Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova; UK PM Boris Johnson has claimed COP26 is “snipping the wires on the climate doomsday device”, but rejected the idea of a referendum on Net Zero, claiming the public should not be concerned about his trillion dollar planned expenditure.
Upbeat Boris says COP26 is ‘snipping the wires of the climate change doomsday device’ as he hails deals to end ‘great chainsaw massacre’ of forests and cut methane – despite India and China rejecting 2050 Net Zero goal
- Boris Johnson has held a press conference wrapping up leaders’ summit at the COP26 summit in Glasgow
- The PM has been trumpeting a deal with 100 countries including Brazil and CHina to protect world’s forests
- India has inflicted a setback by only committing to reach Net Zero by 2070 while China is aiming for 2060
By JAMES TAPSFIELD, POLITICAL EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 22:00 AEDT, 2 November 2021 | UPDATED: 06:07 AEDT, 3 November 2021
Boris Johnson today insisted COP26 is ‘snipping the wires’ of the climate change ‘doomsday device’ as he hailed deals on forests and cutting methane.
At a press conference wrapping up the gathering of leaders in Glasgow, the PM warned that there is a ‘long way to go’ and there must be no backsliding from countries.
But he revived his description yesterday of global warming as a bomb that needed to be defused, James Bond style. ‘The clock on the doomsday device is still ticking but we have got a bomb disposal team on site and they are starting to snip the wires – I hope the right wires,’ he said.
The gathering in Glasgow has suffered some setbacks as major polluters China confirmed a 2060 Net Zero target and India only committed to 2070 – two decades after the UK and other powers.
But British officials have been encouraged by PM Narendra Modi’s commitment to slash carbon emissions by 2030.
And scores of countries have signed up to a US-EU initiative to cut methane emissions by 30 per cent by the end of the decade, in what is seen as one of the fastest ways of reducing the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Mr Johnson rejected the idea of a referendum on whether the UK should be aiming for Net Zero by 2050, saying the country had ‘probably had enough’ of such campaigns.
And he insisted the public should not be concerned about the estimated one-trillion pound cost of the drive over the next 30 years. Mr Johnson said British people are not ‘dumb’ and recognised that ‘if we don’t do this it will be an economic catastrophe’.
Challenged about the absence of China, Mr Johnson stressed that although Xi Jinping did not come to Glasgow ‘that doesn’t mean the Chinese are not engaging,’ as there was a ‘high-level’ delegation.
‘He didn’t want to come because of the pandemic,’ the PM said. ‘You have got to respect that.’
He said he had the same explanation from Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Have President Putin and President Xi Jinping really both developed a sudden fear of Covid? Is that the real reason they didn’t show up at COP26?
The Daily Mail article contains lots of photos of world leaders who seem to have forgotten their masks. But both Putin an Xi Jinping are frequently filmed maskless on their home turf.
BoJo’s pledge to save the world’s forests is a grand gesture, but Britain currently relies on mass deforestation to keep the lights on. The giant UK Drax biomass generator is currently supplied by “chainsaw massacring” forests in southern US states. UK PM Boris Johnson didn’t offer an explanation of what Drax will burn, after the COP26 pledge to save the world’s forests ends the supply of US wood chips to British biomass generators. Perhaps there will be a a long transition period.
BoJo’s rejection of holding a referendum on his trillion dollar Net Zero plan is understandable. What if ordinary people unexpectedly voted “no”? The British people lost the trust of the the UK establishment during the Brexit referendum, when they unexpectedly rejected the government position, and voted to leave the EU. That trillion dollars of planned government climate expenditure is way too important, to risk allowing ordinary people to mess things up with another unplanned referendum result.
HotScot says: “When Boris returns empty handed, journalists smelling blood in the water will pile in to destroy him over his failure which will embolden more back bench MP’s to question the narrative.”
I most sincerely hope that this is true. However, you could say that genuinely inquisitive journalists could have smelt blood any time these last twenty years. I have come to assume that the role of ‘journalist’ has been subject to the same kind of environmentalist entryism as so many other roles in ‘information management’ more generally – or, to put it another way, the slow march through the institutions, which ‘environmentalists’ have so successfully carried out (think the BBC’s chief environmental correspondent, the editor of the Economist, NASA GISS, the Met Office, and so on and on).
Boris is a clever bloke. When he was a journalist writing for the Daily Telegraph, and when he was editor of the Spectator, he showed a healthy and well-informed disrespect for the energy ‘solutions’ of the environmentalists. Latterly, in power, he has become vocal in his support for policies he used to hold in contempt. It is difficult to avoid the vulgar conclusion that Princess NutNut has him on a lead.
