There is a very reasonable argument to be made that the climate-related Conferences of Parties (COPs) that occur annually under UN auspices are terrible things. They cost (i.e., waste) enormous resources, and they have the potential to do great damage to the world economy and the well-being of the people. Fair enough. But on balance, my view is that it’s a good thing we have them. I can think of no other comparable activities that put on such dramatic and widely-viewed display the immeasurable foolishness and hubris of our political overlords.
By the time you read this, COP26 will likely have opened in Glasgow, Scotland. Thousands will be in attendance. Most every country of the world has sent at least some high-level delegation, and the majority are sending the President or Prime Minister. U.S. President Joe Biden will be there in person, along with PM Boris Johnson of the UK, President Emanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, and comparable heads of state from across Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Oceania, and North and South America. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry used his usual portentous tone to set the stage (as quoted by the BBC):
America’s climate envoy John Kerry says the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow is the “last best hope for the world to get its act together”.
The idea is that hundreds of global leaders, not a one of whom has much if any idea how the world’s energy systems work, will come together to agree and order that those systems must be completely discarded and replaced. Currently, all the world economies run mostly on fossil fuel energy; but these political leaders are oh so much smarter than that, so they will order that use of such energy must be reduced and then ended, and associated carbon emissions will of course decline commensurately. These people equally have no idea how or whether the newly-ordered alternative energy systems might work, or how much the new systems might cost when fully implemented. Those things, you see, are mere engineering details, too insignificant to warrant the attention of great potentates. What they do know is, as the magnificent Barack Obama put it in 2008, “this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal. . . .”
Given that this is COP26 — that is, the 26th of these mostly-annual lollapaloozas since the game got started at the Rio “Earth Summit” back in 1992 — perhaps it is time to look back over these close-to-three-decades at how the whole model for controlling the world’s climate has been working out. For example, you may be wondering, since world leaders started making agreements intended to lower emissions of CO2, how much have those emissions actually gone down? Fortunately, a UN agency, the IEA, keeps a graph of annual “energy-related” CO2 emissions. Here is that graph since 1990:
Hmmm. It sure looks from that that, despite nearly 30 years of UN “climate” confabs, the overall trend in emissions is sharply up, not down. Annual world CO2 emissions, according to the IEA, were 20.5 GT in 1992, the year of the Rio conference, and are said to be 33.0 GT this year. Yes, there was a downward blip in 2020, undoubtedly associated with the pandemic, but in 2021 we have already nearly equalled the prior level, and have returned to a steep upward climb.
Or perhaps we might look at the trend of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. My friends at the GWPF have helpfully put together a chart which combines the NOAA CO2 concentration data from the Mauna Loa Observatory with the times of the main UN conferences and agreements intended to slow the rise:
Do you spot there the close association of the main international UN conferences with the reverses in increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere? If not, is there something wrong with you?
So the many UN conferences and the associated agreements and pledges of major countries to decrease carbon emissions have neither slowed the growth of emissions nor the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere. Has this whole exercise then been completely ineffective? Actually, there are many effects of these so-called “climate” policies that we can point to:
- Western European countries have largely barred the further development of fossil fuel resources, including coal and natural gas. As a result, they have become increasingly dependent on Russia for those resources. Did I mention that Vladimir Putin is one of the few heads of state who have declined to attend COP26?
- China has basically claimed to be exempt from the whole UN process by reason of being a “developing” country. In 1990 it was a distant third in emissions behind the U.S. and EU, and barely ahead of Russia. Today its emissions are well more than double those of either the U.S. or EU, and more like 6 times those of Russia.
Oh, China’s Xi Jinping is another one of those few world leaders who is not showing up at COP26.
- Places like Germany that have most aggressively pursued fossil fuel suppression have managed to achieve consumer electricity rates in the range of triple international norms. All over Europe, energy prices are spiking. Here in the U.S., less than 10 months of a Biden presidency emphasizing suppression of fossil fuels have managed to see gasoline prices increase close to 50%.
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The actual level of interest to this Climate Crisis debate is best summarised by the pictures of Boris J and Sleepy old Joe paying full attention to the speakers by nodding off.
