The Conversation: UN Security Council Should Crackdown to Enforce the Paris Climate Agreement

Keele University PhD Ashley Murphy
Keele University PhD Ashley Murphy

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Keele University PHD researcher Ashley Murphy is disappointed that the United Nations is not using its authoritarian might to coerce nations into addressing climate change – though he thinks the UN is moving in the right direction.

Climate change is a security threat – so where is the UN Security Council?

May 16, 2018 12.39am AEST

Ashley Murphy

PhD Researcher, Keele University

Climate change is one of the great security challenges of the 21st century. As the world warms, conflicts over water, food or energy will become more common and many people will be forced from their homes. Scientists, think-tanks, NGOs, militaries and even the White House (albeit under President Obama) all agree that climate change threatens human safety and well-being. Yet the organisation charged with global security has remained relatively silent.

The UN Security Council, responsible for maintaining international peace and security, is comprised of 15 countries. Five seats are reserved for permanent members with veto powers (China, France, Russia, the UK and the US) while the other ten members are elected to represent their region (“Africa”, “Asia-Pacific” etc) for two year terms.

The fact the Security Council has helped combat these varied and largely unrelated challenges shows its potential to do good. Yet these interventions also pose the critical question of why it has yet to engage climate change in any meaningful way. Article 41 sanctions would be available to the council in the event of states not meeting their Paris Agreement obligations. Economic sanctions could also be placed upon corporations, that currently operate with relatively little international scrutiny. What the council brings is an ability to coerce – something that is currently lacking throughout international climate law.

From one perspective, countries like New Zealand and Germany view climate change as a security issue of immense proportions and worthy of the council’s attention. On the other hand, states such as China and South Africa argue that if the council engages with climate change it will undermine the sovereignty of states, fracturing the international system.

These positions are entrenched, reflecting vastly opposing ideologies in relation to both climate change and international relations, thus precluding any meaningful intervention. Yet this does not necessarily mean that the Security Council is frozen indefinitely.

So where are we? The Security Council has access to the tools the world so desperately needs to enforce state and private action on climate change, and although it is taking its time there is some advancement. That does not mean climate change is about to be recognised as a security concern in its own right, but each step taken is valuable and the council is certainly on the right path to identifying climate change as the security threat it so clearly is.

Read more: https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-a-security-threat-so-where-is-the-un-security-council-96658

The Article 41 under which Ashley believes the Security Council would be empowered to enforce the Paris Agreement is a reference to the United Nations charter.

“The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.”

Read more: http://legal.un.org/repertory/art41.shtml

I suspect we shall see more of young Ashley in the near future. With his PHD in international law, and his utter disdain for the sovereignty of nation states when they inconvenience his agenda, Ashley has the makings of a senior United Nations official.

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William Astley
May 15, 2018 2:38 pm

It is a nice touch that in addition to creating the CAGW problem that does not exist, the same cult, force a solution (wind and solar) which do not work.
Good luck with getting the developed countries to agree to world ‘court’ madness.
It is a fact that the cult of CAGW cannot scientifically defend the CAGW premise and more importantly the cult of CAGW cannot defend the Bern model.
The Bern CO2 model provided the ‘modelled’ resident time for anthropogenic CO2 emissions to create the CAGW problem.
Here is a good summary of the Bern modelling monkey business. Very interesting. Easy read. Basic logic. Tons of supporting papers.
How to create a fake model that is required or there is no AGW problem.

Carbon cycle modelling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric CO2: on the construction of the “Greenhouse Effect Global Warming” dogma.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Reference_Docs/Carbon_cycle_update_Segalstad.pdf
Observations (in peer reviewed papers) support the assertion that the resident time for anthropogenic CO2 is around 4 years, not 1000s of years in accordance with the phoney Bern model.
Based on the fact that the resident time of anthropogenic CO2 emissions is 4 years, anthropogenic CO2 emissions only contributed 17% of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2. 83% of the rise in atmospheric CO2 was due to the increase in temperature.
Obviously if the rise in CO2 was natural, then the rise in temperature was also natural, not caused by the rise in atmospheric CO2.

