Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Even after personally recovering from Covid-19, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his government considers climate action such a priority, they are jointly hosting a high level climate summit with Germany to try to divert recovery money into renewable energy.
Coronavirus recovery plan ‘must tackle climate change’
By Roger HarrabinBBC environment analyst
25 April 2020Environment ministers from 30 countries are meeting in a two-day online conference in a bid to make progress on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The gathering is called the “Petersberg Climate Dialogue”.
It will focus on how to organise a “green” economic recovery after the acute phase of the pandemic is over.
The other aim is to forge international agreement on ambitious carbon cuts despite the postponement of the key conference COP26 – previously scheduled for Glasgow in November (now without a date).
Alok Sharma, the UK Climate Secretary and president of COP26, said: “I am committed to increasing global climate ambition so that we deliver on the Paris Agreement (to stabilise temperature rise well below 2C).
“The world must work together, as it has to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, to support a green and resilient recovery, which leaves no one behind.
“At the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, we will come together to discuss how we can turn ambition into real action.”
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52418624
The Petersberg Climate Dialogue is an annual meeting of government ministers, normally held in person, but this year’s event will be an online meeting on the 27-28th April. Ministers from 30 governments are expected to attend this year’s online event.
What can I say? Not only did the Boris Johnson government totally mess up their initial UK Coronavirus response by callously embracing enhanced death rates as the price of “herd immunity”, before pulling back in panic when the scale of their blunder became obvious, his government now plans to squander money raised to help people who suffered economic hardship on useless green energy investments, and even worse intends to encourage other governments to do the same.
Boris got Brexit right, but AGW dead wrong.
UK energy policy is, sadly, driven by Boris’s p3n1s.
UK-German-governments plan .. Brexit negated?
Wish I had voted , Farage.
The UK looks as though (despite our wonderful NHS) we will have the highest number of deaths from Covid 19 (or allocated to Covid 19 to be more correct), than any other country in Europe.
Now I am wondering.
Is having a wonderful NHS, free at the point of use, plus having one of the world’s key air travel nodes at London Heathrow, presenting unfettered health tourism in these troubling times.
The UK is still allowing in as many people from wherever in the world allows them to fly, no matter what their health condition and without any check on that condition even on arrival?
If I was feeling unwell and was looking for somewhere in the world for treatment that has massive unused resources available, i.e. ventilators, beds, complete medical centres built and unused, empty wards not treating anyone at all until Covid lock down is over, then the UK would be my first choice.
The UK has presented a perfect health need destination, particularly as it it boasts about being completely free to whoever presents!
Now It may be, the high number dying in the UK could have travelled in from afar, can anyone answer that question?
Would anyone be brave enough to even ask that question at one of the daily press briefings?
I suspect not.
As I have said many time since last year, Boris and Gove are a couple of clowns. They will destroy the UK economy even as the EU collapses
BP’s 2019 summary of energy facts and figures shows that the U.K. and Germany total 3.3 per cent of global CO2 emissions. (See page 59) so to reduce this by say half is not going to affect global temperature in 2100 the slightest (assuming CO2 affects climate) . So it’s self indulgent embarrassing ignorant hubristic virtue signalling to an audience that doesn’t notice. Somebody tell them.
The U.K. does not have a single politician who isn’t signed up for the cause
It’s no surprise to me.
Obviously he hasn’t seen Michael Moore’s new film “Planet of the Humans.” Whatever else you may think about the film, it utterly destroyed the “renewable industry.”
“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.“~ Thomas Paine
Leftists (American definition) have gone completely nutters…
The irrational and unneeded global economic lockdown will likely cause a global depression and perhaps even a complete global economic collapse if it continues much longer, and central banks continue to print money like wallpaper.
Leftists are now beyond reason…
On top of a Leftist-instigated global economic depression/collapse, Leftists think now is the best time to waste $10’s of trillions of even more taxpayer money that doesn’t exist (which will simply be printed) on the crazy CAGW scam.. (Leftists should watch Michael Moore’s new film on why grid-level wind/solar/biofuel alt-en are a complete debacle)..
Leftist governments are, as Paine suggested, an intolerable evil.
