Paris Climate Change Conference
Paris Climate Agreement Adopted: New Central Plan for the World's Economy and Climate
Last Dispatch: What could possibly go wrong?
A universal climate agreement has been adopted. And the folks here at the Paris climate change conference are, for the most part, elated. The media center erupted in applause when conference President Laurent Fabius gaveled the adoption of the Paris Agreement.
"We have a historic deal," declared Senior Climate Advisor for the group Christian Aid Mohamed Adow. He added, "Today is a new deal that ushers in a new era. The transition to a low carbon future is inevitable; the global economy must be transformed." Global Director of the Climate Program at the World Resources Institute Jennifer Morgan is similarly enthusiastic, "Countries here united around an agreement that marks a historic turning point in the climate crisis." Senior Adviser for the New Climate Economy project Michael Jacobs said, "This agreement sends a signal about how the future of the world's economy will be shaped. The world is on an irrevocable and inevitable path to a low carbon economy."
In an emailed statement, Nicholas Stern, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment declared, "The Paris Agreement is a turning point in the world's fight against unmanaged climate change…. The Agreement creates enormous opportunities as countries begin to accelerate along the path towards low-carbon economic development and growth." In an email from the anti-fossil fuel group 350.org, its Executive Director May Boeve asserted that despite "some serious gaps" the Paris agreement "marks the end of the era of fossil fuels. There is no way to meet the targets laid out in this agreement without keeping coal, oil and gas in the ground. The text should send a clear signal to fossil fuel investors: divest now."
So what are the targets that will kill off coal, oil, and natural gas? The agreement styled as "enhancing the implementation" of the already ratified U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) sets the objective of "holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels."
The Paris Agreement then adopts as its long-term goal the "aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible" and thereafter "undertake rapid reductions… so as to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century." What does that mean? The goal covers the emissions of the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide along with others such as methane and nitrous oxide. Currently carbon dioxide emissions account for 77 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The basic idea is that emissions of greenhouse gases would be brought as close to zero as possible after 2050 and those emissions that are not eliminated will be balanced with an equivalent amount of removals, for example, by planting forests to absorb carbon dioxide.
The World Resources Institute (WRI) done some rough calculations about what achieving greenhouse gas neutrality would mean. To keep future modeled temperatures below 2°C, carbon dioxide emissions have to fall to net zero between 2060 and 2075 and total GHG emissions need to decline to net zero between 2080 and 2090. If the goal is set at an increase of no more than 1.5°C, the pace of reductions would have be faster; carbon dioxide emissions would have be net zero between 2045 and 2050, and total GHG emissions would need to get to net zero between 2060 and 2080. The WRI adds that pursuing the goal of keeping global average temperature below 2°C by 2100 means that the electricity sector must increase its share of low-carbon energy from the current level of 30 percent to more than 80 percent by 2050.
The Agreement also urges that countries "should take action to conserve and enhance, as appropriate, sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases." In the Agreement sinks and reservoirs is diplo-speak for forests. In one early study, researchers assumed that 345 million hectares (1.3 million square miles) of land is available for afforestation and reforestation. For comparison, the United States is 3.8 million square miles. That amount of forest would absorb and store approximately 38 gigatons of carbon over the next 50 years. Current annual global emissions of carbon by people are around 10 gigatons (37 gigatons of carbon dioxide).
The idea of using afforestation to absorb excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is controversial. At the conference, representatives of indigenous peoples have strenuously opposed such schemes. They are very concerned that poor country governments would run roughshod over their land tenure rights in order carbon-sink plant forests for which rich country governments would pay as way to achieve carbon neutrality with regard to their emissions. Friends of the Earth International's Food Sovereignty program coordinator, Martin Drago argued that promoting carbon neutrality could displace people and raise the price of land.
What about climate funding? India's apparent temper tantrum threatening to scupper the conference unless it was promised trillions in climate finance is forgotten (if it really happened at all).The finance section flatly states that "developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation." The activists would have clearly liked bigger and firmer climate finance commitments from rich country governments to poor country governments, but they seem to believe that the Agreement will provide them with future opportunities to demand more. The rich country commitment to supply poor countries $100 billion in climate finance annually after 2020 is no longer in the Agreement itself. Instead it is in the resolution that adopts the Agreement where it "strongly urges" rich country governments to scale-up their promised climate finance from $100 billion. In addition, at the U.N. climate change conference in 2025, the $100 billion commitment will serve as floor for higher future commitments.
Climate activists are happy that the Agreement recognizes climate change loss and damage as part of an international accord for the first. Loss and damage is defined as adverse effects of climate change that cannot be adapted to and which are irreversible. They are unhappy that the rich countries managed to get the decision resolution that implements the Agreement to state that the loss and damage section does "not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation." Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo said, "In terms of liability we are not going to rely solely on the words of the document. Liability can be obtained in many other ways." He specifically cited the case where the Philippines Human Right Commission is now investigating whether the world's 50 biggest fossil fuel companies are guilty of violating the rights it citizens for intensifying climate change. Oxfam head of policy for food and climate change Tim Gore also suggested that since the limitation on liability and compensation is in the decision resolution it can be changed easily in later negotiations.