Scrutinizing the carbon cycle and CO2 residence time in the atmosphere
Previous critical analyses facing the IPCC’s favored interpretation of the carbon cycle and residence time have been published, e.g., by Jaworowski et al. (1992), Segalstad (1998), Dietze (2001), Rörsch et al. (2005) or Essenhigh (2009), and more recently by Humlum et al. (2013), or Salby (2013 and 2016).
Although most of these analyses are based on different observations and methods, they all derive residence times (in some cases also differentiated between turnover and adjustment times) in part several orders of magnitude shorter than specified in AR5.
As a consequence of these analyses also a much smaller anthropogenic influence on the climate than propagated by the IPCC can be expected.
Based on this approach and as solution of the rate equation we derive a concentration at steady state,
which is only determined by the product of the total emission rate and the residence time. Under present
conditions the natural emissions contribute 373 ppm and anthropogenic emissions 17 ppm to the total
concentration of 390 ppm (2012). For the average residence time we only find 4 years.
These results indicate that almost all of the observed change of CO2 during the Industrial Era followed,
not from anthropogenic emission, but from changes of natural emission. The results are consistent with
the observed lag of CO2 changes behind temperature changes (Humlum et al., 2013; Salby, 2013), a
signature of cause and effect.
Our analysis of the carbon cycle, which exclusively uses data for the CO2 concentrations and fluxes as
published in AR5, shows that also a completely different interpretation of these data is possible, this in
complete conformity with all observations and natural causalities.

John harmsworth
Reply to  William Astley
May 15, 2018 2:57 pm

This appears to provide a comprehensive listing of valid scientific papers which have been ignored by the IPCC and virtually every researcher in the field for 20 years. One wonders why.

Gamecock
May 15, 2018 2:47 pm

Dammit, New York, turn off the UN’s electricity. They demand it!

May 15, 2018 2:52 pm

How else can we spin climate change (now automatically supposed to mean “human-caused climate change”) to scare people into “taking action”?
Oh, I know, “Climate change now poses the greatest threat ever known for causing child molesters to abuse more children.”
OR
“Climate change now poses the greatest threat ever known for causing more people to abuse their dogs.”
I’m sure that there are other ones, but I started the ball rolling, so chime in with your suggestions.

Alan Tomalty
Reply to  Robert Kernodle
May 15, 2018 3:52 pm

Climate change will cause water to run uphill.

Tom in Florida
May 15, 2018 2:57 pm

“The UN Security Council, responsible for maintaining international peace and security,”
I had to laugh at that. Their track record in that regard shows we have nothing to worry about should they try to coerce anything from anyone.

John harmsworth
Reply to  Tom in Florida
May 15, 2018 3:00 pm

Yeah, there’s definitely a certain point where delusion crosses over from sad and unfortunate to Looney Tune hilarity. He made it there and then some. Wowzers!

Amber
May 15, 2018 3:05 pm

Is this clown serious . People in GAZA getting massacred by war criminals and the UN does what ? SFA .
Then he expects them to tell people to honor the Paris Pledge fraud agreement . What an ignorant naïve
dumb ass .

Davis
Reply to  Amber
May 15, 2018 4:35 pm

Don’t want to get shot? Don’t throw stones at people with guns.

Tom Halla
Reply to  Davis
May 15, 2018 5:21 pm

It wasn’t just stones, but grenades and Molotov cocktails.

Pat Frank
Reply to  Amber
May 15, 2018 4:37 pm

war criminals” You’re referring to Hamas, of course.

kramer
May 15, 2018 3:05 pm

The current UN secretary general, António Guterres, also was a VP and president in socialist international in the past:
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/biography
There is no EFFING way I will ever abide or follow any UN law or requirement!!!

Robertvd
May 15, 2018 3:20 pm

Don’t send your kids to university. Really don’t do it. It’s a waste of time and money.
The greens and the social justice warriors (marxists) have taken over campus. And they hate free speech and different opinions.

Robertvd
Reply to  Robertvd
May 15, 2018 3:31 pm

https://youtu.be/7WTftKxMJas
Universities Are Useless & Irrelevant Nowadays

D. J. Hawkins
Reply to  Robertvd
May 15, 2018 3:40 pm

OK, smart guy, where do you get your engineers from?

Robertvd
Reply to  Robertvd
May 15, 2018 4:12 pm

In a ‘Ashley Murphy’ world you don’t need engineers.

Andy Ogilvie
Reply to  Robertvd
May 16, 2018 1:11 pm

Mr Hawkins. The first rule of engineering reads thus ” if it ain’t broke don’t try to fix it”
Maybe young Ashley and his deranged fellow travelers should apply said law to our climate.

