By Dr. John Happs ~
Much criticism has rightly been levelled at the many Conferences of the Parties (COPS) that have seen politicians, celebrities, royals and green activists travel to 26 annual climate conferences, with more to come. No doubt, those self-opinionated people will always want to meet at expensive locations around the world, dining in style and with many arriving by private jet to save the world from climate doom.
The United Nations Climate Change Conferences are annual meetings within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They are formal gatherings to discuss progress being made towards “addressing climate change” with the UN attempting to establish legally binding obligations from developed countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. The same developed countries are asked to pay hefty “climate compensation” to developing countries that simply want that money under the guise of fighting imaginary catastrophic anthropogenic global warming or seeking reparations for climate damage.
So, what progress has been made at those taxpayer-assisted Conferences of the Parties over the last 26 years?
COP1 was held in Berlin, Germany in 1995. Concern was expressed about the inability or reluctance of many countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions and discussions centred around how such reluctance might be overcome.
Media interest was lukewarm since it was clear that governments were not taking climate change seriously with the International Herald Tribune referring to COP1 as the “Berlin Climate Parley”.
Angela Merkel
German industry was promoting so-called electric cars, wind turbines and solar power plants without knowing that an energy crisis of their own making was awaiting them. Germany’s new environment minister was Angela Merkel who would later be instrumental in her country’s disastrous energy policies.
COP2 was held in Geneva, Switzerland in 1996. The questionable findings on climate change, espoused by the political/ideological Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its second assessment (1995), were accepted at COP2. No empirical evidence was provided with the IPCC “findings” being rejected by many scientists, such as the more than 4,000 (including 70 Nobel Laureates) who signed the Heidelberg Appeal: https://americanpolicy.org/2002/03/29/the-heidelberg-appeal/ In 1998 (and onwards) more than 31,000 scientists, including geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers and environmental scientists rejected the UN’s climate alarmism and signed the Oregon Petition: http://www.petitionproject.org/
COP2 delegates called for “legally binding mid-term targets” but that call was ignored.
Dr. Judith Curry
COP3 was held in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 leading to the Kyoto Protocol, which outlined the greenhouse gas emissions reduction “obligation” for Annex I countries. It became clear at COP3 that politics and ideology rather than science ruled as climate scientist Dr. Judith Curry pointed out:
“The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was implemented before we had any confidence that most of the recent warming was caused by humans. There has been tremendous political pressure on the scientists to present findings that would support these treaties, which has resulted in a drive to manufacture a scientific consensus on the dangers of manmade climate change.”
https://judithcurry.com/2019/12/02/madrid/?mc_cid=c314390c89&mc_eid=f95c2f3edd
Climate science was cast aside whilst the politics became abundantly clear when considering the composition of the COP3 cast of thousands:
“Over 10,000 participants, including representatives from governments, intergovernmental organizations, NGOs and the press, attended the Conference, which included a high-level segment featuring statements from over 125 ministers.”
https://pscprep.com/cop-1-to-cop-25-summary/
COP4 was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1998 where the complexity and difficulty of finding agreement on emission reductions proved insurmountable. No surprise there and no doubt a foretaste of future outcomes.
Although COP4 addressed the unresolved issues in Kyoto, no agreement on these issues could be reached and so the parties adopted a 2-year “Plan of Action” to advance efforts and to devise mechanisms for implementing the Kyoto Protocol. These were to be completed by 2000.
The USA signed the Kyoto Protocol reaffirming its commitment to work with other nations to meet the Protocol’s ambitious environmental goals to ensure a continued strong U.S. role in settling issues left unresolved at Kyoto. Signing didn’t impose an obligation on the United States to implement the Kyoto Protocol.
COP5 was held in Bonn, Germany in 1999. As usual, the meeting achieved little. Discussion and negotiations focussed on enabling decisions and a timetable for completing the outstanding details of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol by COP-6.
COP6 was held in The Hague, Netherlands in 2000 where the talks collapsed. Again, no surprise there so Jan Pronk, President of the COP, suspended further talks without agreement saying, as predicted, that negotiations would continue and a further meeting of COP6 was arranged.
There were major disagreements over proposed consequences for non-compliance by countries that did not meet their emission reduction targets and officials pointed to difficulties in resolving how developing countries could obtain financial assistance from developed countries to deal with adverse effects of climate change.
The talks in The Hague achieved nothing but it was hoped they could be resumed in Bonn, Germany.
COP6 resumed in Bonn, Germany in 2001 after George W. Bush became President of the USA. Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol and the US delegation declined to participate in the negotiations related to the Protocol.
Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol because of:
“The current energy crisis as well as the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change and the lack of commercially available technologies for removing and storing carbon dioxide.”