In the decision resolution countries agree to hold meeting in 2018 to evaluate how countries are doing with respect to achieving the long term goal of peaking greenhouse gas emissions. In the formal Agreement countries will convene in 2023 a "global stocktake" to assess how they are doing with regard to cutting emissions, adapting to climate change, and fulfilling their financial pledges. Such stocktake meetings will be held every five years thereafter. In addition, countries will now regularly update and submit their nationally determined contributions every five years to the UNFCCC.
The rich countries got most of what they wanted with regard to being able to monitor, report and verify that countries are doing what they said they would do with respect to greenhouse emissions and finance. Every country has to file a national inventory report of emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases and any information that is necessary to track the fulfillment of each country's pledges.
Notwithstanding the unwitting evocation Soviet Five Year Plans, Jacobs from the New Climate Economy and many others seemed particularly pleased with the new global five year review cycles. "Five year cycles mean that policies will be synchronized," Jacobs enthused. "Policy is now all going to be going in the same direction. That sends a very strong signal to the market."
Central planning the climate and the global economy; what could possibly go wrong?
Note: This is my last daily dispatch from the Paris climate change conference. Further and deeper analysis of the implications of the Agreement will follow. It will be very interesting to see how the Agreement plays out in domestic American politics.
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“The thing is, we have to really reach out to those who might consider voting for Trump and say, ‘This is Goebbels. This is the final solution. If you are voting for him I will have to shoot you before election day.’ They’re not going to listen to reason, so when justice is gone, there’s always force, as Laurie would say.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/12…..z3u8RY8kBT
AVOIDING A SECOND DEGREE OF POST-INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION WARMING SEEMS A SAFE BASIS FOR THE UN TO DECLARE VICTORY IN THE CLIMATE WARS,
BECAUSE NO ONE MUCH NOTICED THE FIRST ONE
Only in proggie la la land could a country with 3 trillion in debt and growing be considered a rich country and one who has in the past loaned them most of that money be deemed a poor one and under this agreement not even have to address their carbon output until 2030..
Perhaps IT IS time for a Trump like figure to be at the head of this country.
i wish our country was run MORE like a business, but i would prefer a successful businessman to some overgrown welfare baby
.more than anything, it is time to dispose of our progressives.
Does that mean we can start shooting greens now?
I’ll start if you start.
“holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 ?C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 ?C above pre-industrial levels.”
The hubris of these people is astounding given their ineptitude.
They have absolutely zero intention of actually achieving that or anything else they blab about. So it’s not hubris per se, it’s “give me money and power”.
….and then you get the women
I would like to give them public executions.
Do not fear – central committee has a plan for that.
But what are the “premenstrual levels”? They have been caught cooking the books of the temperature record so many times, who would trust them to have a real baseline number to begin with?
A time known as the little ice age. Its not good to be in an ice age whether it’s little or large. The rise in temperature is an entirely good thing.
But… but… some small islands might be underwater in another century or two. We must make sure everything is exactly as it is right now, forever.
“Further and deeper analysis of the implications of the Agreement waitresses at the local wine-hole will follow”
they don’t hold these conferences in Detroit for a reason.
You are welcome to join us for some very fine wine this evening at any one of a number of upscale watering holes in downtown Detroit. We can all drink to the hubris and unlikelihood of this doing anything other than making a further mess of things…
“”upscale watering holes in downtown Detroit.””
Oh, how droll. Let me just get the flamethrower on my ghetto-tank refilled and I’ll be down in a jiff.
The developed nations were richsplaining to the poor countries.
So did any of the attendees have any authority whatsoever to make agreements on behalf of their respective homelands?
As our Great Leader always says, all you need is “a pen and a phone”.
Welcome to the global rule by fiat.
I would like to see him welcomed to ‘revolution by bullets and bombs”.
Call me a sentimentaI rat bastard but I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the older simpler remedies. Like tar and feathers and running them out of town on a rail. “Skoggangr” or banishment and outlawry ; civilized solutions from a kinder,gentler time. You don’t have to die or rot in a rape cage if we never see you around here again.
Not here, no.
This is unfortunate – some Yazidis are indulging in revenge killings in response to ISIS oppression.
According to this story, they’ve found a grave of 37 Yazidis murdered by ISIS.
(AUTOPLAY of depressing video)
See the world oppressing Muslims again.
Kind of like Reuters and CNN with:
“The ceasefire was broken today when Israel attacked rocket sites in Gaza after Hamas launched a rocket attack on Sderot.”
Wow, seriously? That’s blatant even for CNN.
CNN always hates the good guys.
This is very problematic.
We should have a conference somewhere really cool to tell each other just how problematic it really is.
the global economy must be transformed
from the top down by top men
Well, it’s a start. The reality is they are just pledges, and those pledges as stated don’t get us to 1.5. But the review process is important, and the importance of getting every country to agree that AGW is a problem that needs to get solved can’t be overstated. It’s a good day.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
And who eats elephants? Idiots.
I’ve actually tasted elephant at a restaurant in S. Africa. There is a reason we eat cows, chickens, pigs, and sheep.
You are a fucking idiot. What is the doubling sensitivity of CO2?
ECS is ranged between 2 and 4.5 C degrees.
Keep up.
The latest is between 1.5?C and 4.5?C.
In other words – they have no idea.
And there is actual measurement that shows it to be about .5?C.
I’m up
I’ll quote a libertarian for you, since I’m sure anyone else is part of a conspiracy.
“The most recent IPCC assessment finds that the ECS is likely (2/3 chance) between 1.5 and 4.5?. Climate models show an average sensitivity of 3.2? with a range between 2 and 4.5?. ”
But fair enough, you like IPCC take, let’s go with that then.
