Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Climate activists are distressed that their push to make 2020 a big year for international climate agreements is being thrown into disarray by the Covid-19 Chinese Coronavirus outbreak disrupting all the lead up international meetings they normally attend.
How Coronavirus Could Set Back the Fight Against Climate Change
BY JUSTIN WORLAND MARCH 10, 2020 2:52 PM EDT
This year was supposed to be a big one in the international fight against climate change. But the fast spreading new coronavirus disease, COVID-19, is posing a triple-threat to action that could derail the Paris Agreement effort to combat global warming, worried experts say.
The disease is a challenge for climate change action on multiple fronts. COVID-19 has already disrupted crucial negotiations ahead of a November conference in Glasgow that could determine the Paris Agreement’s success in reducing emissions. The outbreak may supplant climate concerns in the minds of the public, weakening political will at a key moment. And it may encourage burning fossil fuels in hopes of restarting the global economy.
“Everybody’s going to be putting safety first right now,” says Matthew McKinnon, an advisor to a group of countries especially vulnerable to climate change. “And whether or not safety first aligns with climate first is going to vary from place to place.”
…
To lay the ground for the Glasgow summit, international climate and environmental policymakers planned to hop between a series of important meetings and conferences that would set the stage and, they hoped, allow the world to finally bend the curve on emissions. But, as international travel has ground to a halt, the important work of climate diplomacy has suffered as in-person meetings have become impossible and a series of important conferences have been canceled, from the World Oceans Summit in Japan to CERAWeek, perhaps the most important energy conference, in Houston. The United Nations’ climate body has called off all meetings through the end of April, citing health and safety of attendees as well as the inability to muster a quorum.
Rescheduling meetings has proven hazardous. The Convention on Biological Diversity, which is trying to broker a landmark deal to protect nature by October, moved a meeting from Kunming, China to Rome, to escape the coronavirus. But as the meeting progressed delegates were slowly recalled as news spread of a coronavirus outbreak in Italy. “We left around the middle of the week,” says Lina Barrera, vice president of international policy at Conservation International. “Some people didn’t come at all.”
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Read more: https://time.com/5795150/coronavirus-climate-change/
In 2014 University of Washington academics submitted expense claims for enough airmiles for a return trip to Mars. We can only imagine how the need for academics to fly to conferences has grown, as efforts to clamp down on activities which produce CO2 emissions have gathered momentum, only to see those hopes dashed at the last minute.
Let us hope someone introduces them all to teleconferencing software before it becomes too late to save this year’s climate agreements.
‘How Coronavirus Could Set Back the Fight Against Climate Change …’.
Yeah and also the battle against continental drift — not forgetting the war against global precession.
There are some good printed T-shirts in what you say.
I want one that says, “Ban Continental Drift.”
“…. moved a meeting from Kunming, China to Rome, to escape the coronavirus…”
Looks like a smoking gun to me, kids. Wutan Virus started in China. Meeting planned in China.
Wutan Virus shuts down Italy. Meeting planned in Italy.
It is clear that planning for climate meetings spreads Wutan. Also it may already be too late and is likely to be worse than first thought. We must ban all planning of climate meetings now before children have their future and dreams stolen.
Also if you are in Glasgow? GET OUT NOW!
Didn’t I read somewhere, Coronal lets die all old climate sceptics ??
What you wrote, Craig, it’s just the contrast reality show.
Wutan?
Perhaps he has Wotan on his radar?
Wu Tang Clan?
Maybe?
Don’t confuse with Wang Chung – the Dance Hall Days lot.
Auto
Green Blight vs Gaia’s Choice
There are only 2 numbers that we can know for sure for each country: the population in the country and the number of deaths from the virus. How many who are registered sick or healthy are extremely dependent on everyone who is sick being tested etc.
How many who die per million in the country is also the only number that has practical significance. Whether you get Corona hard or easy means little as long as you survive.
In China, it has killed 2.17 per million, in South Korea 1.05, in Iran 3.5 and in Italy 7.0 per million.
Influenza killed 314 per million last year e.g in Norway. Thus, ordinary flu is about 100 times as dangerous. In the United States, that number is 103.
“The outbreak may supplant climate concerns in the minds of the public”
How do you supplant something that doesn’t exist?
Is it just me or did Mr. Justin Worland make a serious blunder in his reporting?
I direct everybody’s attention to his first paragraph in which he says (in summary), “…COVID-19 is posing a threat to action that could derail the Paris Agreement…”.
See what I mean?
Supporters of the “PA” should be happy as clams about that–a virus that could elminate action that has the potential to derail the PA!
Consequently, the PA should continue on just fine as long as the virus performs as expected!
Mr. Justin Worland should have proofread what he wrote, or perhaps he’s working for Trump to make them all appear like fools!
Silly climate alarmists and shysters!
“And whether or not safety first aligns with climate first is going to vary from place to place.”
And the definition of emergency is?
When Covid-19 exposure doubles, double the number of people die….when CO2 doubles, fewer people die of hypothermia. Its pretty easy to see why the public isn’t reading the CC clickbait these days.
CO2 is good because heat is said to destroy the coronavirus.
