the G7, but had Abbott been included, I would bet a dollar to nothing that he would have had let the statement go out without protest on his part. In fact, I have little doubt that the other six members of the G7 have their own private views about the notion that greenhouse gas emissions must be stopped now, that a 2 degree C rise in temperature would be a disaster for humanity, that the seas will rise dangerously, and all the rest of the AGW mantra. But they agreed with the statement, too.
Why? Why don’t these leaders set an example — if, like Harper and Abbott, they have made it clear that they do not regard ‘climate change’ as a globally pressing issue? The answer lies in the distribution of views within the electorates of these representative electoral democracies. Opinion pollsters have been asking respondents about their attitudes to climate change for twenty years and more, and there is a large amount of data about it.
The methodology of these opinion polls varies a great deal, and (as someone who used to have claims to know something about survey research) I think some of the polls are hardly worth noticing. What, for example, is the sensible way to respond to this choice: ‘Climate change has been proven by science’ OR ‘Climate change has not been proven by science.’ A terrible pair of alternatives. (http://ncse.com/news/2012/10/polling-climate-change-thirteen-countries-0014592)
But once you’ve read and thought about the first few dozen poll results — and it doesn’t really matter what country we are talking about — it is plain that while attitudes vary over time and across the world, a few things begin to stand out.
1. ‘Climate change’ (I use the inverted commas to signify that I am talking about the political definition coined by the UNFCCC — a change in climate caused by human activity) is not high as a political priority anywhere. People are much more worried about jobs, health, immigration, transport costs and welfare. If you ask people to list their concerns, climate change comes in way down the list.
2. However, if you ask people whether or not they are concerned about ‘climate change’ then you get quite a high affirmative response — around a quarter to a third in most of the developed countries. What does that ‘concern’ actually mean? In one British survey, about one in seven thought ‘climate change’ was a major threat, and three quarters would support a global treaty. But few would get in touch with their local MP to press their concern. What sort of concern is that?
3. And if you ask people how much they personally would pay to deal with ‘climate change’, support drops off very quickly. Yes, ‘climate change’ is a threat, but it’s something for governments to deal with, and they shouldn’t do it by asking me for more money.
Now how does an elected politician interpret all this? Again, it doesn’t really matter which country we’re talking about. He or she will see that ‘climate change’ is one of those things, like motherhood, and germs, about which there is a conventional position. In this case, one should be opposed to it. If, on the contrary, you think that the whole thing is emerging as a beat-up, you need to realise, just the same, that quite a lot of electors are secure in their view that it is a worry.
What you do then, if you are in power, as is Stephen Harper, is to say as little as possible. If pressed, you retreat to a position that is defendable but does not stir up the ant-heap. In his case, the fall-back position is to say that Canada will do its bit when everyone else does their bit, but until they do there is no point at all in acting unilaterally. That just costs Canadians, for no good outcome at all. Tony Abbott has behaved in much the same way. In fact, at the 2009 meeting in the Australian bush where he pronounced on the validity of climate science, the full quotation goes like this: “The argument is absolute crap. However, the politics of this are tough for us. Eighty per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger.” ( http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/politics/the-town-that-turned-up-the-temperature/story-e6frgczf-1225809567009 )
I once took part in a public meeting on global warming speaking for the sceptical side, as did someone who is now one of Tony Abbott’s senior colleagues in government. Afterwards, when we compared notes, he said much the same to me: the issue had to be handled delicately, and that time was needed. After nearly two decades in which there has been no significant warming, you might think that there should have been enough time by now.
And for my part there has been. The notion that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that increases global temperature in an alarming and dangerous way, melts the Greenland icecap, and imperils those in Bangladesh, ought now be dead and buried. But I’m not a politician who is looking anxiously at the next election. If I were, I’d be looking at the size of the passionate minority who believe in the threat of global warming, hoping that it is declining, and at that the size of the more or less indifferent majority, hoping that it continues to rise steadily.
In the meantime, the argument against the orthodox AGW/’climate change’/extreme weather/climate disruption alarmists has to be carried out outside politics, in large part, I think, through websites like this one. Time is important, and so is spreading the argument. While we spread the argument, our elected governments talk about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but do nothing that would achieve such an outcome.