You should read further that libertarian explains how thevIPCC took into consideration all of ranges, while those who like the lower end (you) were just selective on the process.
http://niskanencenter.org/blog…..ture-data/
Goo to see libertarians coming along.
By the way, they have an “idea.” That’s why it’s ranged.
Yeah, and “idea’ between ‘it won’t make a damn bit of difference’ and ‘maybe we can scare losers like Jack with this one’.
“…If it doesn’t agree with experiment…”
Keep massaging the data fed into the experiment until it does. There’s Scientific Method and then there’s Climate Science Method.
Based on observational evidence, it appears to be between 1 and 1.8 degrees per doubling of CO2.
The cultists guess* that it is be between 2 and 5 degrees with the most likely figure being 3 degrees.
*I know they call their model’s output ‘predictions’, but the models are such poorly parametrized and poor approximators of reality that their outputs effectively are guesses
But it feels true. Ask Dan Rather about that.
Reading this comment thread, and the cites within, I’m getting the sense this consensus thing isn’t really a thing after all.
Well, it’s a start.
What do you call 1000 climate conference delegates dead at the bottom of the ocean?
“Stop being lazy and get a move on!”
Sequestered carbon?
I think you’re going to have a little trouble reaching any part of the elephant besides its foot, joe. Can I loan you a stepladder?
“…AGW is a problem that needs to get solved…”
Fuck you, lying pinko.
Statistically there is no warming. The theory of AGW hasn’t made a single accurate prediction and there is no evidence that it is occurring. You are a goddamned lying thief.
Am not.
Yes, you are a consistent liar and you’ve been show to be such
Leave poor joe alone. He’ll be one of the first ones to drown when the sea levels rise.
“The reality is they are just pledges”
That is willfully obtuse.
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you’re not dumb enough to really believe that yourself.
You just want other people to believe it.
It’s a promise. In fact if any of the current slate of Republicans take the Oval Office, there is a good chance our pledge won’t be followed through. Unless they have a change of heart.
Right, so there is nothing to stop the President from implementing these standards through the EPA and the Air Quality Act.
…except the hope that the next emperor will be more kind?
That’s fuckin’ asinine.
No one here is stupid enough to find that compelling.
[Clean Air Act]!
That’s the hope, for you. For me, it’s the hope that the next President will work toward those standards. Time to work to see we get what we want.
“That’s the hope, for you.”
That the emperor will be kind?
Fuck you!
Everyone always gets so angry around here.
That isn’t just anger. That’s standard.
Tell libertarians on a libertarian website that they should just trust the emperor, and you’ll get a middle finger every time.
You’re an authoritarian ass-wipe.
That isn’t anger. That’s a demonstrable fact.
“Everyone always gets so angry around here.”
Why don’t you tell us again about how much you admire the way the Chinese government gets things done–like you did yesterday–you thug?
Enjoy your weekend.
When you come back, Jack and Ace, could you answer some questions?
When I specifically challenged you to condemn the authoritarianism of China, yesterday, why didn’t you?
When I asked you by what legitimate authority China imposes “solutions” on its people, and whether you approve of that method, why didn’t you answer?
And when I later asked you, again, word for word:
“By what legitimate authority does the Chinese government impose market trading for carbon credits on its people, and do you or don’t you approve of imposing such caps on the American people without the consent of Congress?”
…why didn’t you answer?
Now you’re telling us to console ourselves with the observation that we can always hope for a kinder emperor?
I don’t know how anybody is supposed to tell the difference between you and an authoritarian shithead.
QED
P.S. Anybody interested in the veracity of my characterization of yesterday’s exchange with Jack and Ace can find it here:
http://tinyurl.com/nf9z6cz
Hey Ken, Ronald was the first to bring up what China was or was not going to do, and for some reason you don’t think he has to qualify that statement. I don’t either. Plenty of countries all over the globe with questionable human rights issues still have to respond to AGW. One doesn’t negate the other. Let me know when Ronald, or any libertarian for that matter, isn’t concerned about economics on China. Get real.
What, we can’t discuss China until they clean up their human rights? Grow up.
“What, we can’t discuss China until they clean up their human rights?”
Does that mean you do or don’t support imposing carbon caps on the American people without the consent of Congress?
Jackand Ace|12.12.15 @ 5:27PM|#
“Enjoy your weekend.”
Passive-agressives are typically assholes, and you seem to be holding up the banner.
What Ken said.
A thought for you both…if you don’t like what I say, and it makes you angry, don’t read my comments. Problem solved!
Or they can point out your authoritarian side, mendacity and foolishness. I like that better.
You are easily exposed.
That as well!
A simple point on why this, and any other AGW “agreement” between nations is a bunch of self-serving meaningless bullshit.
China will emit more CO2 in the near-future than the entirety of all Developed Nations have since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
What the entirety of all Developed Nations do going forward is basically meaningless. They could turn all the lights off and go back to the stone age today… and it would make ZERO difference as far as the so-called “problem” goes. China’s contribution makes the actions or inactions of the remaining developed world effectively meaningless. The margin of error in measurement of current Chinese emissions is larger than the current total emissions of the entire EU.
And China currently does not even conduct any “official” measurements of their own emissions And they will refuse any demands that they start.