OweninGA
Reply to  Robertvd
May 15, 2018 3:47 pm

I concur for all but the engineering and hard sciences areas. We still need to teach the next generation of designers and builders. The rest of academia could fall off the Earth tomorrow and no one would miss it.

drednicolson
Reply to  OweninGA
May 15, 2018 5:17 pm

Tech training institutes and trade schools can take care of that. Or even medieval-style apprenticeships. No need for stuffy pseudo-intellectuals in imitation ivory towers. And I say this as an English/History double major who almost became one of those. Those subjects still ought to be taught, but not by our current crop of PCPs.

AWG
Reply to  OweninGA
May 16, 2018 5:10 am

The best engineers I know were writing code, building robots, repairing engines, modifying their bicycles as children without advanced university degrees. As adults, they get more practical experience as interns and apprentices than four plus years of schooling.
In hiring, I don’t care about the credentials, is the candidate a tinkerer with an appetite for reading and learning from a host of disciplines. The university system largely was a place to gain credentials until everyone figured out the way to game that system and now it is a place that people start off their adult lives with four plus years of productive life taken and adding mounds of debt. On the other side, the university system has gamed it as a place where no talent hacks can get an easy paycheck and sex.
If a person wants to get qualified in boozing, fornication and protesting without the hassle of squeezing that into a responsible life, college is the way to go

OweninGA
Reply to  OweninGA
May 16, 2018 5:35 am

AWG,
Where were you when I was looking for a job a few years ago? Now I am in this job in academia, subverting the young liberals to think, one at a time. I’d rather be building something.

sy computing
Reply to  OweninGA
May 16, 2018 5:56 am

Now I am in this job in academia, subverting the young liberals to think, one at a time.
(Emphasis added)
Be quiet and do what you’re told. You’re doing the rest of us a much better service right where you are.

Robertvd
May 15, 2018 4:04 pm

So Keele University PHD researcher Ashley Murphy would use authoritarian might. So in what way is he different from Stalin or Hitler or Mao ?

JON R SALMI
Reply to  Robertvd
May 15, 2018 4:32 pm

Robert, simply put,he is no different except for his lack of power to back up his wishes. Is it not amazing how quickly the academic mind embraces Fascism?

Alan Tomalty
May 15, 2018 4:11 pm

Ashley Murphy doesnt understand just how evil the Chinese Communist party is. Just 1 example of thousands of evil acts by the CCP is their organ harvesting of Falun Gong prisoners. The Chinese Communist party runs China. The present leader is making himself all powerful but when he retires or dies the Communist part will reassert itself. China has no intention of harming its industries and they know that CO2 warming is a scam. The greenies seem to think that China is their friend. But why the West is committing economic suicide is beyond me. The Russians also know that CO2 is a scam and the only reason that Putin is pretending to go along with it is the West let him in the WTO under favourable terms and he realized that he could make money off of the scam. Those 2 members of the security council will NEVER do anything to hurt their own economies.

Davis
May 15, 2018 4:39 pm

That is why North America should become self sufficient again in energy and productivity, tell the rest of the world to go away and quit bothering us, we are busy enjoying our high standard of life. If anyone here doesn’t like that, free one way ticket to elsewhere.

Fredar
Reply to  Davis
May 16, 2018 6:33 am

Well there is already a country that does that. It’s called North Korea.
If you think self-sufficiency is good then get rid off all foreign goods, or stuff that have foreign materials in them, or stuff that were made using foreign tools. Not to mention foreigners. Then demand that the US government becomes a fascist authoritarian state that will close borders and shoot everyone who tries to cross, because ultimately that is the only way to gain complete self-sufficiency and stop private individuals from doing their business. Of course all this just causes less choice for consumers, higher prices, corruption, and lower standard of living. By this point you should realise how ridiculous your suggestion is.
People produce the most when they specialise in things they do best and buy the rest. That is why free trade limited government countries like Singapore are doing lot better than fascist/socialist nannystates who try to micromanage everything.

MikeH
May 15, 2018 4:53 pm

So, tell us… How much does the US of A contribute to the UN Yearly budget? I believe 20-25%. If they want to enforce sanctions, Trump will just keep the money and re purpose it to the wall. If they want an economic fight, they picked the wrong President for it.

DMA
May 15, 2018 4:53 pm

“As the world warms, conflicts over water, food or energy will become more common and many people will be forced from their homes.”
The conflicts over energy aren’t caused by warming they are caused by restricting the use of fossil fuels and these conflicts are in fact man made and curable. The expected warming not so much. If the energy field is opened up the food and water conflicts can be solved.