It is a strange world that we live in, where our leaders try hard not to be controversial. I am reminded of the remark attributed to Ledru-Rollin, a French politician of the mid 19th century: ‘There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.’ Mahatma Gandhi used the phrase too, and he meant that a leader can never be too far from the views of those he wants to lead.
So, we need more good argument, more good analysis, and more controversy on WUWT and elsewhere. In time there will be someone, somewhere, who has been elected, and takes on the alarmists. But not tomorrow. I know that among the Republican hopefuls for the Presidential election in 2016 there are already a couple who have denounced ‘climate change’. But those pinning their hopes on one or other of them need to remember that in January this year a Stanford poll reported that two-thirds of those interviewed said that they would vote for a candidate ‘who would campaign on fighting climate change.’ (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/us/politics/most-americans-support-government-action-on-climate-change-poll-finds.html).
So I would not be expecting the election of 2016 to see a vigorous debate about ‘climate change’. And for reasons very similar, I would expect that whatever comes out of Paris in December will be as vapid and innocuous as the G7 statement earlier this month.
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In academia I have never come across an idea that can’t be succinctly expressed in the language of a 14 year old. Sadly, I have come across many a work that expresses itself in the most obscure manner, creating the appearance of sophistication. This helps promote the idea that there is a special class of knowledge available only to the few. Various hoaxes, of course, have revealed the nonsense for what it is.
My view is that only around 10% of scholarship has much value. Most AGW material, I fear, does not belong in the10%.
+100
Thanks, Don Aitkin, for your nuanced analysis of the “problem” of climate change for practising politicians of all stripes.
In politics, as in life, in corporate hierarchies and in relationships, the art of success lies in picking your battles wisely. There are times to come out blasting with all barrels to be true to your convictions and mark yourself as a person of integrity; and there are other times when it is better to keep your own counsel and bite your lip. Times such as when the likes of Obama and Merkel are indulging in their “We just want to save the world for you all” grandstanding moments, like post-G7 communiques. While the anodyne platitudes are being read out – mainly for the benefit of journalists, so they can all try to make it look like the whole meeting wasn’t a gigantic waste of time and money, not to mention all those pesky, embarrassing CO2 emissions – it’s generally regarded as bad form to be standing in the background silently mouthing “Bull***t”, especially when there are so many cameras focused on you. It makes you look like the drunken uncle at a kids birthday party
No, when you want to make a point that runs counter to the stated beliefs of the supposed great and the good of other nations, it’s much better to do it on a home battleground of your own choosing. And it’s much better to actually do something – like axing a pointless carbon tax, as Tony Abbott did – rather than waste your breath arguing with greenies.
Tony Abbott is my local MP as well as being PM, and I believe I understand what he thinks about the shamelessly exaggerated claims and predictions of the blowhard catastrophists. But he still finds it easier to pay lip service to the existence of a “problem” to avoid daily rants and arguments from various quarters, while relegating the subject to a deservedly low position on Cabinet’s priorities.
Thanks Bob:
I was going to include a comment at the end with my posting; however it serves better following your points, Bob.
Professionals attend meetings for specific purposes. A G7 summit is primarily economic.
Any discussion that is not central to a professional’s mission is useless. It is far better to focus on building alliances needed instead of alienating attendees.
Any statement as vapid, vague and useless at the G7 climate statement isn’t worth the breath needed; let it pass and ignore it. Or use it to placate the eco nuts. No change in home governmental action is needed.
Everything a politician does is scripted. Every speech is run by sample audiences to gauge reaction. Every word, gesture etc. Harper is no different.
What action on climate has actually been committed by various countries / regions?
There’s plenty of talk about political talk but no action. However, in preparation for the Paris climate conference at the end of this year, developed countries have submitted INDCs – Intended, Nationally Determined contributions. See UNFCCC INDCs as communicated by Parties
Most are unilateral commitments to specified greenhouse gas emission reductions relative to a start year. e.g. the European Union says “40% reduction by 2030 compared to 1990”.
Russia’s is interesting. It points out it has 70% of the Boreal (N Hemisphere) forests, and commits to expanding them, believing that such a land use change will reduce its net CO2 emissions by 25%.
Mexico is also interesting in that it has made a unilateral commitment to GHG and carbon black reductions, but said it is prepared to do more if this helps to secure a global agreement.
p.s.
Developed countries who have submitted UNFCCC INDCs plus China, which has made public statements, are responsible together for 58% of worldwide CO2 emissions.