Nothing done so far even so much as passively attempts to ‘influence’ the Chinese…much less openly make demands on them.
Anyone who talks about Climate Change and doesn’t address “but what about China?”-question is just a scam-artist trying to milk more tax-money off idiots like Joe.
trying to milk more tax-money off idiots like Joe.
Does Joe actually pay any tax money ?
His statements lead to the contrary.
China is a strong believer in quantity as a quality all its own. They throw their weight around because who could stop them. For example they build artificial islands and redraw their nautical borders about it because who will stop them? They prop up the absurdly repressive Kim regime because what are YOU going to do about it?
As far as China is concerned, they are the masters of Asia, and they answer to no one.
“As far as China is concerned, they are the masters of Asia, and they answer to no one.”
The Chinese government certainly doesn’t answer to the Chinese people.
Not that the American people had any opportunity to weigh in on this “accord” either–since it hasn’t come before the Senate for a vote.
The difference between authoritarian governments and democratic ones is that public policy in democracies is voted on by our duly elected representatives in Congress–unlike in China, where public policy is simply announced by the executive and then implemented by the EPA.
The whole point of this climate conference was just to try to legitimize this agreement, but legitimacy is supposed to mean representation.
The anti-democratic Chinese government doesn’t represent the Chinese people, and this agreement hasn’t been submitted for approval by two-thirds of the U.S. Senate, either, which means the American people weren’t represented in these negotiations any more than the Chinese.
The American people didn’t agree with the Chinese people to cut our greenhouse gas emissions through our respective representatives; rather, the American President conspired with the Chinese Communist Party to inflict his will on the American people–without the approval of Congress.
I remember when Democrats used to scream bloody murder about China’s lack of democracy whenever the Republicans brought up MFN status. How ironic that they’re now jumping up and down with glee to see the U.S. President using an agreement with China’s authoritarian and anti-democratic regime to try to legitimize inflicting public policy on the American people–without the consent of Congress.
India is feeling othered by your comments. India may be due for more increase in CO2 emissions than China.
I don’t know what India’s treaty process looks like or whether they’re violating the fundamental principles of their democracy in the negotiation and implementation of this “accord”, but there isn’t anything democratic about the way the Chinese or the United States is inflicting this accord on their own people respectively–and that is half of my objection to this “accord”.
I’ve made it plain repeatedly, over the years, that I don’t really care what the scientific consensus is on the problem–nowhere near as much as I care that the solutions are libertarian and capitalist. I’m someone who actually believes that climate change is a genuine concern–but a socialist solution implemented by way of authoritarianism (ignoring democracy and the Constitution) is the opposite of libertarian and capitalist.
If I knew that India’s behavior in this was fundamentally undemocratic, I’d be damning them, too.
My point is that although India currently emits about 1/4 as much CO2 as China, India is due for a much greater growth in CO2 emissions as it industrializes. So if one is focusing on NEW CO2 sources, one should look at India as much as China.
The other reason the AGW debate gets me particularly steamed is that I am an environmentalist and PhD chemist with 35+ years of experience modeling chemical processes including refineries and biomass upgrading schemes.
What passes for ‘predictive’ modeling by the AGW crowd would not pass the sniff test in industry. Even with years of data and the opportunity to do extensive experimentation it is quite difficult to accurately predict eg biomass upgrading processes. There are so many variables, many of which interact and some that respond in a chaotic fashion, that both theoretical and empirical models can only get within about 10% relative of actual yields.
Earth’s climate is much more complex and much less understood than any chemical process and yet the fools are claiming the models can be relied on
To compound the criminality of the AGW crowd, they are taking the lion’s share of the money and attention about environmental problems, pushing more pressing problems to the sidelines. Loss of habitat for many species threatens them with extinction. There are perfectly good libertarian solutions to this problem that are only being marginally implemented due to the lack of $/attention. The water problem in CA is another one that politics and AGW have compounded.
If Bill Gates really wanted to do something meaningful he would buy up large tracts of land in Africa and S America and keep them as wildlife refuges. The money would be welcome by the locals as well. Eco-tourism, ecological studies, and drug development from native species could sustain many of them, as is done in Costa Rica.
I appreciate your expertise. I do my best to understand the basics, but I won’t pretend to have the knowledge or expertise necessary to shoot down the scientific consensus.
I do have one area of expertise on which I am the world’s highest authority. Specifically, I’m talking about my own preferences. My personal preferences may not be a model of scientific reasoning, but one of my points is that a scientist’s personal preference for sacrificing his own standard of living now to benefit other people, other people in the future, or animals–is not a falsifiable hypothesis. It’s a personal preference, and scientists who share that preference have no business using the coercive power of government to inflict their personal preferences on other less educated people.
So, the important question to me isn’t whether climate change is real. The important question is whether we should use the coercive power of the state to implement socialist solutions with a disregard for democracy and the Constitution. Being scientifically correct certainly doesn’t justify doing that.
There are other rational disciplines besides science, and one of them is called “ethics”. There isn’t a system of ethics anywhere that doesn’t contend in some way with the question of whether we should respect other people and their right to make choices for themselves. For example, in addition to being illegal, rape is morally wrong because the victim’s right to choose was violated. Science couldn’t justify raping anybody, and science doesn’t justify violating people’s other rights either.