Samurai,
Leftists have ALWAYS been beyond reason;
Ludwig von Mises demonstrated in the 1930s praxeologically why socialism must inevitably lead to totalitarianism and economic collapse and this was proven empirically by 1989.
Yet they are able to apply denialism to anything they don’t want to hear – or actually desire the ensuing chaos.
Unfortunately, the ‘free lunch’ argument appeals to a lot of the lazy-thinkers and still their nonsense gains traction.
The elites don’t really care – the collapse is an excuse to hide their rentier behaviour and blame it on someone else’s virus/CO^2.
All we can really do is present empirical evidence to the contrary as calmly and clearly as possible, until enough of Joe Public/Otto Normalburger have grasped it and become seriously annoyed with The Powers that Oughtn’t Be…
Nick-san:
I’ve recently watched street interviews with NYC Leftists admitting they’d accept 3 million American Wuhan flu deaths if it caused Trump to lose re-election… Imagine that…
Leftists try to portray themselves as companionate, tolerant and empathetic, but their policies, actions and results reveal the opposite..
There are Leftists who have been brainwashed to believe their ideology will improve society, but history proves it can only destroy— as we’re seeing now.
Yes, we must continue “the good fight” and hopefully keep the Left’s social and economic destruction to a minimum…
There’s nothing more intolerant than a leftists who’s government check is late.
Fighting “Climate Change,” which is code for “Global Warming” makes no sense if you expect to fight Xi’s Disease.
Heat and humidity kill the virus and slow the spread of Wuhan Flu.
We should be cranking up our CO2 emissions to Warp 9 in order to heat the planet enough to stop the spread of Kung Flu.
Idiots! As usual, they have it exactly bass ackwards.
If German and UK politicians had been in a situation where the lockdown would mean them losing their jobs and receiving no government assistance, they would have kept the economy open and found sensible ways to protect the vulnerable. The same goes for the climate actions. If funds were collected, not from imposed taxes but voluntarily from those alarmed by climate doomsayers, I wonder how many of these politicians and loud activists would make a significant contribution if any?
That, Detective, is the right question.
In the UK the local brainless morons who run our councils and the attendant councillors are dead keen to keep the streets as free from traffic as they are now. It hasn’t reach what passes for their braincells that it is an economic disaster that has emptied the streets and therefore to keep the streets empty requires screwing the economy.
It will reach their braincells when the accounts depts report disastrous drops in income from business rents, defaults on council tax, no parking charge income , etc , whilst still paying out to employees and the bloated expenses to councillors who cannot conduct any business because of the lockdown and social distancing.
Unfortuntely for them the new financial year began 3 weeks ago , too late to increase council tax for this year. Well , there’s always next year , but then there are also elections to consider.
“Alok Sharma, the UK Climate Secretary and president of COP26, said: “I am committed to increasing global climate ambition so that we deliver on the Paris Agreement …
Since the real objective of the Paris Agreement was to steal $billions from the U.S. and give it to other countries, does this statement mean the UK will donate that amount instead?
“In 2019, a WHO study found „little to no scientific evidence“ for the effectiveness of measures such as „social distancing“, travel restrictions and lockdowns. (Original study)”
https://www.heise.de/tp/features/COVID-19-WHO-Studie-findet-kaum-Belege-fuer-die-Wirksamkeit-von-Eindaemmungsmassnahmen-4706446.html
LOL !! Very interesting link.
BTW, Johan Giesecke, Swedish epidemiologist, WHO’s member (Member of the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards (STAG-IH)), thanks to whom Sweden did not applied lockdown and thus, avoided to destroy its economy, has something to say about the lockdown complete bullshit :
What of the two American doctors that are dealing with hundreds of patients – unlike Dr Fauci in his ivory tower of academia who they say has not examined a patient in 20 years? This gives us a context that is missing in the media and ignored by politicians and it also seems most experts advising them.
Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3115&v=xfLVxx_lBLU&feature=emb_logo
Part 2
These videos should be required viewing for all USA governors.
The interviewers of these two doctors seem like disappointed children, who have had their beliefs in Santa demolished. At one point, the interviewers spend seven minutes of the hour or so listening to a detailed exposition on a certain specific point, and then one of the interviewers asks a question that the doctors just answered during the course of that whole seven minutes, as if what was said went in one ear and came out the other, without ever impacting a mature mind.