All posturing. Remember that CO2 is toothless in affecting temperatures. Bill Gray has established its ECS as 0.3, +/-0.1, which is functionally indistinguishable from 0. So any commitment to cut it is a commitment to waste money.
http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Includes/Documents/Publications/gray2012.pdf
The left marches to the tune played for them, while the right will only march to the tune their specific subgroup likes.
The left spent years chipping away at education, the media, building pro abortion groups, anti gun groups, pro gay rights groups, green groups, etc.
The right wants exactly what its subgroup wants and wants it all now.
The left uses the legal system and government money to fight their tactical battles, the right needs to obtain private money to fight back and rarely starts a real fight of its own as the subgroups cannot agree on what the fight should be about.
If you will not vote for the ultimate Republican nominee, irrespective of what an ass you believe him/her to be, then you are part of the problem. The right needs to believe in the philosophy of the lesser of evils.
Exactly correct.
Republicans elected Obama to his second term. Especially the ones who go around calling everyone they do not like a RINO.
Menicholas,
That sword cuts both ways.
Nick,
I have no idea whether you’re right or not; I’m a Brit.
What’s RINO when it’s abroad, please?
{Yeah Rhino, big bit of kit with a dodgy temperament and a b I g nose. But – I guess – RINO is different}
Thanks.
Auto
Republican In Name Only.
Climate change gets a passing mention in most elections. Obama is trying to leave a climate change legacy because he has little options left but he certainly did not campaign on it in his two election victories. Most other countries and elections are similar. Climate change policies are only described and enacted after the election not a central feature of the campaign.
This is to the detriment of parties that do no buy into the climate change belief. They need to force the other parties to be clear about what they are going to do and to be very specific about that. Normally, this would lose votes for the pro-climate change parties but they are left off the hook in elections because the anti-climate change policy parties are simply scared of bringing it up.
That is a mistake and a vote-swing of at least 10% is left on the table.
The climate extremists are using the same tactics to impose their policies that the gays used to push their agenda through in the US:
Control the public discussion, co-opt the government, co-opt all areas of “academia”, control the educational process, redefine any and all terms as convenient to their cause, find Judges friendly to their cause in which to make court precedents. Then use the precedents to flip the rest of the courts.
In addition to WUWT there is a need for another program. Several sponsors are needed. Monthly brown bag lunches on this topic need to be held on capitol hill for staffers and members—make staffers the target, They need to know that someday after the windmills have killed all the birds, the carbon taxes have done nothing to either stop the rise or fall in temperature, that the people will know they have been had. And they will be in the streets with pitchforks for having robbed them of wealth, quality of life and abundant wildlife. It will require a carefully designed and managed program that is a three to five year effort.
This is all way too stupid. Someone proposed 9 industrial windmills in Connecticut (even our Commissioner of Energy and Environmental Protection says there is no wind in Connecticut to power these monsters; accord DOE); many hearings later (Commissioner did not oppose) they can now build 2 of these monsters (non recourse loan from the Connecticut funded Green Bank) and get paid by the grid twice the retail rate per kw/hr. for the electricity that reaches the interconnect. And the Great Blue Heron rookery between the turbines? Who cares? No bird conservation group would testify against the project. And for a name plate of 5 MWs? Of undependable power? We are all being had in a major way by alternative energy scams. To save the Earth? The Earth has been here far longer than humans. It will be here long after humans are gone.
Nicholas,
You demonstrate well what I attempted to point out in my post:
The climate kooks have controlled the discussion so long and have silenced their critics quite effectively.
I frankly expect that the tiny groups of skeptics still active to be silenced soon. Blog hosts and social media will simply ban them. Google will bury them in the search results. Students who dare question the consensus will find no academic future. Companies will be pressured to fire employees who do not beleive correctly. We are in a brave new world.
I do not wish to believe that you may be correct.
In the back of my mind are plans for when and where to move to if you are.
European Climate Foundation Board includes:
http://europeanclimate.org/home/who-we-are/board
Susan Bell, Vice Chair. and National Audubon Society,U.S. Board where she is listed as Secretary.
Check out the other Audubon Board members at the Audubon website.
The correction will come the populist rejection of leftist ideas in general, circa Goldwater to Reagan is revived. The GOP is currently a Party of RINO’S and appeasers similar in dimension to the Hoover Republicans the capitulated to New Deal orthodox and government expansionism that marks our age.