They are already using a vaccine in the usa, and it looks good so far, with the company quickly up production of the drug, which was created for ebola, but was used on the first case of the virus on a American, it worked and he recovered fully. He greatly improved over 24 hours..
Sorry for the google link. But other news agencies are reporting the same thing about Remdesivir.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fortune.com/2020/03/10/gilead-coronavirus-treatment-remdesivir-being-used-washington-cdc/amp/
Great news: Climate change is not going to exterminate human life on earth – a little coronavirus will do the job. Except that it will not – it discriminates by targeting those who are sixty and older. It does nothing to the loud young climate activists. What a wicked virus.
It doesn’t target the elderly, it just has a greater effect on them, since they usually have weaker systems.
“…weakening political will at a key moment.”
Oh come on. We’ve been panicking for 30 years now and still nothing has changed. Give it a rest.
On the contrary, quite a lot has changed. The panic has become more and more shrill as the evidence of doom fails to materialize.
Larry Kummer can tell them that it’s no big deal and they should all fly.
The U of Wash has around 6000 academic staff. That averages out more than 20,000 miles per academic, per year. Presumably, the star academics travel a lot more.
It’s possible to put on more miles than that. Some folks lived in Nova Scotia and commuted to Fort McMoney (McMurray) every couple of weeks. That would do it. Other than that, and folks like aircrew deadheading, most citizens would be appalled at that much
traveljunketing for civil servants.Frequent flyer mileage programs work. They attract loyal customers and the perks induce them to travel. It’s particularly bad among government workers and academics.
In my department, we weekly have 1 to 3 researchers from other universities come in to present a seminar on their work. Grad students must attend the presentations and the covered work finds its way onto exams. Usually, a small group of professors will take the visitors out for a nice dinner and favors are made and returned in a grand circuit of academics making similar visits to other universities.
The above is on top of attending conferences and field work.
What your described sounds like a very expensive circle j**k.
The No Borders and Freedom of Movement people please note:
National sovereign borders are important in controlling the spread of disease.
You’re a xenophobe, how dare you?
In a strange way, covid19 could do us all a big favour. By causing a disruption to world economic activity it might help some of our alarmist friends to get a sniff of what life will be like if we go much further with green policy implementation.
It would only be a sniff, however. World economies will recover once the hype settles down and life returns to normal. Hopefully it causes enough disruption that people can see what the effect of economic disruption is or even martial law in some places.
Because that’s exactly where we’re all headed if governments fold to the demands of the alarmists and go fully down the path of zero emissions targets, disconnecting gas lines, stopping coal and oil usage etc.
I do worry that Covid19 is possibly a live trial of a biological weapon. Sort of a dry run to test a delivery system. I hope it isn’t that.
Interesting article on prevention of virus
http://www.sanfernandosun.com/news/article_068568f4-5e90-11ea-ae12-c79d5f80c4a7.html
Particularly what he says about zinc. Apparently this guy is expert on coronaviruses.
President Trump just suspended all travel for Europe excluding the UK for the next 30 days.
Trump says Europe was not doing a good enough job of preventing the spread of the Wuhan virus.
I would have to say Trump is correct. We just got our first two Wuhan virus victims in Oklahoma this week and both of them just returned from Italy.
Tom Abbott
Its crazy that they were allowed to leave italy, they should have been put in quarantine and triple checked before being allowed to leave italy, then checked again in the usa…
If south Korea can do drive through testing, then I’m sure the mighty usa can as well.
“first two”
Because no one is being tested.
“Trump says Europe was not doing a good enough job”
Americans are are going to suffer terribly because of the incompetence and complacency of the Trump admistration. Why? because no one is being tested. Why? because Trump has been downplaying it and calling it a “hoax” and bragging about how his experts are the best in the world and they are on top of it ” it’ll be gone when it warms up. ”
50 million US cases is already a lock probably closer to 100. How could these numbers have been reduced? By early testing and isolation. That horse has well and truly bolted and blaming others is all that is left.
“Anybody that wants a test can get a test.”
“I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.”
That sounds like wishful thinking, Loydo.
Trump is taking every step possible to contain the Wuhan virus.
Monday-morning quarterbacks are pathetic. None of them would have done a better job than Trump. They/you say there’s not enough testing. Well, where were you calling for an increase in the ability to test before this Wuhan virus appeared? Answer: Nowhere. It wasn’t even on your or anyone else’s radar, except for Trump who took actions to bolster the U.S. response to such things from the first day he entered office. It’s not his fault there are not millions of Wuhan testing kits sitting around waiting for us to us them. It takes time to ramp up production, and noone would ramp it up better than Trump.
Trump criticized our vulnerable supply chains which gave China a virtual monopoly on products vital to U.S. national security, and his tariffs caused many manufacturers to move back to the United States. Trump also enhanced U.S. capabilities for fighting viruses when he first took office long before the Wuhan virus reared its ugly head.
Let’s see if the Democrats give Trump what he needs to fight this fight. They appear to have formulated a bill that Trump will not be able to sign, and then the Democrats intend to adjourn and go home and do nothing to help the Wuhan virus situation.
