Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon; Pretty much every major talking point of the upcoming COP26 report is being manipulated by government lobbyists, according to the BBC.
COP26: Document leak reveals nations lobbying to change key climate report
By Justin Rowlatt & Tom Gerken
BBC NewsA huge leak of documents seen by BBC News shows how countries are trying to change a crucial scientific report on how to tackle climate change.
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This “lobbying” raises questions for the COP26 climate summit in November.
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The leak shows a number of countries and organisations arguing that the world does not need to reduce the use of fossil fuels as quickly as the current draft of the report recommends.
An adviser to the Saudi oil ministry demands “phrases like ‘the need for urgent and accelerated mitigation actions at all scales…’ should be eliminated from the report”.
One senior Australian government official rejects the conclusion that closing coal-fired power plants is necessary, even though ending the use of coal is one of the stated objectives the COP26 conference.
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A number of countries argue in favour of emerging and currently expensive technologies designed to capture and permanently store carbon dioxide underground. Saudi Arabia, China, Australia and Japan – all big producers or users of fossil fuels – as well as the organisation of oil producing nations, Opec, all support carbon capture and storage (CCS).
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Australia asks IPCC scientists to delete a reference to analysis of the role played by fossil fuel lobbyists in watering down action on climate in Australia and the US. Opec also asks the IPCC to “delete ‘lobby activism, protecting rent extracting business models, prevent political action’.”
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Brazil and Argentina, two of the biggest producers of beef products and animal feed crops in the world, argue strongly against evidence in the draft report that reducing meat consumption is necessary to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
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A significant number of Switzerland’s comments are directed at amending parts of the report that argue developing countries will need support, particularly financial support, from rich countries in order to meet emission reduction targets.
Australia makes a similar case to Switzerland. It says developing countries’ climate pledges do not all depend on receiving outside financial support. It also describes a mention in the draft report of the lack of credible public commitments on finance as “subjective commentary”.
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A number of mostly eastern European countries argue the draft report should be more positive about the role nuclear power can play in meeting the UN’s climate targets.
India goes even further, arguing “almost all the chapters contain a bias against nuclear energy”. It argues it is an “established technology” with “good political backing except in a few countries”.
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Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58982445
I don’t know how much influence these government lobbyists have, but if the BBC leak is genuine, it does demonstrate what a political football the IPCC COP26 climate process is.
The funniest example was the alleged Australian demand that a reference to government lobbyists manipulating the final report be removed from the report.
The BBC article did not mention what US lobbyists are doing. Given the Biden administration is pushing hard for more radical climate action, and given this leak is very damaging for lobbyists who appear to be trying to secretly undermine support for radical climate action, there is an obvious explanation for the curious omission of US lobbyists from the BBC article.
Many of the climate scientists working on the IPCC reports may be just as guilty of playing politics as the government lobbyists. The recent James Cook University / Peter Ridd debacle in my opinion demonstrated that only climate scientists who talk up the alleged climate emergency and demand more funding to study the problems are welcome in academia. Scientists like Peter Ridd, who criticise the alarmism of their colleagues, risk ostracism and expulsion.
Frankly I think national interest lobbyists should get out of the way and grant climate alarmists unfettered freedom to speak their minds. The sheer absurdity of alarmist positions, like demanding the world slash fossil fuel production in the middle of a northern hemisphere energy crisis, would do more to wreck the green climate charade than anything I could ever write.
Cute that when lobbies enforce climate alarmist or during Climategate, everything was fine for BBC. Go figure. It seems that lobbies are only bad in one direction, not the opposite.
However I think that this in an old tactics of rise non existing intentions to embarrass these countries and don’t let them even try to ask for any of these “intentions” when the COP starts.
Bet you don’t find them try and find the source of the leak and punish the responsible party.
The BBC have seen the documents but they were actually given to Greenpeace – specifically UnEarthed, their propaganda department who they describe as “Environmental news and investigations, brought to you by UnEarthed, Greenpeace UK’s award-winning editorially independent journalism team.” Who exactly within the IPCC gave Greenpeace these documents is anybodys guess – there are certainly no shortage of likely candidates!
As the COP/IPCC process is entirely political, why is anyone surprised a political organization is being political?
Yep. I would have thought it’s obvious.
link
I fancy it’s much the same with anything associated with the UN … or the Senate … or the House … or Parliament … I could literally go on all night … literally, not just figuratively …
This list was probably leaked by some well intentioned useful idiot, who believes the climate crisis is real and thinks that “10% for the Big Guy” will save save the planet.