Like I said, I don’t care what the scientific consensus is. I care that people remain free to make choices for themselves and that their rights are respected–that is what I mean by libertarian capitalism and ethics. Certainly, some ways of addressing climate change are more authoritarian than others, but there has to be a minimum baseline. People far less libertarian than me should never accept solutions that are so authoritarian that they ignore democracy or the Senate’s Constitutional role in ratifying treaties.
Ken, what if there was very solid, irrefutable evidence that some catastrophic event was going to occur due to human behavior. Let’s say AGW was real, that the models closely predicted the temperatures the past few hundred years and that the prediction was that a 100 degree F increase was predicted to occur in the next 30 years, and that reducing CO2 production by 75% would cure the problem.
Under those conditions could you support some concerted actions to avoid the catastrophe?
I could.
Or imagine a meteor was detected that would hit the Earth on January 1, 2035. Could you support a ‘world tax’ to pay for a mission to deflect the meteor?
I could.
“It’s a promise. In fact if any of the current slate of Republicans take the Oval Office, there is a good chance our pledge won’t be followed through. Unless they have a change of heart.”
Good.
I may prefer the quasi-capitalism of a Republican emperor, but I don’t want to live under a Republican or libertarian emperor either.
Just submit the “accord” to the Senate, Mr. President, as you’re required to do by the Constitution.
How do you get rid of Marxism? One dead progressive at a time.
Police state unable to do jobs under current constitution.
http://www.foxnews.com/politic…..tcmp=hpbt2
“we’re too lazy to actually do investigations or bother with the existing anti-terror methods, so we just want to spy on everyone all the time because that sounds much easier. Never mind that it hasn’t ever helped prevent anything and only proves useful after the fact in re-constructing the back-story… we WANTS TOTAL CONTROL”
basically they’re saying that point-to-point messaging needs to be illegal because they can’t spy on it. fuck them.
ISIS has taken Assyrian Christians as hostages, sometimes releasing some, sometimes killing others, and pressuring them to convert to Islam.
“Father Jacques Murad, a Syrian priest who was held captive in an underground dormitory with other Christian hostages for months before being released, said in October that the hostages faced constant questioning about their faith.
“”They were faithful to the recitation of the rosary. This experience of trial strengthened the faith of everyone, including my faith as a priest. It is as if I have been born again,” Murad said back then.”
You have it all wrong there Eddie. Obumbles assures us that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam or faith at all.
http://imgur.com/gallery/T0jTHij
“Unmanaged climate change” Now there is some grade A, super duper, Hubris + Audacity.
This.
This won’t end well.
Radical authority granted to radicals. What could possibly go wrong? A median risk is that authoritarian power over global economy is asserted by motivated socialists. Worst case is a tie between chrony capitalists and radical Marxists. Best case scenario is, fuck who knows. This isn’t going to be about climate, this is a socialist coup.
Then it’s time for the counterrevolution.
I can agree to anything I don’t have to agree to.
more accurately = one can ‘agree’ to anything that has zero enforcement mechanism
Further – the only participant who really matters is China. And China isn’t even about to let anyone else dictate the framework for its own self-imposed ‘compliance’. Everyone has basically agreed to let them invent their own data and pretend that everything is just working marvelously.
“”This agreement sends a signal about how the future of the world’s economy will be shaped. The world is on an irrevocable and inevitable path to a low carbon economy.”
Wish in one hand, centrally planned economy in the other.
the $100 billion commitment will serve as floor for higher future commitments.
Oh it’s a floor, this is per annum, I assume.
“…higher future commitments.”
I can see that happening. I am sure president Trump or Fiorina or Cruz will sign off on that. Either that or wipe their ass with this agreement.
Boo.
Wait, the advisor for the group called Christian Aid is named Mohamed?
We’re through the looking glass here, people.
Its reverse-vampires all the way down.
lol
If climate change is such a danger to the planet, why did they have to meet in Paris to negotiate?
Why not over Skype or some other less polluting way?
But they had to go to Paris where just so happens to be lots of hot chicks, fancy place to shop, fine restaurants, and elegant hotels, all paid for by taxpayers.
Detroit has all of those things, PLUS a People Mover. Suck it, Paris.
Hey! They photoshopped that single rider into the picture which was taken with a remote.
Ron wasted lots of time writing about nothing.Replace oil,gas and coal? With what? Yeah ,that’s what I thought. Well,I hope he enjoyed Paris.
Yes, and since the gw folks have taken nuclear off the table you know their not really worried about it either.
It’s not off the table. In fact next year the first new nuclear power plant in 2 decades will go on line in Tennessee (Watts Bar). And South Carolina and Georgia are working on one each. If there is a problem, it’s that Republicans don’t push it as part of the solution to AGW.
Well, there’s your problem: the Republican Party. Democracy sucketh much.
” it’s that Republicans don’t push it as part of the solution to AGW.”
This is were you have you pants down around your ankles Jack. It is the “Enviro”mental” Anti Nuke brigade of your party that that blocks the building of new Nuclear power plants,
http://www.nei.org/News-Media/…..r-views-on
How em-bare-assing for you Jack.
First, AGW doesn’t exist. Second, your Marxist comrades are the ones against nuclear power. Goddamn shitbird.
First new nuclear power plant in 2 decades in the entire US? And the next one will be in, where? Tennessee? Is that the same Tennessee as the one in ‘the TVA’? Gosh, if only there was some way to get more power to the people our betters.
How about GMOs? They’re really scary too!
So on what date, precisely, will the Obama Administration be submitting this to the Senate?