Joe has an excuse it was past his nap time.
The other observation to make here is to remind folks that when this Climate Scam started in 1990’s, two things were taken for granted by the Climate Marxists.
First, the near universal dogmatic belief that peak oil would happen sometime between 2000 and 2010, and after that declining supply would force prices rises for a barrel of oil well past $150 bbl. Thus the increasingly unaffordable economics of fossil fuel energy would be the necessity that drove the change and energy innovations. The supply side of the supply-demand equation would take care of itself was the belief.
The fracking revolution along with other drilling innovations (horizontal drilling with 3D seismology) and continuing to find more fossil fuel reserves, especially many more decades of shale gas in the US and copious natural gas in the Timor Sea for Japan and South Korean economies were the Black Swan the Climate Marxists of Y2K never saw coming. But by 2014, it became apparent that a shift in strategy had to occur by the Marxists, thus was born the #ExxonKnew scam and other attempts to go after the supply side of the fossil fuel equation.
The second point to make is that in the 1990’s it was the Western democratic capitalist countries where the dominant CO2 emissions were ocurring and those could be attacked on the demand side via political controls with sufficent media propaganda campaigns to gaslight voters.
The Climate Marxists in Y2K did not foresee the rise of China as the world’s industrial giant (thanks to its 2002 admission to world trade relations schemes) in a dozen years and thus the emissions growth via coal burning and a near total lack of ability to restrain that via any COP process. That was the second Black Swan for the Y2K Climate Marxists. It is a problem they still have no answers for, because China and Russia have already paid their Marxist dues in the blood of tens of millions of their own, except to try to ignore it via a lapdog, complicit western media campaign.
Now the Marxists come for you and me in the West. They want our blood.
I get that tactics demonstrated by what were perhaps actual Marxists in the past, to be effective at undermining existing order/societies, are being employed by those trying to undermine the West’s, but I don’t get what makes you (many) think these are actually Marxists doing this.
They seem to me to just be “elitists”, of the most callous sort, using whatever tactics have proven effective at undermining existing order/societies. Basically just “elite” gangsters, with no intention whatsoever of creating a “worker’s paradise” or “classless society” or anything remotely like that. So, not actually Marxist.
Just gangsters with enough money to hire the best strategists money can buy, and proceeding to use whatever tactics those strategists have come up with. And they came up with what we’re seeing . . (Just announcing you’re intent on taking over Western civilization, was apparently not seen as a workable option ; )
And I suggest that it actually pleases these gangsters and their strategists, that many speak of Marxists/socialists being our wanna be “ruling elites”, since it helps keep the “useful idiot” types from realizing they’re just ruthless gangsters.
From the article: “The idea is that hundreds of global leaders, not a one of whom has much if any idea how the world’s energy systems work, will come together to agree and order that those systems must be completely discarded and replaced.”
I think that is the main problem. Too many people who think they know what they are doing, really don’t know what they are doing, but they are in charge.
The good thing is reality is eventually going to show their CO2 scaremongering for the delusions they are. The only question is how much can the alarmists bilk out of us before this realty sets in?
I think we are already to the point where the windmill route is starting to lose its luster as electrical grids fail, or are on the brink of failure, because the wind doesn’t blow the right way all the time. I think we are coming to an inflection point. With more to come.
The damaging part for the Green crowd is that there will be too much time before any planned nuclear can be brought online; energy shortages and infilling with fossil fuels will only work against them. The longer this goes on with no thermageddon, the less influence they’ll have, it’s likely to slip through their fingers.
“Too many people who think they know what they are doing, really don’t know what they are doing, but they are in charge.”
And they don’t WANT to know what they’re doing. I recently heard part of some congressional testimony where some oil executives were testifying, and when one of them tried to explain how drilling and exploration worked, the congress-critter shut him down.
All the Democrats in that hearing were interested in doing was to smear the oil companies and make the oil companies out to be the villains.
I saw a headline the other day that said: “Exxon knew as far back as the 1950’s”, implying that the oil companies knew CO2 was harmful to humans but said nothing about it in order to continue selling their oil.