The subtext in one of the doctor’s expressions, at that point, is entertaining. [You idiot, I just spent the last seven minutes going over that! is what the doc’s expression suggested to me.]
The thing I find with all the studies that I have read is that they seem to contradict themselves. They clearly state the scarcity of evidence, the need for more research, the paucity of proof, and yet, in their conclusions, they state measures that contradict what they just said anyway. Their conclusions err on the side of hope and desperation. It’s as if, in the final analysis, the actual science is dismissed, in favor of playing it safe for no reason other than faith.
Really, it’s frustrating how these studies do gymnastics with language to base policy recommendations on such shaky foundations of fact.
And I am particularly talking about do-it-yourself face masks.
Sadly, IMO, the only way this nonsense stops is to have massive grid failures due to too much reliance on ruinables (a stolen term that is a better description of wind and solar). The grid failure would have to impact a very large number of people – ideally, only the nut jobs that support this lunacy, but unfortunately, it would affect everyone. The greens are too entrenched in their ideology for any factual arguments to persuade them.
The equivalent of a sucker punch, hit the population with economy and life killing green energy while they are recovering their lives and jobs. The question is how much personal gain is in it for those who push the green.
WHERE ARE WE?
Good information and agreement on anything is hard to find.
The world is poised to witness disaster as the flu season surfaces in the Southern Hemisphere. Will it?
There is complete disagreement as to whether or not Covid-19 will respond like the seasonal influenza which typically becomes much less an issue when people leave confinement, move out into the fresh, spring air, and get some sun.
Our “elected officials” are split on whether the enforced shutdown is a net good. But restricting people from getting outside while observing social distancing – spread out on sunny beaches, hiking trails, and in parks make no sense. Hopefully this will end up in BOLD PRINT in the Lessons Learned manuals being recorded for this crisis.
WUWT regulars will recognize that most of the Southern Hemisphere is covered with oceans or ice. Also with people, most of whom have little or no wealth, very little health coverage, and a shortage of ACE-2 receptors. When we talk about reducing consumption for sustainability, we often forget that a very large portion of “consumption” comes from the wealthier Northern Hemisphere. Will these Southern people be hit hard? Only time will tell.
A lot of people who voted for Boris will feel betrayed if he does this. He’ll not only lose his massive majority in the next election, he’ll lose the election.
This makes about as much sense as injecting disinfectant products.
What a load of old barlocks this CO2 boondoggle really is, and let us all remember that Alok Sharma is frankly a political nobody. Nothing that he says is of any consequence at all. He is the “Chairman” of a climate conference that was cancelled and doesn’t exist. He only got that job as the third or fourth choice candidate because nobody else would take the poisoned chalice ! David Cameron wouldn’t take it, Lord Deben wouldn’t take it, nobody wants to be the mug that bankrupts Britain finally. Hence the dupe Sharma…. Wot a mug. Still he rants on thinking his “job” is important, but the money, the EU itself, even the Global will has evaporated in the wake of a real existential crisis of Global pandemic infection, killing thousands each day. Nobody has any time for the faux pantomime of trivialities that Sharma and his simpleton “colleagues” seem to want to continue.
Hey Ashok old bean, you should jump before you are pushed to resign, or else you’ll be forever branded a paltroon !
BoJo = establishment (with silly hairs)
Farage = NOT the establishment
I was rather hoping that Boris’s environmental stance was a temporary one while we tackled Brexit and got that resolved……one battle to fight at a time! I thought he had more sense but it’s obvious now he hasn’t and is just as blind to the climate change scam as everyone else. Sad……………..
Notes from the field: Some people are getting restless.
Warning Course language…
And yes, coarse is spelled coarse.
So Vic,
Why don’t you tell us how you really feel?
I believe it will reach your brain cells when account departments report disastrous declines in revenue from business rents, and more… while still paying employees and inflated expenses to councilors who can’t. conduct any business due to confinement and social distancing.
I had an escape Corbyn Britain plan which I’m now putting into effect under the revised escape Boris Britain heading. The man is literally barking insane.