In the next tranche of leaks, hopefully we will see what Hunter Biden is demanding. Maybe a Martha’s Vineyard beachfront estate adjacent to the Obamas? (lol)
Not at all but it is interesting to see how blatant they are about it. There is more to this story than was put in the article above. The IPCC were asked to comment on these 32,000 documents from countries, businesses and interested parties – the IPCC said it did not respond to lobby group’s, nor did it have any obligation to amend or omit anything in the report. So now countries are just lobby groups and the whole consultation and agreement part of the COP charade is utterly meaningless – the IPCC fully intends to ram through what it wants to happen, regardless of what the countries who will have to implement it have to say.
But the IPCC itself is a lobby group.
It doesn’t have any authority aside from that which it self delegates.
If CoP26 is anything like previous, there’ll be roughly 30,000 attendees, nearly half of which will be NGO’s & media.
Buuut, don’t you believe in “The Science?” (Do I really need to put a /sarc in this one?)
So a non-scientific completely politically driven report is being manipulated by lobbyists for the best narrow interests of the political bodies they represent?
I am so
shockedstartled. (A plug for a South Park episode)Gee yes, until now we all believed it was pure science 🙂 /sarc
“I’m shocked, shocked to find lobbying going on in here.”
“Here is your lobby money.”
“Oh, Thank you very much.”
(apologies to Claude Rains and Peter Lorre)
Government intervention is only wrong, when the BBC disagrees with the actions.
We do not need to do too much at all. These COP meetings are political events that have their own built-in self-destruct mechanisms. Like the Kyoto and Paris agreements, in the end, nothing comes of them as they are not founded in the Real World and not based on science. Their inherent inner conflicts with reality bring the undoing of the demanded ‘Climate Change‘ so-called ‘Solutions‘.
What worries me is how long policies based on, and implemented using, fantasies, can operate before reality strikes,
Apparently quite awhile. Witness Texas’ ERCOT fiasco.
And yet here in Texas, we continue to build more wind turbines… :-\
And don’t get me started on the insanities raging amongst British politicians!
What worries me is how many times reality can strike before it finally sinks in.
Biden might make it down to 30% job approval after COP26 and energy crisis back home.
Record breaking unpopularity might be the single most impressive accomplishment in his thoroughly unimpressive career.
I don’t know…I am fairly impressed with how fast he can screw everything up.
Re, “India goes even further, arguing almost all the chapters contain a bias against nuclear energy”… an “established technology” : If “fossil fuel” use were the GW/CC/CE etc “problem”, then nuclear energy would be vociferously demanded as the solution. The bogus “environmentalist” religion’s opposition to nuclear power exposes how utterly fake these destructive enemies of civilisation are.
Nice that India’s fearless leader still has a few active brain cells wired up and working. And Xi Jinping may be evil, but obviously he isn’t thick.
A good contrast to our gormless lot.
A point I have been making at length and in numerous fora for at least the last decade. I’m no scientist and I’m no great “thinker” but it seems fairly obvious to my little brain that if fossil fuel “pollution” needs to be put a stop to then the obvious course is to switch to an energy source which will continue to provide cheap reliable energy sans “pollution”.
The fact that the alternative on offer is not cheap, absolutely not reliable, and does precious little to curb “pollution” once all the processes involved are taken into account suggests that there is another agenda at work here which has nothing to do with CO2 or climate and everything to do with what I have described as “unpicking the Industrial Revolution”. For the plebs that is. I’m sure when the crunch comes it will be my smart meter that is called upon do its duty, not Johnson’s or Biden’s or any of that crowd.
Let us not deceive ourselves. Obama said, in the full light of day, that “under my plan [..], electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket”.
That he could say that, and still be reelected, shows that we have much bigger things to worry about than global warming.
BBC again showing its one sided biased reporting
BBC is just BOJOs talking heads
BBC is just
BOJOsprincess nutnut’s talking headsthere fixed it for you
The BBC has been so open about its bias and agenda that it has become obvious to even the dimmest intellect – and I speak here as a constituent of Matthew Hancock – that they are no friends of those running the Great Glasgow Gabfest. However they are all for hyping the GGG.
The troughers are desperate to get another few years stuffing their bank accounts before the confected emergency collapses and they have an ace in the hole: the licence fee is controlled by HMG.