Without two-thirds of the Senate voting to ratify it, this agreement is toilet paper.
Last time I looked, under the Obama Administration, the US constitution is pretty much toilet paper.
“To keep future modeled temperatures below 2?C, carbon dioxide emissions have to fall to net zero between 2060 and 2075 and total GHG emissions need to decline to net zero between 2080 and 2090. If the goal is set at an increase of no more than 1.5?C, the pace of reductions would have be faster; carbon dioxide emissions would have be net zero between 2045 and 2050, and total GHG emissions would need to get to net zero between 2060 and 2080. The WRI adds that pursuing the goal of keeping global average temperature below 2?C by 2100 means that the electricity sector must increase its share of low-carbon energy from the current level of 30 percent to more than 80 percent by 2050.”
Have they calculated how much that will cost the average American in terms of GDP per capita and our standard of living?
How much will it cost us in terms of GDP per capita through 2050, 2060, and 2100?
What will GDP matter when the whole world is under a 1000 ft of water?
I want to hear them say they have no idea how to predict those numbers because the science is too complicated.
I want to hear them say they’ve never bothered calculating such numbers–and then claim to be unbiased.
Anybody who thinks we should do something–no matter the cost–cannot claim to be unbiased.
All the ice in the world only adds 216 feet to sea level.
Where’s the rest coming from? A rain of comets for angering the earth goddess?
The costs: poverty, famine, economic regression, lack of future accessibility to the means of improving technology, mass genocide, totalitarianism as the new/old human norm. We’re parasites, Ken. Nothing short of the death of billions of people is required to bring us back to equilibrium with our dear planet.
Yes, I’m indulging in a touch of hyperbole but if you don’t think there isn’t a potent minority of people who will be implementing this brave new accord upon us with this as there ultimate end game then….bridges…Brooklyn….something, something…
*their
Damn, getting all flustered over here.
CO2 emissions and GDP are not always positively related. But there should be some kind of regression analysis possible for associating CO2 emissions and GDP–between some limits.
Certainly, economists could start going back and forth on each others’ estimates.
You might even start by looking at kilowatt-hours rather CO2 emissions, do some regression analysis associating kilowatt-hours with GDP, and then associate that with the relative costs of burning various fuels.
Solar efficiency is compounding at like one-half of one percent annually. Compare that, nuclear, hydro, and other less carbon intensive energy sources to various fossil fuels at various price points–and tell us how much implementing this agreement will cost the average American in GDP per capita AKA their standard of living.
I’m not an expert, but I can see how to do a reasonable estimate.
These numbers should be household terms.
Ken, something similar has been done. There is a regression curve of CO2 vs GDP per person here.
The cost of proposed regulations is something like $2500 per person per year.
So that’s where my $2500 Obamacare money goes!
I’m going to work on my own spreadsheet.
Funny how climate activists, and the politicians they support, are never among the billions of excess people who need to be removed.
No. They ARE the people who need to be removed. Via woodchipper.
even beyond this, the climate naturally changes over time. maybe we’re affecting it, i dont know, but comparing the temperature now to the temperature a hundred years ago doesnt really mean very much
“The idea of using afforestation to absorb excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is controversial. At the conference, representatives of indigenous peoples have strenuously opposed such schemes.”
Well, at least indigenous peoples had representatives!
The Chinese people have the appointee of a vicious dictatorship “representing” them.
And we in America don’t have anyone representing us, either. Our President was not chosen to ratify treaties on our behalf. We have a legitimately representative Senate with that power, and they haven’t had a chance to vote on it yet.
I see a three pronged action plan.
1) The U.S. Senate should adopt the specific text of the agreement as a resolution and vote it down.
Let’s see the Obama Administration try to justify anything they do to the Supreme Court on the basis of the text in an international agreement when not only has the agreement not been ratified by two-thirds of the Senate, the Senate has brought up the text of the agreement–and voted it down.
2) Let the Tea Party caucus in the House go full retard on the budget.
If the President wants to let the government shut down because he or she implemented treaty standards through the EPA, then the Republican Party should totally let that happen. This will translate into a budget battle.
3) Because there is no Constitutionally binding agreement, this agreement is only as good as the President in the White House at the moment wants to make it, so we should make this a huge campaign issue in every Presidential election.
If Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat wants to run on forcing quality of life sacrifices on the American people, then she should absolutely do so. And if she wins, then we’ll bring it up again in the next election. And the election after that, and the election after that…
Republicans are unaccustomed to fighting on behalf of the poor, but do you know how many minorities, elderly on fixed incomes, single-working mothers, etc. in the Northeast rely on fossil fuels to keep their homes warm during the winter?
These idiots are pushing nuclear power suddenly, so maybe they finally believe in their own bullshit. Who knows. Either way, it’s nice that we may finally join the 20th century and use a civilized energy source.
They’ll implement it in the most statist, f’d up way possible.
I said 20th century, didn’t I?
But Warty,that won’t power most cars,large trucks,cargo and other ships,farm equipment,planes ect .And you can’t make the thousands of thing you can from petrochemicals.You could shut down all other types of electric generation and use all nuclear and you still need oil and gas.
No kidding.
Somebody could make a goodly sum offering electric retrofits if we went to an electric grid and the gas companies invested in including rapid charging next to the gas and diesel pumps.
Yeh I do find it puzzling and intriguing the left seems to be talking about nuclear power as if they were for it all along. I was for nuclear energy before I was against it.
