From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation

"Every age has its peculiar folly; some scheme, project, or phantasy into which it plunges, spurred on either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation. Failing in these, it has some madness, to which it is goaded by political or religious causes, or both combined." -  Charles MacKay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, London 1852.

 

 

 

Obama’s £100 Billion Climate Promise May Sink UN Climate Deal

China’s Demand For UN
Climate Deal: $100 Billion

President Obama arrives [in Copenhagen] on Friday morning bent on applying a combination of muscle and personal charm to secure a climate change agreement involving nearly 200 countries. The world is looking to Mr. Obama to wrest some credible success from this process. The administration provided the talks with a palpable boost on Thursday when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared that the United States would contribute its share of $100 billion a year in long-term financing to help poor nations adapt to climate change. --The New York Times, 17 December 2009

What once seemed a harmless token of good will from rich countries to poor ones could derail negotiations over a global climate deal next year. Developing nations want industrial countries to contribute the $100 billion they promised for a Green Climate Fund by 2020 to pay for clean energy and other projects meant to help them adapt to a changing climate. That $100 billion was never realistic. Rich nations that were expected to contribute when the U.N. started the fund in 2010 aren't feeling rich anymore. Unless developing nations drop their demands, negotiations over a binding climate pact next year in Paris might be over before they really begin. --Zack Colman, The Washington Examiner, 29 September 2014

While President Obama challenged China at the United Nations to follow the U.S. lead in pushing for drastic reductions in national carbon emissions to save the planet from “climate change,” it appears that China has dramatically different ideas. As in: no. China insists that the U.S. and other developed countries endure most of the economic pain of carbon emission cutbacks, and need to make significantly more sacrifices in the months ahead. A promised $100 billion in annual climate financing that Western nations have already pledged to developing countries for carbon emission control and other actions by 2020 is only the “starting point” for additional Western financial commitments that must be laid out in a “clear road map,” which includes “specific targets, timelines and identified sources.” --George Russell, Fox News, 24 September 2014

Global communities might have missed India’s point at the climate summit in New York on September 23, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi made up for the loss four days later by articulating the country’s views on the necessary actions to be taken to face the challenges of climate change during his UN general assembly speech on 27th of September. In a remark which may disappoint rich nations, specifically the US, Canada and the European Union (EU) countries, Modi insisted on the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” (CBDR) and made it clear that this should “form the basis of continued action” in future. It’s a clear signal that India will not dilute its well-stated position when the country representatives would assemble in Lima, Peru in December for climate change negotiations in the run up to the global deal in Paris next year. --Vishwa Mohan, The Times of India, 28 September 2014

Have we beaten “peak oil”? For decades, it has been a doomsday scenario looming large in the popular imagination: The world’s oil production tops out and then starts an inexorable decline—sending costs soaring and forcing nations to lay down strict rationing programs and battle for shrinking reserves. But a growing tide of oil-industry experts argue that peak oil looks at the situation in the wrong way. The real constraints we face are technological and economic, they say. We’re limited not by the amount of oil in the ground, but by how inventive we are about reaching new sources of fuel and how much we’re willing to pay to get at it. --Russell Gold, The Wall Street Journal, 29 September 2014

From the beginning 25 years ago the arguments over climate science have dominated the scene and distracted us away from the fundamental problem: the prescribed method for preventing climate change is essentially replacing nearly all hydrocarbon energy, in the space of less than two generations. For the developing world, it means remaining poor for several more decades. The developing world needs to triple its energy supply over the next generation if it is going to raise hundreds of millions out of abject poverty, and that means using abundant hydrocarbon energy, not expensive boutique energy popular with ever-preening rich Americans and Europeans. The climate change community has reacted to this wreck of a policy not with second thoughts or openness to alternative frameworks, but with rage. --Steven Hayward, Forbes, 29 September 2014

Owen Paterson: Fight Against Climate Change ‘May Cause More Harm Than Global Warming’ 
 

No New Climate Targets Without Binding
UN Climate Agreement, EU Energy Chief

Measures to combat climate change may be causing more damage than current global warming, a former environment secretary has said. Owen Paterson, who was sacked in David Cameron’s reshuffle in July, attacked what he described as a “wicked green blob” of environmentalists for failing to explain the pause in global warming. --Matt Dathan, The Times, 28 September 2014
There has not been a temperature increase now for probably 18 years, some people say 26 years. So the pause is old enough to vote, the pause is old enough to join the army, the pause is old enough to pay its taxes. We were never told the pause was coming along, there are – as I understand it – about 30 different explanations for it and nobody explains why the pause is suddenly going to disappear and we’re going to get back on the track upwards. So I’m concerned that the measures being taken to counter projected dangers may actually be causing more damage now than those dangers. –Owen Paterson, The Times, 28 September 2014

Europe should only push ahead with its planned cuts to carbon emissions if the rest of the world agrees to a global climate change deal at a crunch summit in Paris next year, according to the EU’s energy chief. “If there is no binding commitment from countries as India, Russia, Brazil, the US, China, Japan and South Korea, whose governments are responsible for some 70% of global emissions, I think it is not really smart to have a -40% target,” the EU’s outgoing energy commissioner, Gunther Oettinger, told an oil and gas conference in Brussels. --Arthur Neslen, The Guardian, 25 September 2014

In a blow to American hopes of reaching an international deal to fight global warming, India’s new environment minister said Wednesday that his country would not offer a plan to cut its greenhouse gas emissions ahead of a climate summit next year in Paris. The minister, Prakash Javadekar, said in an interview that his government’s first priority was to alleviate poverty and improve the nation’s economy, which he said would necessarily involve an increase in emissions through new coal-powered electricity and transportation. It would be at least 30 years, he said, before India would likely see a downturn in CO2 emissions. --Carol Davenport, The New York Times 24 September 2014

What cuts? That’s for more developed countries. The moral principle of historic responsibility cannot be washed away. India’s first task is eradication of poverty. Twenty percent of our population doesn’t have access to electricity, and that’s our top priority. We will grow faster, and our CO2 emissions will rise. --Indian Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, The New York Times 24 September 2014

Two Nasa astronauts, whose photographs of Earth from space helped to start the environmental movement, believe the images have been “exploited” by campaigners against global warming. Charlie Duke, a member of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972 who took one of the blue marble images, told last week’s Starmus science festival in Tenerife: “Climate science is bogus. The world has got no warmer for more than 15 years. It is a great irony that the images taken on the Apollo missions have been used in this way. We helped to start it [the environment movement] but I do not agree with it.” Walter Cunningham, who flew on Apollo 7, said: “Climate science is one of the greatest scientific fiascos of all time.” --Jonathan Leake, The Sunday Times, 27 September 2014

Germany’s energy revolution—its energiewende—was supposed to blaze a trail, and show off a new way countries could meet their energy needs without wrecking their environment or the climate. It was an audacious experiment, but it’s hard to read much success out of it these days. It’s hard to imagine a worse set of outcomes for Germany — higher electricity prices, a rising reliance on the dirtiest fossil fuel around (coal), an accelerated phase out of one of the only zero-carbon baseload power sources around (nuclear), and a less diverse, less secure energy mix that leaves Germany exposed to the machinations of exporters like Russia. --Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest, 27 September 2014