The fake news generators are just doing what they are told, very willingly pushing climate emergency propaganda while hanging on to their broadcasting monopoly. A win for fake science, fake journalism. What’s not to like?
JF
BoJo is just the BBCs talking head
The more argumentation I see surrounding “Climate Change” the less I believe it’s an actual problem and the more I believe it’s a blatant power grab. And I don’t mean grabbing electricity, I mean grabbing the power to tell all citizens and businesses how much power they can use, and how it can be produced.
The U.S. has too many policy-making bodies like the EPA, NIH, FDA, etc., which have unelected officials wielding as much power as congress. It’s time to join the ground-swell of ordinary mortals like parents of school-age children who are standing up to the apparatchiks that exert their power to enforce their idealism.
First we must de-platform the highly vocal, intersectionalist minority and stop pandering to their mental defects.
Agreed, but how?
The IPCC has got to go. We’ll have to see how this load of COP goes but the IPCC must be undermined and discredited. Without some focus, the individual countries will just argue amongst themselves.
India and China alone govern about 3 Billion people.
Governments from both have made it clear, correctly, that they will not do anything against raising the wealth and living standards of their nations and peoples. The IPCC is already irrelevant. It is just the Western media and troughers who like to pretend otherwise.
The real problem, for most of us in the West, is the political and economic damage that will be done before reality exerts its control.
We must stop doing what so many people are doing, so as not to make waves … go along to get along. If a someone says “climate change”, say … “there is no demonstrable change”. If someone mentions “trans rights”, explain that being mentally ill doesn’t provide special rights. Every time you hear one of the absurdities, laugh at the speaker. The crazies are vocal because they know they have a platform.
We need to risk opprobrium to get out society back.
IPCC scientists = oximoron
Um, you used an equation…that means no one agreeing with IPCC can understand your comment.
The most humorous part of COP26 is the pledged emission reductions don’t even offset the world increases by exempt 3rd world nations. So the emissions will still be 35GT in 2040 …. Epic fail 🙂
Best illustration I have seen is first graph here
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-20/united-nations-fossil-fuel-gap-report-australia-data/100551662
The photo at the top of the article is pretty funny too, lots of water vapour but no CO2 emissions to be seen but ABC employees would’t know that.
The BBC knows it – I’ve told them often enough
They claim they just use a stock image of a stack
So it’s the photographers fault for the back lighting
I’d like it if the IPCC’s AR6 Summary For Policymakers would have a large caveat right at the beginning, outlining the silencing of Dr. Peter Ridd’s voice, and thereby, calling into question all the other dissenting science that may have been squelched without so much publicity. Any and all conclusions drawn by Working Group I must be considered suspect and unreliable, precisely BECAUSE the “consensus” activist CAGW community has behaved tendentiously, working backward from it’s preferred Lysenko-like conclusions.
I get the strong impression that this is just a ploy by Green Peace and other greens to vilify anybody that disagrees with the most extreme measures. A pre emptive strike to obliterate the opposition before their objections can be discussed.
Create an image of them as followers……..these descriptions below, were not made up by me. They are the actual ones that I got from reading articles today about this topic.
Effectively labeling them with these character traits before they emerge or there is a discussion about their concerns is just another version of “The science is settled” and “The debate is over” and anybody that disagrees is evil and must be scorned and silenced.
Here are a few examples of the articles:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/10/21/leaked-docs-reveal-fossil-fuel-soaked-nations-lobbying-sabotage-climate-action
https://electrek.co/2021/10/21/rogues-gallery-leaked-documents-reveal-lobbying-to-gut-cop26-climate-and-carbon-audit/
https://www.politico.eu/article/leaked-documents-show-major-polluters-try-to-water-down-un-climate-report-cop26-climate-change-co2-greenhouse/
Bloody hell. Just went through the 3 links you posted up. The 3rd one was biased, but was a reasonable commentary. The first 2 were bloody scary articles – they really do come across as Green cult sociopaths, willing to sacrifice all but the chosen few in their quest for purity. If that’s the kind of rhetoric that’s common among Greens, then these are the ‘Islamic hate preachers’ of the world – a truly horrifying vision of what’s in store if the IPCC get’s it’s way.
The planet doesn’t care.
If it was a scientific report, it wouldn’t be telling anyone how to ‘tackle’ Climate Change ™. It is therefore quite obviously a political report.
“Pretty much every major talking point of the upcoming COP26 report is being manipulated by the BBC.” Fixed it.