NO NUKES!
The left seems to operate under the idea that there are real Langoliers that gobble up the past as soon as it’s out of view, so hey never risk being called on their bullshit. Witness the transition from Global Cooling Doom to Global Warming Doom.
So everybody agreed they are doing good and will do better in the future and, oh, maybe some money will change hands and this is really, really wonderful!
OK, let ’em declare victory and go home.
It’s only fair. You declared victory long ago when you decided that science was a conspiracy and carbon dioxide doesn’t contribute to a greenhouse effect, despite having no justification for doing so. So why don’t you go fuck yourself and continue eating grilled roadkill and stop trying to pretend that you have something to contribute to any conversation worth having?
Another patented Tony bullshit strawman, it’s funny you mention science. Which in this case is based on mathematics. A subject of which I am likely far better educated than you could imagine Tony. AGW is based on bad math and prog fan fiction. No -progs know this. Progressives know nothing of science, math, or logic. Stop pretending that you do. We know it’s just another progressive fraud.
Yes, let the anger and hatred flow through you. Soon you will be ready to pick up the gun yourself to execute non-believers and your journey to fascism will be complete.
Tony|12.13.15 @ 1:14AM|#
“It’s only fair. You declared victory long ago when you decided that science was a conspiracy and carbon dioxide doesn’t contribute to a greenhouse effect, despite having no justification for doing so.”
Gee, I missed that shitbag. Please cite where I have done so, you pathetic excuse for a human being.
“The world is on an irrevocable and inevitable path to a low carbon economy another world war.”
FTFY
Thanks for covering this anyway, Ron.
“There is no way to meet the targets laid out in this agreement without keeping coal, oil and gas in the ground. The text should send a clear signal to fossil fuel investors: divest now this “agreement” is bullshit and unenforceable and out of touch with reality“.
FTFT
AP’s take on it:
“Key points of the landmark Paris climate agreement”
[…]
“?LONG-TERM GOAL: – The long-term objective – “pursue efforts” – “as soon as possible.” – should be reduced…”
“?EMISSIONS TARGETS: – countries agreed to set national targets – are expected…”
“?REVIEWING TARGETS: – asks governments to review their targets in the next four years and see if they can “update” them. – the hope is…”
“?TRANSPARENCY: – There is no penalty – rules to help encourage countries…”
“?MONEY: – Actual dollar amounts were kept out of the agreement itself,…”
“?LOSS AND DAMAGE: – a footnote specifically stated that loss and damage does not involve liability or compensation.”
http://www.sfgate.com/news/sci…..pid=brknow
I repeat:
‘We promise we’re doing good and we promise to do better and we’ll buy off some loud-mouths.
Would you care for a cocktail?’
In case you were wondering what the bozo-in-chief thinks about this.
President Obama Delivers a Statement on the Climate Agreement
The first 45:45 of the video are blue screen for some reason. Most technologically competent White House ever!
Well, they DID pay $600 million for a $10 million website.
“Comments are disabled for this video.”
What if, if just, this was not about controlling the climate, but people? And only about that. Then this would all make perfect sense. This is not about environment, efficiency, or for humanitarian aims.
This is a massive power grab beyond any other previous “global body”.
No one here would gripe a whole lot with your analysis, but I’d gripe if the presumption included the proggies ‘conspiring’ to do so; they’re not that smart.
The most convincing argument I’ve seen is simply that once communism collapsed as an economic system, the lefties grasped at straws in the hopes of finding a justification for central control, and happened onto the mud-momma religion to supplant the failed state religion.
Hey fellow despots, charlatans, and snake oil salesmen, we should probably stop partying on the tax payer dime now and sign some bogus agreement before someone gets suspicious. But no worries, we’re going to do this again next year! It will be the last chance to save the planet, again!
It’s like the never-ending Who farewell tours. I’m pretty sure those are all about wealth transfer, too.
Yeah, but no one ever bought a ticket to a Stones concert under duress.
after the mid nineties the world was looking a lot less terrifying without a soviet union and people were thinking it could be “the end of history”, so the government needed to find some sort of new hobgoblin to scare us into submission with. “global warming” is vague enough it’s impossible to disprove and the goalposts can keep moving, and most people dont actually understand climate science (myself included) so we’ll swallow all sorts of ridiculous nonsense in the name of “saving the planet”.
Almost every country in the world is in a conspiracy to enrich Al Gore and layabout solar panel manufacturers. The deception is so complete and convoluted, I think even the most sourpuss-faced of skeptics must give them props for their ambition and accomplishment. No?
Another take is I think the 95% of the people who read this magazine who believe in such a conspiracy instead of what current science says deserve never to be listened to about anything ever again. That’s what’s fair.
And another Tony strawman. No moron, it isn’t a conspiracy. But when these assholes see an opportunity to get together and feast on other’s money, they take it.
If someone turned on the lights, all you fucking cockroaches would scurry back into your holes. But that’s not a “conspiracy”, Tony – that’s just the nature of cockroaches.
Re: Tony the Marxian,
How sweet! You really think a bunch of corrupt politicians is the same as “countries”.