Here’s an example of Democrat “cooperation”: There are millions of N95 masks available right now, but they can’t be used by the medical profession because the masks were made for the construction trades and other jobs. In order for these N95 masks to be used by the medical profession, Congress would have to pass a law allowing this use. The Democrats have refused to consider this and put it forward for a vote.
Let’s see how your wonderful Democrats handle this situation. They are more interested in resisting everything Trump does, than in protecting the United States. They are insane and should be voted out of office in November if we value our freedoms and safety.
“How Coronavirus Could Set Back the Fight Against Climate Change”
There is no “fight against climate change”, there’s no way you could fight it. There’s only a fight against free markets and Capitalism.
It is high time that these hypocritical co2 wasting conferences end. Perhaps they now learn how to teleconference.
BizJets and private charter crews are working rosters in high demand. Anything biz/private with wings is already overbooked, no matter the price surge.
Remdesivir and chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in vitro.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0
The first an antiviral, the second an antimalarial. Both are toxic in vivo. I’m certain a lot of the mortality we’re seeing is due to antiviral-induced organ failure that occurs after patients are hospitalized. Experts are starting to warn about that.
Doctors that treat WuFlu with antivirals are basically using patients as human guinea pigs. How much you want to bet that mortalities caused by antivirals are recorded as being caused by the virus?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15861345
It is always dangerous to speculate about the future, we just don’t know what we don’t know, as they say.
This latest over hyped crisis, i.e. Covid-19 is seen here in the UK as just another cold for those who get it. There have been 8 people die here while they have the virus in their system. All of the eight were elderly patients receiving treatments and all were vulnerable to any infection.
On the plus side, if the COP lot are having to stay on the ground that is a good thing. I object to my tax payments being squandered on unnecessary/pointless gatherings of propagandists.
The prospect, of being in Glasgow during a cold, dark, and wet November with the added potential to contract the new season’s Covid-20 mutation must make some of the Climate Alarm advocates think about going?
Who knows? Maybe this year, the numbers will be down into the mere thousands of freeloaders, instead of the tens of thousands that normally find an excuse to justify attending an expenses paid extended conference in an exotic location, like…..Glasgow.
The company I work for has just announced a worker, who works in relative isolation to most others as it happens, has just been confirmed to be infected with the virus. Workers in teams are to separate while at work. So half the team I work in, about 30 people, will be seated on another floor in the building two floors away from where we normally work. Extra cleaning staff have been arranged to clean all areas several times a day. There are plans to make working form home mandatory until this all blows over. There are “How to wash your hands!” signs all over the place, particularly in toilets (Yes there are people who don’t wash their hands after visiting the toilet).
It’s all a little bit crazy here in Australia.
I see where Tom Hanks, the actor, contracted the Wuhan virus while filming in Australia. He was reporting fairly mild symptoms in his tweet yesterday.
I haven’t really heard much about this situation in Australia. How widespread it is, that is.
Regarding Tom Hanks, it probably depends on when Australia imposed restrictions on travel from China, and he might have gotten the disease from a Chinese person working on his film crew. A celebrity like Hanks probably has contact with many more people, and would have a higher chance of getting a disease than the average person. If he recovers quickly, he could help dispel the panic about this disease. He might be helped by the fact that it’s late summer in Australia, and COVID-19 is more contagious in cold weather than warm weather.
I’m smelling a rat over China’s claim that cases there have reduced dramatically. Try finding independent verification of this. I have failed
People were travelling out of the infection area for their New Year holidays before the quarantine was enforced right?
The Communist Party of China has every reason the hide the truth now. Its very survival depends on it:
1: It is already puffing itself up locally and on the global stage as being a fine example of a “superior health
system”. They will be following and reporting the US escalation with relish
2: It HAS to get its economy cranking again. Good luck with that
+1
One or two thousand dead / month of the older unproductive population is an affordable collateral damage. However, fact that the younger driving its industry and the army sail through it relatively effortlessly and acquiring immunity it is a lucky break for the country of 1.4 billion people. They realise that their draconian one child policy backfired, now they know more about the virus a contrary perverse logic may be prevailing; let people get infected, dispense with the old and the feeble, the more immune and able people left the better. This industrial giant needs to keep its industry going at full steam ahead while rapidly updating its military technology behind the scene.
Not entirely new idea, is it?
“People were travelling out of the infection area for their New Year holidays before the quarantine was enforced right?”
It is claimed that the Chinese government put their military and political cadres in Wuhan on lockdown about December 1, 2019. So we have to assume that this is when the Chinese govenment realized they had a problem.
So from Dec. 1, 2019, until now (except in the United States) infected Chinese have been traveling all over the globe. President Trump stopped all travel from China on January 31, 2020. Had he known about the extent of the problem back on Dec. 1, he could have stopped travel then and the U.S. would have prevented a lot of infected people from entering our country. The Chinese government is culpable in many unnecessary deaths around the world because of their coverup of the Wuhan virus.
All the Democrats condenmed Trump for introducing the China travel ban. Another demonstration of just how clueless Democrats really are when it comes to defending the United States.
Now that’s serious, an international Quango crisis could reducing the number of plates of free sandwiches.