The crux is the Moana Loa CO2 reading. It will continue to rise at 2ppm a year for the foreseeable future. Eventually the pfennig will drop amongst the masses. But too late for the ‘West’.
Yes, its quite revealing that the plots from Moana Loa never get shown by alarmists.
I personally enjoyed Rowlatt’s outrage on the broadcast.
It doesn’t happen often
The BBC and Guardian – and indeed, Government – hysteria in the run-up to COP26 gets worse and worse.
The latest craziness was a research paper proposing the taxing of meat to force the British to ‘sustainable’ eating. This was written by the Behavioral Insights Team
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_Insights_Team
and posted on a Government web site, then swiftly taken down as the furore started to break out.
You can see two things from this. One is the persistent demands that the British should do things in the name of the supposed Climate Emergency that cannot, on any analysis of the data, have any effect on it. The demand that the country go vegetarian or vegan to save the planet is as irrational as the demand that it go 100% EVs or 100% heat pumps or become, in the memorably insane remark of the Prime Minister, the ‘Qatar of hydrogen’.
He had, as he uttered those words, the look of a mad scientist in a manic phase. A complete disconnection between the brain and reality.
The whole Net Zero project that the UK is currently in the grip of is insane for this reason. Even if it worked, and most of the elements of it are straightforwardly impossible, it would only reduce global emissions by the 1% currently being done by the UK. The reduction will be made up in months by Chinese, Indian and Indonesian coal plants.
You cannot at the same time eliminate natural gas burning and convert the gas grid to hydrogen. That is irrational enough. Why convert if you are going to stop burning gas at all? But at the same time they want to convert the electricity grid to wind and solar AND double the demand for electricity by moving to heat pumps and EVs. There is no way the current grid can handle such a coversion, and there is absolutely no way to supply the power demand while converting to wind and solar as the main sources of generation.
The second thing you notice is that people with an agenda are using the climate issue to promote an agenda they have on quite other grounds. So there is a strong and vocal, though small, vegan lobby, which would like to see the abolition of meat from the UK diet. They have simply seized on climate as the latest justification. And almost no-one in the press or civil service or government questions these nonsensical connexions. Its always ‘do X because climate’, with no explanation of how X is going to have the slightest effect on climate.
You also notice how the green lobby promotes things that have always and rightly been taboo on environmental or social welfare grounds.
It was always taboo to industrialize the Highland wild spaces. But the green lobby has found a justification for doing so in the form of large scale wind turbine installation, which is supposed to be saving the planet. Similarly it was always and rightly taboo in the UK to tax the basic necessities of life, and particularly to tax food. It is, along with heating, the most regressive possible tax.
But we now have people who think of themselves as progressives trying to tax both food and energy. The result if they are successful will be the old and poor unable to eat well or to heat their homes.
But don’t bother us with practicalities or social welfare or conserving the few remaining wild places. We are saving the planet!
The IPCC is the U:N InterGOVERNMENTal Committee on Climate Change.
Governments exist to protect the interests of their countries.
I respectfully ask if anybody can tell me what is – or could be – wrong with any Member Government inputting the interests of its country to the IPCC?
Richard
Would that our gormless and incompetent government ( not forgetting Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and all the other strutting buffoons, Sturgeon, Davey, Lucas etc.) had the interests of the UK lurking somewhere in their little heads.
Martin Brumby,
I am pleased you thought my request was sufficiently interesting for you to make a response. Unfortunately, I fail to understand how your response addresses my question.
Richard
I think it does, in a roundabout way. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any government arguing it’s citizens needs to the IPCC, indeed, that’s What they’re supposed to be doing. What is wrong is the IPCC ignoring them completely, then releasing those arguments as almost a shaming process. What Mr. Brumby is pointing out is that the UK is not arguing in the interests of it’s own citizens but quite wrongly throwing them under the Green bus in order to virtue signal to a small UK minority and the IPCC on the world’s stage.
Martin Page,
Thank you. That makes sense to me.
Richard
Spot on Richard Page.
I cannot recollect any decision recently made in Westminster that suggested that the current batch of Politicians and Civil “Servants” (with a very few honourable exceptions), cared a fiddler’s fart about the UK, which they appear to think of as an embarrassment at best.
That is NOT the case with Xi, Vlad the Bad, Modi, etc.
It is just the BBC, and in the words of Mandy Rice-Davies,
“They would say that wouldn’t they”
I thought that BBC didn’t approve of leaks. (Cf. BBC documentary on Climategate.)