And:
“It still exempts 80 percent of the world…from compliance.”
https://www.heritage.org/environment/report/why-president-bush-right-abandon-the-kyoto-protocol
We were told that this was the Global Warming Treaty’s “Last Chance.”
“With the U.S. definitely not on board, and Japan threatening to leave as well, there is tremendous pressure to get enough nations together to adopt some version of the treaty designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,167699,00.html
COP7 was held in Marrakech, Morocco in 2001 at which the US delegation maintained its observer role, declining to participate actively in the negotiations. It was proposed that a decision to consider at COP8 how to achieve discussions on future commitments by developing countries.
COP8 was held in New Delhi, India in 2002 with the Russian delegation saying they needed “more time to think things over” whilst Australia wisely refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The UN wanted to:
“Make available the increased commitments in official development assistance announced by several developed countries at the International Conference on Financing for Development. Urge the developed countries that have not done so to make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product as official development assistance to developing countries.”
https://www.fao.org/worldfoodsummit/english/newsroom/news/6142-en.html
COP9 was held in Milan, Italy in 2003 with over 5,000 participants where it was agreed to use the Adaptation Fund established at COP7 (in 2001) to support developing countries in better adapting to climate change.
https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/cop9/inf01.pdf
One would have thought that developing countries would have been adapting to climate change for thousands of years. The hope was that the money would come from those developed countries that had earned it and transferred to those undeveloped countries that merely wanted it.
COP9 ended with ministers calling for urgent and coordinated action on climate change before the next meeting.
COP10 was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2004 at which “progress” was discussed since the first Conference of the Parties 10 years ago although it wasn’t made clear exactly what progress had been made. Future challenges were aired but, again, no real progress was actually made.
More taxpayer money wasted
COP11 was held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 2005 and was one of the largest intergovernmental conferences on climate change ever held, with more than 10,000 delegates. The Montreal Action Plan was an agreement to extend the life of the Kyoto Protocol beyond its 2012 expiration date and negotiate deeper cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.
Canada’s environment minister, at the time, Stéphane Dion, said the agreement provided a “map for the future” and we were told this was our (2nd) “last chance” when environmental activist Mark Lynas said:
Mark Lynas looking really scared about climate change.
“I’m scared. For 15 years I’ve watched international progress on climate change get slower and slower, even while the pace of global warming seems to get ever more rapid. With time running out for the global climate, your meeting in Montreal represents a last chance for action.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/climate-change-it-s-now-or-never- 5349187.html
Dr. Brian John from the University of Durham replied:
“Lynas is not a scientist, and it shows. He simply regurgitates the “convenient fictions” of the pro-GM lobby — often without bothering to check his facts. It is a disgraceful exhibition of hubris underpinned by pseudo-science, from top to bottom.”
COP12 was held in Nairobi, Kenya in 2006 at which reporter Richard Black coined the phrase “climate tourists” to describe some delegates who attended just “to see Africa, take snaps of the wildlife, the poor, dying African children and women.”
Holding hands at COP12
Surely there would never be attendees who didn’t take the conference seriously and didn’t see the need to attend all sessions of the conference to help address the (imaginary) climate crisis.
Participants expressed concerns over the economic costs of emissions reduction and the potential for loss of competitiveness. Discussions avoided any mention of how emissions were to be reduced. So, no progress there!
COP13 was held in Bali, Indonesia in 2007 in which an Ad Hoc Working Group on “long-term Cooperative Action” was established as a new subsidiary body to conduct the negotiations aimed at urgently enhancing the implementation of the Convention up to and beyond 2012.
George Clooney shares his knowledge of climate science at COP13.
Amongst those in attendance at Bali were George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz and a host of other Hollywood celebrities all anxious to contribute their knowledge of climate science and warn the world of the dangers posed by the trivial level (400ppm) of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
At the start of negotiations “experts” told us that this would be (the 3rd) “last chance” to save the Earth from catastrophic climate change. Tony Jupiter, executive director of Friends of the Earth, said:
“Bali could be the last chance to avoid the worst effect of global warming.”
COP14 was held in Poznan, Poland in 2008 at which negotiations on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol was the primary focus for the conference with the then UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon feeling confident that these talks would lead to the desired results whilst delegates agreed in principle for the financing of a fund to help the poorest nations cope with the effects of climate change.
There was a different mix of crusading celebrities at COP14 with Scarlett Johansson and Annie Lennox bringing their climate science expertise to the party. Australia’s serial alarmist Dr. Tim Flannery also attended COP14 and gave us a (4th) “last chance” saying:
“Resistance is a suicidal tactic. This round of negotiations is likely to be our last chance as a species to deal with the problem.”
