Claim: Just three years left to 'save the planet' from climate change

From the “flexible deadlines department” and the World Economic Forum. Prince Charles said back in 2009 that “we have 100 months to save the world”. That deadline looked like it wouldn’t happen so in 2015 he extended the deadline 35 more years. You’d think these people would talk and get their stories straight.

Six scientists and diplomats have published a letter urging governments, businesses and others to address climate issues.

A planet devastated by climate change may seem like a distant future. But Earth is already experiencing effects today.

Globally, the mean rate of sea level rise increased 50% in the last two decades. In 2017, temperatures have already reached their highest levels in history in some areas, from California to Vietnam. And the past three years were the hottest on record.

In a new open letter, six prominent scientists and diplomats, including former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres and physicist Stefan Rahmstorf, wrote that the world has approximately three years before the worst effects of climate change take hold. Published June 28, the letter urges governments, businesses, scientists, and citizens to address the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions now.

If emissions can be permanently lowered by 2020, global temperatures will likely avoid reaching an irreversible threshold, they wrote. Impacts would include rapid deforestation, floods from rising sea levels, and unpredictable weather shifts that could ravage agriculture and affect life on the coasts, where the vast majority of people live.

Their plan includes six goals for 2020:

Increase renewable energy to 30% of electricity use.

Draft plans for cities and states to ditch fossil fuel energy by 2050, with funding of $300 billion annually.

Ensure 15% of all new vehicles sold are electric.

Cut net emissions from deforestation.

Publish plan for halving emissions from deforestation well before 2050.

Encourage the financial sector to issue more “green bonds” toward climate-mitigation efforts.

The letter’s goals are at odds with the priorities of the Trump administration, which has signalled that climate change is not on its agenda. In early June, President Trump announced that, in 2019, the US will withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which sets national benchmarks for curbing greenhouse-gas emissions.

The authors call for cities and businesses to fight emissions and meet the Paris accord goals, even without the help of the US government.

“We stand at the doorway of being able to bend the emissions curve downwards by 2020, as science demands, in protection of the UN sustainable development goals, and in particular the eradication of extreme poverty,” Figueres said in a press release.

“This monumental challenge coincides with an unprecedented openness to self-challenge on the part of sub-national governments inside the US, governments at all levels outside the US, and of the private sector in general. The opportunity given to us over the next three years is unique in history.”

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Mike Bromley the Kurd
September 6, 2017 5:43 am

Christiana Figueres, global scold.

Bruce Cobb
Reply to  Mike Bromley the Kurd
September 6, 2017 10:07 am

And village idiot.

Robert from oz
September 6, 2017 6:14 am

Ive consulted the fortune teller , done the tarot cards and studied the entrails of dead animals and they all say I’m going to live a long life , which is great cause I’m 101 !

Reply to  Robert from oz
September 6, 2017 9:34 am

I went to a fortune teller once and she read my mind and slapped my face.

Caligula Jones
September 6, 2017 6:17 am

First (and only) check I’ll need: does Al Gore still have a place on the ocean? Yes?
Then we’re good.
When (if?) he sells, I MIGHT start to worry.
As Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds says, I’ll believe there is a climate crisis when the people who are telling me there is a climate crisis ACT like there is a climate crisis.
And no, Leo, that doesn’t mean taking a commercial flight once (after alerting the media).
And yes, scientists, that means fewer “conferences” at exotic locales. Try Skype.

MarkW
September 6, 2017 6:22 am

I’ve lost track of the number of deadlines that have come and gone.

AndyG55
Reply to  MarkW
September 6, 2017 6:44 am

And somehow, like failed Arts students…… they NEVER seem to meet their dead lines. !

Robert of Ottawa
September 6, 2017 6:59 am

We stand at the doorway of being able to bend the population curve downwards
There, fixed

Resourceguy
September 6, 2017 7:26 am

Any day now we will get the news that all AGW skeptics are part of hate groups and silicon valley will respond appropriately with swift enforcement. I’ll give it six months max.

Joel Snider
Reply to  Resourceguy
September 6, 2017 7:59 am

You don’t have to wait – they’ve already been calling for Nuremberg trials, racketeering charges, and comparing us, not only to Holocaust deniers, but actual perpetrators (not to mentions Mosher’s smart-ass remarks about David Duke) – all when it’s their own methods that parallel everything that Hitler did.
So, oh yeah, they’ll do it the moment they think they can.

RWturner
September 6, 2017 8:25 am

Climate doom, the modern day Zeno’s Paradox.

ivankinsman
September 6, 2017 8:44 am

For all you climate sceptics out there, Mars, a very big US company, certainly disagreed with you to the tune of $1 billion.
http://www.businessinsider.com/mars-climate-change-investment-global-warming-sustainability-plan-greenhouse-gas-2017-9?IR=T

Bruce Cobb
Reply to  ivankinsman
September 6, 2017 9:22 am

Meaningless posturing, pandering, and greenwashing.

hunter
Reply to  ivankinsman
September 6, 2017 9:27 am

Enron was at one time the agreed on genius company of America.
And they invested huge in global warming as well.
Do you have a point hidden away somewhere in your post?

ivankinsman
Reply to  hunter
September 6, 2017 9:56 am

What’s the connection? Enron went bust through financial mismanagent. Why is this similar to Mars?