Rob
May 15, 2018 4:58 pm

The UN is a cesspool of socialist and communist corrupt, and has no authority that doesn’t amount to the kind of tyrannical authority that murderous despot like Mao, Stalin or a number of other brutal dictators have exercised.

Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
May 15, 2018 5:00 pm

Climate is dynamic; climate change was there in the past, is here presently and will be there in future too. Global warming is a minute component of climate change. Here why I say minute is that, so far nobody [individuals or institutions] have shown realistic climate sensitivity factor. Unless this is achieved, such studies have no meaning except for bargaining UM funds for such proclamations and create chaos among nations and among people, more particularly politicians.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy

RockyRoad
May 15, 2018 7:45 pm

I’ll address climate change:
Dear Climate Change,
You suck!
(I’d write more but if I said “You really suck” they wouldn’t take me seriously.)

OweninGA
Reply to  RockyRoad
May 16, 2018 5:39 am

Climate change is one of the drivers of evolution and has been with this blue marble for it entire existence. If it weren’t for climate change, we’d all be picking lice off each other under some trees in Africa somewhere. (Some enviros I’ve met could probably use some of that lice picking – or at least a bath!)

WXcycles
May 15, 2018 11:42 pm

Ash lives in happy hipster land, where they’re just one more five-year plan way from solar-powered agricultural mechanisation, and inevitable global self-sufficiency. Then it’s going to be UN cricket-burgers, for everyone, a final triumph of centralised collectivism in the 21st century and the best of all possible worlds. And next year will bring the fnal victory in the war on evil heterosexualism.

jon
May 16, 2018 12:23 am

Perhaps under the UN auspices, the US could bomb the non-servile countries.
It worked with Iraq and Libya – they are no longer trying to get off the dollar standard!
And think of the extra employment for the bombing countries.
Win – win for both parties.
Win for UN win for US!

OweninGA
Reply to  jon
May 16, 2018 5:46 am

Now wait one cotton-picking minute there! The US was very clearly leading-from-behind on the Libya thing. In fact, we more or less were cheerleaders for the completely unnecessary European efforts. Our president was very happy to watch the French and Italians enable the take-over of Libya by his muslim brotherhood friends, ISIS offshoots, and al-Qaeda.

Trevor
May 16, 2018 1:12 am

Ashley Murphy : Another LOST OPPORTUNITY !!
.
Yet another brilliant shit-wit NEO-MARXIST with an ecological bent !
.
Probably never done an honest days work in his life BUT now he wants to lay-down-the-law
to the rest of humanity ! TYPICAL . BULLY . MARXIST .
“OUR” WESTERN EDUCATION SYSTEM is just churning them out by the bucket-load !
.
“We” need to be counteracting this somehow ! Anyone got any ideas ??
( No ! Other than that one !! )

Andy Ogilvie
Reply to  Trevor
May 16, 2018 1:18 pm

No ! Other than that one !! )
So I’m no allowed to suggest a high velocity lead aspirin then? You spoil all my fun…gonna tell on you to the UN 😂

mike
May 16, 2018 3:20 am

The UN Security Council is on crack if they try to enforce O’s Paris climate agreement
FTFY

May 16, 2018 5:23 am

UN Security Council Should Crackdown to Enforce the Paris Climate Agreement
Well, this is what it comes down to eventually.

May 16, 2018 5:42 am

Echoes of Lord Bertrand Russell’s “peacenik” call to hand over all nuclear weapons to the UN, and bomb the Soviet before they got them, mind you. Charming fellow his Lordship, what? Dr. Ashley of a long tradition. Lordship anyone?

Steve O
May 16, 2018 5:56 am

Please, oh please! Oh please! Do it. DO IT!!

paqyfelyc
May 16, 2018 7:30 am

There are cracknuts. Especially among PhDs. Why do you care to give them an echo chamber here?

MarkW
May 16, 2018 9:32 am

If we were to ignore the UN, would anyone in this country even notice?

John Endicott
Reply to  MarkW
May 16, 2018 10:44 am

only the regressives who see the UN as a way to push their agendas would notice.

May 16, 2018 10:33 am

Gee they dont play nice anymore. They’re shifting over to making offers we cant refuse. Somehow, it seems they can even stop me from taking the train or communicating! Wow did we sovereign nations agree to let the UN drones have this power. And what in hell are they teaching these officious bots in university? In Canada, international law is the fallback pad for those who didnt make it into law school and its all about how rotten capitalistic nations are.