Dr. Curry mentioned the other day that Bush 41 was the peak of climate funding and academic consensus building. There in lies the problem of essentially a one party status quo. Less we forget the oversights of Thatcher and Reagan who incubated to Green Terror movements on their watch.
The fear of Orwellian climate change state is very real and justified. The electorate could optimistically become motivated to vote against it but it requires leadership. The elimination of Lindsey Graham and John McCain politically would be as relevant as removing the current Socialist consensus in the WH.
Your denigration of those you refer to as RINOs is why Obama is in the White House. Not you personally, but those who think as you do and many of which stayed home and did not vote.
And Curry is wrong…climate related spending is still rising, faster than ever.
Develop Replacement Transport Fuels
Discoveries of conventional oil fields peaked in the mid 60s and have steadily declined since. Conventional oil discoveries are now only one third of global production.
Fracking for tight oil is a temporary respite. The Annual Energy Outlook US Energy Information Agency projects oil production including tight oil to plateau around 2020 and then steadily decline. By 2100, global oil production will likely be in strong decline. We need to develop replacement fuels now sufficient to put into production long before 2100.
Thus the G7 call to replace fossil fuels by 2100 is a useful (though misguided) prompt to focus on developing replacement transport fuel that is for now critically important to society – while we develop cost effective reliable electric transport.
Don Aitkin said:
‘Climate change’ (I use the inverted commas to signify that I am talking about the political definition coined by the UNFCCC — a change in climate caused by human activity) is not high as a political priority anywhere. People are much more worried about jobs, health, immigration, transport costs and welfare. If you ask people to list their concerns, climate change comes in way down the list.
Even Green politicians agree with that statement. In the recent UK General Election the Scottish Green Party put one leaflet through my letter-box. It did not contain the word ‘climate’ once or anything remotely to do with the climate. They had obviously worked out that that there are many other issues which are far more important in most people’s minds.
The same tactic was used in the USA in the 2012 election. The Democrats were silent on the issue of Climate Change. Why scare off the sheep? The Republicans on the other had are too stupid to spot the weak plank in the oppositions platform.
@Hunter “We are in a Brave New World” Yes we are and at the same time not yet. The academic elite have been discussing these ideas in the halls of prestigious universities for the last 100 years A Huxley came from an intellectual milieu that were discussing how to manage the future of the human race in salons all over Europe. I think that what we are dealing with is the unintended consequences as those fabian socialists and their radical communist running dogs have achieved intellectual hegemony in academia.
There is reality also. In real economic terms it means that they must convince real people and nations to commit hari kuri. That isn’t so difficult to do in the third world where corrupt locals have always been dependent on hand outs and concessions from the occupying colonial powers but it does get more complicated when you ask modern industrial nations like Russia, China, and India to give up all aspirations of economic advance on behalf of a green world view. (The U S is, apparently, expected to be too redneck stupid or liberal delusional to understand that its role in the future is apparently to be the world’s game reserve and water park with some decadent entertainment centers for the chosen)
Only academicians could envision a United States in which Buffalo graze peacefully balanced with their wolf apex predators under the rhythmicly slinking shadow of a windmill farm as an alternative to “breadbasket to the world” The pure insanity of that vision and everyman’s hate of the kind of bureaucracy necessary to create it is how the “plumber joe” voters of the US will be forced off the fence.
fossilsage,
Your assumption that it will be subject to a vote is a mistake. The Courts and the civil servants (bureaucrats) are the Achilles heel of civilization. The climate kooks control both. These intellectual charlatans have sold themselves on a climate consensus- popular opinion- but would never submit the policies they develop to an actual vote in a fully communicated fair election. Instead they will come in by way of tort law in kangaroo courts, pre-agreed on faux lawsuits by green NGOs against the EPA, and flat-out bureaucratic fiat. Notice the huge loser in recent years Constitutionally is the branch that was supposed to per-eminent. We are now ruled by Executive branch unilateralism and a vastly expanded Judicial review. But it is a ratchet effect. When conservatives take the Executive and attempt at even modest reform, the bureaucrats and Judges will prevent it.
hunter, you always seem to slip a groaner into otherwise good posts. “per-eminent”?? preeminent.
‘There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.’