Of course, claiming the oil companies knew any more about CO2 than anyone else back in the 1950’s is absurd. And the oil companies certainly didn’t know CO2 was harmful to humans because it is not harmful to humans, so the claim that oil companies “knew” is ridiculous.
Exxon, nor anyone else, still don’t know what CO2 does in the atmosphere. All they really know is CO2 is a radiative gas, but they have no idea how that translates into changing the Earth’s weather, or even if it does change the weather.
We have to assume that extra warmth is going to have some effect on the atmosphere, but that effect could be to actually cool the Earth’s atmosphere, rather than net warm it, after feedbacks, and noone can say otherwise.
Exxon doesn’t know.
Sometime after COP35 there will need to be a truth and reconciliation court to admit all the policy sins of the Climate Crusades. But at this scale of problem, I’m not sure a Nuremberg Trial will work when a majority of world leaders are in on the con. At least start the investigations of all the beach-side villas, jets, and Swiss bank accounts.
Here’s what they are up to in Glasgow. Not so long ago this was a terrible idea from Trump. Now it’s on the table at COP26. Go figure
WSJ
ECONOMY
Tariffs to Tackle Climate Change Gain Momentum. The Idea Could Reshape Industries.Wealthy nations are proposing tariffs on imports like steel and cement that result in high carbon emissions. The proposals could boost U.S. manufacturers—but could also undermine world trade rules and even trigger trade disputes.
Greta is apparently enjoying herself outside the conference, taking pot shots at them, and mocking them. And, she has developed a bit of a potty mouth, singing “they can shove their climate crisis up their arse!”, and also, “No more blah blah blah, and no more whatever the f***k they are doing in there!” She’s delusional, and brainwahed about climate, but boy does she have the climate party-goer’s number! What fun.
It would be a bit more convincing if she could remember the words – presumably the people who drilled her over and over with her lines weren’t in attendance. I so want to be in the crowd and when she falters after “What do we want?” just to lean over and whisper “free jelly babies for all” to see if she knows the difference.
I thought she was a BIG PART of COP26, shmoozing and partying, all on the tax payers nickel.
Nah, she got snubbed this year.
Yes, if you criticize the leadership for doing nothing, then the leadership won’t invite you to the party.
It looks like Greta has her own party going.
Does that make her a climate crisis denier?
Or a realist – she knows that the CO2 caused AGW can only be true where the sun don’t shine!
Alok Sharma has indicated that success “would be for independent parties to come out of the conference and say that we have kept 1.5°C within reach”. COP26, and future COPs will therefore have to negotiate this challenge:
https://spice-spotlight.scot/2021/10/27/cop26-whats-on-the-agenda/
Ah, lots more COPs and lots more junketting. That’s the whole point of COP, isn’t it? But what will COP do when we get to the 8, 10, 12 years or whatever it currently is when time runs out?
I think these alarmist elites are living in a dream world. While the U.S., the UK, the EU, Australia and New Zealand bankrupt themselves trying to reduce CO2 emissions, China, and India and the Developing World will be increasing their CO2 emissions, which will nullify all the efforts of those trying to reduce emissions.
It’s over people. Based on the amount of CO2 in our future, the 1.5C goal will not be met. The alarmist elites at COP26 are just spinning their wheels trying to reduce CO2 emissions.
But don’t worry. There’s no evidence CO2 is harmful to human life, and plant life loves it.
The only real problem we have is alarmist elites wasting Trillions of our dollars on trying to reduce CO2 output.
How can any leader claim COP26 to be a success when 2 of the world’s largest CO2 emitters — China & Russia — were no shows. And the 4th, has set its net zero goal for 2070.
However, when the likes of Gore, Bloomberg, Kerry, Obama, Biden choose to live in one 2000 sq ft home, one EV for the household and fly commercial, then I will begin to believe their commitment to Net Zero.
I still haven’t seen any collective agreement, from the CO26, on any return on investment. So it’s still just supposed to make us all feel warm and fuzzy. China must be laughing at these Lemmings.