However, since we know him to be a clever bloke, I have been cherishing the hope that he knew this COP 26 farce would end in tears of laughter, and was preparing a fall-back position, from which he could shift the blame, and pivot on the policies. When he says ‘…starting to snip the wires – I hope the right wires’, that seems to me that it might proffer a way out. And he could blame it all on the misinformation provided for him by Michael Gove, with home he still has a debt unpaid (remember the knifing by Gove of Boris during the latter’s campaign for leadership of the Tory party?).
And yes, there is an increasingly large number of Tory MPs who are speaking out. Net Zero Watch, as they are currently known. So that’s got to be good.
We must hope.
When Gove was Education Secretary he had my respect for identifying and attempting to counter the ‘blob’. But then when he became Environment Secretary he fell hook, line and sinker for every bit of green blobbery going. He then yanked the rug from under Boris’s feet which resulted in the wretched May getting the keys to No 10 and the car crash of her Brexit “negotiations” that followed, which lowered my opinion of him even further. But low as my opinion of Gove came to be, I’m now wondering if he realised that Johnson would be a poor choice for PM. Perhaps we’ll have to wait for his memoirs to find out what really went on.
You’ll probably find out more if Goves wife publishes her memoirs instead.
with whom, not with home
If I send that mope Johnson a coupon for a session at Supercuts, will that drive him to get a decent haircut? He looks ridiculous. He’s not fooling anyone with that idjit haircut, nor is he fooling anyone with His Plan.
Who needs democracy when you know you’re right and they’re wrong?
Typical mindset of a leftwingnut dictator.
China and India didn’t show because they have better things to do than waste time at a goofy shrimp-fest.
I hope the net zero, glued to the road lefty eco warriors get what they deserve – net zero energy! Lots of power cuts should end the foolish frenzy – they’ll soon be declaring undying love of fossil fuels when the kettles stop boiling or phones cannot be charged! People who do not understand energy should not be left in charge of it and need to understand climate change is natural, always has been, always will be – humanity can only adapt to it, not control it – those that say we can control it, are simply net profiteers of the false prophet alarmism
China and India were busy with COPout26
China, India and Russia must be laughing their low cost, reliable energy rich socks off at the COP26 circus clown fest
So far, the ONLY thing produced by COP26 has been words, signed papers and media coverage . . . not a single action has actually occurred beyond these things as a result of this conference.
No reduction in fossil fuel power plants.
No rate of change in transitioning to green, renewable, intermittent energy sources.
No reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
No reduction in average global temperature.
No change (that I’m aware of) in currently bogus/useless climate models.
Too many people, and most of the MSM, today equate promises with actual performance . . . and they fail to see what has not-resulted from doing such in the past.
Just unbelievable!
Gordon A. Dressler,
You accurately observe,
“So far, the ONLY thing produced by COP26 has been words, signed papers and media coverage . . . not a single action has actually occurred beyond these things as a result of this conference.“
Yes, and that is because the global warming scare was killed at the Copenhagen CoP in 2009 when it was discovered that a successor Treaty to the Kyoto Protocol could not be obtained. Since then the issue has been continuing to run like a headless chicken running around a farmyard. Its actions have the appearance of life, but it is dead.
The corpse was confirmed as being dead when the Paris Agreement was reached. The Agreement demands that countries make promises to do things which will not be monitored and no country has a reason to do.
Vested interests can use – and are using – the movements of the corpse to their advantage. Others are pretending they don’t know the global warming scare was killed in 2009.
The rest of us need to defend ourselves against actions of the vested interests who, for example, are damaging electricity supplies by imposing wind powered and solar powered subsidy farms: the harvested subsidies are reaped from our pockets.
Richard
“Cutting methane” seems to be incompatible with eating more beans instead of meat.
That’s pure BS.
Maybe Boris will recommend cremation instead of burials to replace wood chips
Where is the repudiation of UK burning of forests with tax credits using other people’s forests!!
“UK PM Boris Johnson has claimed COP26 is “snipping the wires on the climate doomsday device”
Are those the power wires to poor peoples homes ?
Boris is obviously controlled more by what is below his ample waistline than above it.
I don’t understand the lack of ambition at COP. It is clear their goals and commitments are not in any way constrained by the laws of physics or economics, nor informed by real science or objective facts. That being the case why didn’t they go all out? Why didn’t COP delegates agree to free “green” energy for everyone all the time without limits? Why not promise an idyllic existence in a newly made garden of eden complete with prancing ponies, vegan barbecues and naked nymphs of many genders with hearty sexual urges and no expectations? Why not promise endless travel, unlimited freedom and all you can eat buffets for anyone willing to say “CO2 is pollution” with a straight face? There is so much more they could commit to: endless binge watching of 90-day fiancé, self washing Tesla bidets (careful with the auto pilot boys), vegan livestock, doubling of biodiversity by next Thursday, a cure for acne. Pesonally I think we should expect more from our “leadership”.
modi, jingping and putin are not concern about the plandemic they are just politely giving the ipcc the bird which is what the democrats will do when they retake office.