Probably the most apt reference to modern day politics. And the problem than becomes which (probably biased) poll do think represents what the people actually want me to do. With the appalling state of the ‘popular’ press and their reporting of surveys and opinion polls, I reckon you can get just about anything pushed forward as ‘the popular view’ today – and then – by definition – picked up by political party eager to grab hold of or hang on to power.
Real leadership is doing unpopular things because – in the long run – they are what is needed and we are sorely in need of some real leadership in today’s world.
Harper is just playing Obama’s game of cheap, empty rhetoric. Actions are the only measure of today’s honorless politicians. Their words are usually empty.
At one time Harper was a CAGW skeptic but the political winds have forced him to change his tune. Nevertheless Harper is no fool and is also a great hockey fan to the extent of even writing a book on the subject. So to use a hockey expression, I strongly suspect Harper is “ragging the puck”. The expression means to skillfully stick handle the puck around the ice with the intention of letting the game time run out.
According to the 2015 United Nations My World survey covering currently 7,632,963 respondents globally, climate change comes flat last, sixteenth of sixteen causes for concern.
http://data.myworld2015.org/
Seems that all the screeching and frothing by the AGW catastrophists is being treated with the contempt it deserves.
Concern about climate change or anything else means nothing, in absolute terms.
We all would agree to do anything to prevent dangerous climate change if it had no cost whatsoever. Why wouldn’t we?
But it’s when climate change competes with other priorities – like reducing poverty – that we object.
It’s the fact that climate change is bottom of the list that makes every leader’s statements meaningless. We will do something when we get around to it.
You beat me to the point, MCourtney. +!
Several issues Don.
Polls spun by the New York times are not worth any more than lewserdunsky’s falsehoods.
Surely that Stanford Poll’s results struck you as odd? There have been several polls the last few years where voters placed ‘climate fantasies’ dead last or near the bottom of genuine concerns.
Yet the NYtimes, (pronounced nit times), wants their readers to believe that citizens who consistently bottom rank climate fantasies yet these citizens would vote for a Republican candidate who champions climate fantasy action?
Don’t be absurd.
In spite of the twisted logic spun up prior to the Paris minimum, most Republican candidates, voters, Independents and centrist Democratic voters will not rate action on climate fantasies any higher than they did last election. Voter interest was so low in 2014, that most candidates completely ignored climate as a campaign issue.
I prefer to focus on the other end of this lens –
what are your plans for providing all of us with abundant, reliable, and affordable energy?
I know quite a few people who say they believe in ‘climate change’.
So I ask them, one by one: “Do you think the term is intended to
describe a cause, or an effect?”
Thus far, no illumination has been forthcoming.
If you want to have firm control of the populus, there must always be some sort of threat to everyone’s well-being that you as a politician can provide protection from, or action against. Promising that disaster is imminent if your opponent wins, is the recent favorite tactic of candidates on both right and left wings.
Moderates don’t get many votes because they don’t sell protection from fictitious or exaggerated dangers.
I have observed that climate change provides the external threat to the people, and the role of the internal enemy is relegated to those who question the external threat. The desired correlation is that those who question AGW fall in with ISIS sympathizers as enemies of freedom. It works well on those with little critical thought skills and applies a strong emotional stimulus.
The global warming/climate change agenda is real union buster. No/little manufacturing translates into loss of union jobs in the manufacturing sector. No manufacturing > no unions.
It bears repeating what I wrote earlier, especially since the last link, referred to below, has been updated in the light of my discovering ‘The Birth of Thermodynamics’, i.e. Count Rutherford’s famous experiment to help establish the identity between Energy = Work = Quantity of Heat — all measured in joule (J).
I am getting more and more bored. The globe can be getting warmer or colder, but the idea that the human contribution from burning carbon fuels has anything to do with it is not only IMHO the biggest political and intellectual fraud ever – but so says the IPCC itself: http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.com/2011/10/west-is-facing-new-severe-recession.html
The ongoing discussion pro and con is becoming akin to the scholastic argument as to how many angels can dance on the head of a needle. Which is, of course, exactly what is intended to achieve worldwide disorientation away from the actual IPCC aims of monetary and energy helotization – and bringing a whole, if not all, of science into disrepute. Even the UK Royal Society has become Lysenkoist. viz. http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/snippets-questions-2-climate-models.htmll
Besides, an elementary order-of-magnitude calculation shows that, even when allowing the IPCC calculation of man-made global warming by 2100 reputably caused by CO2, is so trivial when compared to solar input variability alone, as to be totally irrelevant to ‘climate’, viz.