There is a guy that totally knows whats going on man.
http://www.GoneAnon.tk
If the next solar cycle is as weak as has been predicted, and the earth receives more cosmic rays resulting in greater cloud cover and an increased albedo, we may well see temperatures start to decline. Will the greenies declare victory? Will they pat themselves on the back and say: “We have reduced temperatures due to our agreement in Paris?” Or will the AGW theory finally be relegated to the dustbin of scientific misconceptions along with phlogiston, cold fusion, phrenology, and spontaneous generation?
Will the watermelons move on to the next crusade? What will it be – species diversity? clean water? ocean pollution?
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
? Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995)
And since there’s a lot of money to obtain from this sting, the charlatans will work double-time to keep you bamboozled.
The Paris Climate Talks Will Emit 300,000 Tons of CO2, by Our Math. Hope It’s Worth It
http://www.wired.com/2015/11/t…..-worth-it/
Who pays for that huge list of NGO’s and their “coordinating director of programs” or whatever?
Also, if I donated to ChristianAid would I think my money would be going to sending a Senior Climate Advisor to Paris named Mohamed?
But only the suicidal Western powers will actually enforce those agreements if it actually harms their economies. This is why all those Third World nations (not to mention China and India) were so happy. They risk nothing since they have no intention of actually doing what they promised, and they might actually get the money they’re hoping for, especially if the Western governments remain under the control of the guilt-ridden (or those hostile to their own countries, as the US currently is).
They can’t remake the global economy according to ANY agreement, much less this one, without central, coordinated economic control. We have seen central economic control crash and burn on any number of occasions in the past century or so. What makes anyone believe that such a result isn’t inevitable in this case? And if the GLOBAL economic central-control arrangement crashes and burns, then we ALL will suffer. There will practically be nowhere to go (except, perhaps, into the far, desolate hinterlands, off the grid) to escape the man-made catastrophe.
Madness, much? How can people not see what is obviously coming if we pursue the agreement seriously?
How can people not see what is obviously coming if we pursue the agreement seriously?
The religious roots of progressives are really showing here, especially in the calls for sacrifice regardless of the cost or the effectiveness of the sacrifice.
If the forced sacrifice causes suffering, that’s actually better in progressive eyes–because it causes suffering. They see the willingness to suffer as evidence of good intentions and commitment.
Such self-flagellation winds them up and gives them a rationale to turn their claws and teeth on other people, too. The poor, single-mothers, the elderly on fixed incomes, and minorities in our inner cities in the Northeast, they really will be hit the worst by soaring prices for heating and transportation. But the most committed among the progressives see that as a good thing.
Maybe if they suffer, the poor will learn to demand that we really start soaking the rich.
Fun Climate Quotes- Opening remarks offered by Maurice Strong, who organized the first U.N. Earth Climate Summit (1992) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, revealed the real goal: “We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrialized civilization to collapse. Isn’t it our responsibility to bring this about?”
Former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth (D-CO), then representing the Clinton-Gore administration as U.S Undersecretary of State for global issues, addressing the same Rio Climate Summit audience, agreed: “We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.” (Wirth now heads the UN Foundation which lobbies for hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to help underdeveloped countries fight climate change.)
Also speaking at the Rio conference, Deputy Assistant of State Richard Benedick, who then headed the policy divisions of the U.S. State Department said: “A global warming treaty [Kyoto] must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the [enhanced] greenhouse effect.”
In 1988, former Canadian Minister of the Environment Christine Stewart told editors and reporters of the Calgary Herald: “No matter if the science of global warming is all phony?climate change [provides] the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
In 1996, former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev emphasized the importance of using climate alarmism to advance socialist Marxist objectives: “The threat of environmental crisis will be the international disaster key to unlock the New World Order.”
Speaking at the 2000 UN Conference on Climate Change in the Hague, former President Jacques Chirac of France explained why the IPCC’s climate initiative supported a key Western European Kyoto Protocol objective: “For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument of global governance, one that should find a place within the World Environmental Organization which France and the European Union would like to see established.”
Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of 2001 and 2007 IPCC report chapters, writing in a 2007 “Predictions of Climate” blog appearing in the science journalNature.com, admitted: “None of the models used by the IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed state.”
Trenberth associate Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research wrote: “Mike, the Figure you sent is very deceptive ? there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC ?”
Wigley and Trenberth suggested in another e-mail to Mann: “If you think that [Yale professor James] Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official [American Geophysical Union] channels to get him ousted [as editor-in-chief of the Geophysical Research Letters journal].”
Tom Crowley, a key member of Michael Mann’s global warming hockey team, wrote: “I am not convinced that the ‘truth’ is always worth reaching if it is at the cost of damaged personal relationships.”
Phil Jones wrote: “Basic problem is that all models are wrong ? not got enough middle and low level clouds. ?what he [Zwiers] has done comes to a different conclusion than Caspar and Gene! I reckon this can be saved by careful wording.”
Writing to Jones, Peter Thorne of the U.K. Met Office advised caution, saying: “Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary?”
In another e-mail, Thorne stated: “I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.”
HIDE THE DECLINE- Mikey Mann
Ronald, have your shirts dry cleaned right away when you get back. That’s the only way you’ll be able to get those Kool-Aid stains out.
totally unenforceable! what a scam this climate change nonsense is….the left has no shame, no morals, no truth in them whatsoever. Bunch of hypocrites who fly around in their mega jets, drive all over with their multitude of automobiles and Limos and dare to preach to us about how we should live….we all know what is needed and it’s not anything peaceful…
Don’t worry guys, when we hit the 2 degrees we’ll just raise the climate limit. No probolo!