I suspect the BBC is putting a slant on this which is probably inaccurate (shurely not?):
“A huge leak of documents seen by BBC News shows how countries are trying to change a crucial scientific report on how to tackle climate change.”
It doesn’t sound as though the countries are trying to change the science part at all, eg:
An adviser to the Saudi oil ministry demands “phrases like ‘the need for urgent and accelerated mitigation actions at all scales…’ should be eliminated from the report”.
That is not a science statement, its a political statement. So the countries are not trying to change the science, they are trying to influence the political part. That’s also why China and Russia won’t turn up for COP26 – playing politics. The science long ago ceased to have any importance.
The BBC seems to want to present the case that the “science” is being attacked. Actually the science is largely ignored and is much more moderate and nuanced in the actual technical part than the Summary for Policy Makers would imply.
The BBC doing it’s own lobbying job, distracting from the fact China, Russia and India are just not interested in COP26 and that 55 smaller countries are now demanding wealthy nations actually make good on their historic promises and cough up the money they ‘pledged’.
The fact that the BBC announce this as a “leak” akin to Climategate is laughable. These are political positions held by governments and undoubtedly freely available.
It’s a pity the BBC didn’t take Climategate seriously, we might not all be in the ludicrous position we are now.
“A huge leak of documents seen by BBC News… ”
So, the documents that “leaked” were only from lobbyist against alarmism… The “hole” through where this “leak” occurred has a very selective filter…
… OR …
… or we should ask, how many were the lobbyists pushing for more alarmism? BBC does not mention them, why?
Nothing new about people writing to the UN telling them there is no climate crisis!
I guess the taxpayers don’t count except for playing the part of fools.
Update:
WSJ
WASHINGTON—The White House, its climate agenda mired in congressional wrangling, is hoping to show world leaders at the Glasgow climate summit that the U.S. can still meet President Biden’s pledge to dramatically reduce emissions despite recent legislative setbacks.
The Biden administration plan includes a series of executive actions it says will make significant progress toward meeting the president’s pledge to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 50% to 52% below 2005 levels by 2030. These include tougher methane rules for oil and gas production that are expected to be announced ahead of the summit, followed by more stringent emissions limits on vehicles later this year.
U.S. greenhouse emissions have already fallen roughly 20% from 2005 levels, according to analysts. But emissions are expected to tick up as the global economy reopens after the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
You get up them all and pin their ears back Greta. Screw your face up in outrage and harangue them for all talk and no action. Now is the winter of their discontent. Popcorn time.
Oh I’m shocked that the BBC should find someone is doing it better than them!
James Bull
Too beautiful for words, it is all unravelling.
The IPCC Report is supposed ti be a consensus of nations….complaining that nations actually want a say in the contents of the report is a bit of a disconnect….if not the nations? then who?
Reducing those nations inputs to the process to mere ‘lobby groups’ implies that the consensus is only on the part of the countries that completely agree with the IPCC report and will fully implement the mandates.
Richard ==> Agree — it shows clearly that the consensus is not of scientists or of nations, but of UN Climate Bureaucrats.
As part of the U.S. commitment to redistributing global wealth (and UN administrative fees) in the name of climate change crusades, we offer you the State of Vermont. Act now or the deal is off and if Bernie passes. We will also consider selling parts of MA and all of RI and the homes of Edward Markey and Sheldon Whitehouse.
It is not like the BBC to give us good news on climate issues.
IPCC COPout26
Of course! Who do you think leaked the inside plays by other vested interests?
That’s why there are no salacious facts about insider Biden Administration lobbyist actions. And because Biden Administration ordered their lobbyists to spare no effort and to rattle every skeleton they find.
It’s not just because the BBC has so many skeletons in their crowded closets.
“IPCC scientists.” Isn’t that an oxymoron?
If the value of an insight may be judged by how it predicts that which has not yet happened, Eric Hoffer’s 1967 observation is confirmed by today’s climate arguments, among many other things:
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
“A number of mostly eastern European countries argue the draft report should be more positive about the role nuclear power can play in meeting the UN’s climate targets. ”
Gee, ya think? This is a genuinely useful contribution, because nuclear is the *only* technology capable of significantly reducing carbon emission (and all kinds of airborne pollutants and vast quantities of waste ash) without totally disrupting the world economy. I cite France (>90% electric generation from nuclear) as one of 2 countries to meet its original Kyoto targets — the other being the US of course, due to the substitution of gas for coal.