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/eating-sun-fourth-estatelondon-2009.html
The simple and most regrettable fact I that the electorate, in all countries, is not very bright. Some are just rather short on intellect while others are too lazy to make good use of what they do have. It is so much easier and socially popular to be concerned with trivia, such as sport, celebrity gossip and the like. Furthermore, it is a well documented fact that a tiny fraction of society – the so-called opinion leaders – make the judgement on all phenomena and the rest unquestioningly fall into line. A good illustration of this is the popularity of tattooing. People mark themselves for life not because they necessarily think it’s a good idea but because others, often their heros, are doing it. So it is with Climate Change. While most people are not particularly concerned about it, the relentless exposure to the hype causes them to think that there must be something to it. Considering that respected world leaders, popular entertainers, even the Pope, is spruiking the alarm, the “man/woman on the street” can’t easily dismiss it. As for all the useful information available in support of the sceptic stance, sadly it is mostly preaching to the converted. Few of the unconverted ever bother to read it. Progress against the status quo will be very long, indeed.
“the full quotation goes like this: ‘The argument is absolute crap. However, the politics of this are tough for us. Eighty per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger.’”
Unfortunately the reply is meaningless without the question. A666ott never said climate change was absolute crap. The question was “Julia said the science is settled.”
Like it or not, A666ott’s “skeptical” positions have never actually extended beyond what is beyond reasonable doubt. CO2 has some positives – ECS is not as high as the alarmists say – unilateral pricing helps no one – warming has slowed contrary to projections and even claims.
He may or may not be a genuine lukewarmer but his stance is less helpful to the skeptical cause than widely attributed. And he appointed an ecoloon as Enviro Minister.
After proposing to grant an Australian knighthood to Prince Phillip (whose is married to the Queen of Australia, of course), Abbot was subject to a vote of confidence within his party. He passed with a reasonable sounding majority 61-39. However, the commentators are saying he only got through because the government ministers all felt obliged to vote for him this once.
Next really stupid mistake Abbott makes (and he has a track record of minor ones), they are not going to bother to support him, and he will be out. So it looks as is his days are numbered whatever his view on climate change.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/feb/09/tony-abbott-survives-liberal-party-spill-vote
This is a useful article for, among other things, providing insight into the way that the framing of polling questions can influence the outcomes of polls and thus in turn alter politicians’ public strategies. I would add only a few clarifications and other comments. First, the G7 statement committed the leaders in principle to “a common vision” of eliminating fossil fuel emissions by 2100 with interim goal of reducing GHG emissions by 40 to 70% from 2010 levels by 2010 “recognizing that this goal can only be met by a global response”. The language of the communique was very carefully crafted and no doubt the object of lengthy negotiations. The communique includes a slightly less nuanced commitment to “develop long term no carbon strategies”. Each of the leaders was aware that the communique was important politically to show a common front but that it means nothing if a deal cannot be negotiated in December.
Prime Minister Harper must have gritted his teeth as he signed. Those of us who dissent from the CAGW thesis clearly would have been more comfortable with a lesser statement, but it played to the media in a way that probably was unavoidable.
Having formerly worked in government for many years, I am used to seeing the tightrope that politicians walk on this subject. There is some difference among the political parties, but those broadly on the left are pleased to be able to use climate change as an excuse to subsidize the interest groups and industry (i.e. energy “efficiency”, ethanol, solar and wind) that heavily contribute to their campaigns and those on the right prefer, when pressed, to regulate (e.g. vehicle fuel efficiency, appliances, etc.). Most politicians are increasingly nervous about anti-carbon policies being used as trade barriers (e.g. Keystone XL pipeline).
Up to now, there has been no political downside to promising to reduce emissions, only to actually doing so. I fear, however, that we are reaching a critical stage as is indicated by the frantic efforts of the CAGW crowd and their friends in the media to hype this issue before the public. They truly seek an agreement in Paris that will legally bind the parties to massive and economically damaging emissions reductions. While I take heart from the tendency of the developing countries to overplay their hands in demanding hundreds of billions of dollars from the OECD to finance their transition away from carbon (such as it is likely to be), I worry that media pressure may move politicians into some truly rash measures. This is not a time for dissenters to stand aside from the fray.