Paul Penrose
Reply to  ivankinsman
September 6, 2017 10:50 am

Reminds me of what my mother used to say when I said “but all my friends are doing it!” Either the CAGW conjecture is correct, or it isn’t. Doesn’t matter what Mars or anybody else does. Popularity and consensus are not scientific concepts. My mother was right.

ivankinsman
Reply to  Paul Penrose
September 6, 2017 10:56 am

Take a look at this Paul. It might give you good for thought:
https://qz.com/1069298/the-3-of-scientific-papers-that-deny-climate-change-are-all-flawed/

MarkW
Reply to  Paul Penrose
September 6, 2017 11:42 am

And how do they know they are wrong?
Obviously, they disagree with the “consensus”, that’s all the proof we need.

Reply to  Paul Penrose
September 6, 2017 2:46 pm

ivankinsman: Here’s the problem as I see it for the “97%” (which is not an indication of the true scientific opinion since you won’t get grants if you aren’t following orthodoxy). They believe that CO2, a weak optical gas (water in the atmosphere is stronger) is responsible for the moderate amount of warming seen since the US started its temperature records. Yet we know that the climate has been much warmer in the past and cooler in the past when there was no anthropogenic release of CO2. So what caused this far greater variation? Could the cause (or causes) of climatic variation still be operating today and that [CO2] is a correlate with temperature, not a driver? A lot of CO2 will be released from the oceans as they warm. Has this been taken into account in the 20 odd disparate models commonly used by the 97%? Good theories have to be universal in the sense that they have to explain all occurrences of the phenomena they seek to explain. Causes and effects cannot just pop up into existence by whim even if theories can.

Joel Snider
Reply to  ivankinsman
September 6, 2017 12:15 pm

The US military has wasted a lot of money after listening to climate alarmists too.

ivankinsman
Reply to  Joel Snider
September 6, 2017 1:04 pm

Mars doesn’t waste money. It is a highly successful company. It knows what is happening and is investing accordingly. How would their senior execs. approve $1 billion of wasted money. Are they stupid incompetents?

Bruce Cobb
September 6, 2017 8:51 am

In a sane world, their utterings would be those of crazy people only.

September 6, 2017 8:55 am

The authors call for cities and businesses to fight emissions and meet the Paris accord goals, even without the help of the US government.

Let me know how that goes, especially the $300 billion per annum part.

RockyRoad
Reply to  Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7
September 6, 2017 9:35 am

If all it takes is $300 billion per annum to “save the world”, why don’t we just have everybody in the US write themselves a $1,000 check and bingo–the problem is solved!

South River Independent
September 6, 2017 10:03 am

Correlation is not proof of causation, so we need someone to determine if increased atmospheric CO2 is causing more people to suffer from the climate change (aka global warming) delusion. Are we reaching a tipping point where the majority of people are crazy?

Gloateus
September 6, 2017 11:16 am

Didn’t we have just three years left 30 years ago?

September 6, 2017 11:49 am

“Their plan includes six goals for 2020:
Increase renewable energy to 30% of electricity use.
Draft plans for cities and states to ditch fossil fuel energy by 2050, with funding of $300 billion annually.
Ensure 15% of all new vehicles sold are electric.
Cut net emissions from deforestation.
Publish plan for halving emissions from deforestation well before 2050.
Encourage the financial sector to issue more “green bonds” toward climate-mitigation efforts.”

Oh!?
Which of these stops global warming cold?
Obviously, none of them.
Specious rationale and fakery coupled with violent hand waving.
Must be salaries and funding troughs are in danger.
Cut all funding to any agency, initiative, project or grant that these disaster predictors are anywhere near or associated with, no matter how distantly.

MikeN
September 6, 2017 12:57 pm

Increasing renewables to any percentage by 2020 impedes the goal of high renewables by 2050. Don’t waste money on a small short term goal, and instead try to develop cheaper renewables that countries will flock to.

Chris
September 6, 2017 1:13 pm

The alarmists remind me of Jehovah Witnesses with the doom prognostications.

Martin457
September 6, 2017 3:23 pm

In the 1970’s, the political scientists and MSM were spewing how smart they were and how the planet was going to turn into a snowball. Now they brey like “muted-mules” because it is more apparent than ever before that crying wolf no longer works.

dog
September 6, 2017 5:56 pm

I might still be alive in 35 years so I’m making this post into a time capsule to reply to when they’re wrong again…
So future me, did the world end?

September 6, 2017 6:40 pm

They should have a 7th goal:
Eliminate all international gatherings of climapocalypsers as there is only 3 years left and no decisions made at those boondoggles will have any effect.