Flannery should know, being the master of climate predictions:
COP15 was held in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009 at which the New York Times announced:
“President Obama and other world leaders have decided to put off the difficult task of reaching a climate change agreement… agreeing instead to make it the mission of the Copenhagen conference to reach a less specific “politically binding” agreement that would punt the most difficult issues into the future”
Obama warned us that we are running out of time and UK economist Nicholas Stern said that the Copenhagen summit was the (5th) “last chance” to save the planet from catastrophic global warming.
As expected, another group of crusading celebrities turned up at Copenhagen including Helen Baxendale, Rahul Bose and supermodel Helena Christiansen.
No doubt the COP15 assembly eagerly waited for those celebrities to share their climate science expertise.
Part of the cast of thousands
It was at COP15 in Copenhagen, 2009, that we had Dr. Ian Fry, with much emotion, pleading for Tuvalu, a nation that is not in any danger from imaginary dramatic sea level rise. Fry tearfully said:
“I am a humble and insignificant employee of the Environment Department of Tuvalu. This is not an ego trip. I have refused to undertake media interviews … I woke up this morning crying and that’s not easy for a grown man to admit. The fate of my country rests in your hands. Thank you.”
Except that Fry was not from Tuvalu. In fact, he was a lawyer and former Greenpeace officer from Queanbeyan in Australia.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2021/11/cop-plop-and-flop/
Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave us the benefit of his climate science knowledge when he said that the Copenhagen summit was the (6th) last chance to save the planet. This is the same Gordon Brown who said in 2009: “We have 50 days to save the world from global warming.”
Dominic Lawson, commenting on the Copenhagen farce said:
“Here was Europe offering to impose vast costs on its own industries and peoples to save Africa from the alleged perils of runaway CO2 emissions – and that continent’s most powerful international voice says, thanks very much for the offer, but we think we can best provide health and prosperity to our people by being free to expand our economy exactly as you did in the industrial revolution, by using the wonderfully cheap forms of energy that nature affords: fossil fuels.”
https://www.netzerowatch.com/dominic-lawson-the-copenhagen-farce-is-glad-tidings-for-all/
COP16 was held in Cancun, Mexico in 2010 at which parties called for a 100 billion USD per annum “Green Climate Fund” and a “Climate Technology Centre” and network. Not surprisingly, the funding of the Green Climate Fund was not agreed upon. Neither was a commitment to a second period of the Kyoto Protocol.
No progress here, but this time it was India’s environment minister Jairem Ramesh who warned us that the Cancun meeting was the (7th) last chance for climate change talks to succeed if we wanted to save the planet.
Officials from around 200 countries assembled to save the planet from imaginary climate chaos. Alan Caruba observed:
“In reality, the IPCC conference was the charade designed to engineer a massive transfer of wealth from industrialized nations to those, as often as not, ruled by a variety of despots and authoritarian, corrupt governments that have failed to keep pace with the West for whom the use of “fossil fuels” has marked their economic ascendancy.”
And:
“There was no science of any merit to be heard or seen at the Cancun conference, only the massive body of lies generated by the United Nation’s IPCC.”
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/31158
Of no surprise, the proposal by the states’ parties calling for 100 billion USD per annum for the “Green Climate Fund” was rejected.
The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (FAR) goal of a maximum 2°C global warming was accepted and all parties noted that they should take urgent action to meet this goal. Except that nobody said how this was to be achieved.
COP17 was held in Durban, South Africa in 2011 at which parties agreed to start negotiations on a legally binding deal comprising all countries, to be adopted in 2015. Delegates were reminded yet again that the UN’s Green Climate Fund needed to distribute US$100 billion per year to help poor countries adapt to the impacts of climate change. Environmental groups warned that the deal was not sufficient to avoid global warming beyond 2°C and that (surprise, surprise) more urgent action was needed.
The Reverend Dr. Olav Fyske Tveit, who leads the World Council of Churches, said that the upcoming climate conference in South Africa was mankind’s (8th) “last chance” to address climate change.
India’s minister of forests and environment Jayanthi Natarajan said she was told not to object to any text at talks in Durban in 2011. She said:
“In the past we have very negative examples where procedures were not followed … and the culmination point was Doha. It’s unacceptable.”
A senior UN diplomat told Christopher Monckton:
“The UN exists for only one purpose: to get more money. That, and that alone, is the reason why it takes such an interest in climate change.” The draft says: “Developed-country Parties shall provide developing-country Parties with new and additional finance, inter alia through a percentage of the gross domestic product of developed-country Parties.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/09/durban-what-the-media-are-not-telling-you/
Despite plans for having more crusading celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Sir Richard Branson, Angelina Jolie and Bono attend COP17, the whole affair again achieved nothing except that Branson’s Virgin aircraft continue to pump lots of life-giving carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. He should be thanked for that.
COP18 was held in Doha, Qatar in 2012 at which an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol was drawn up with a second commitment period running from 2012 until 2020 limited in scope to 15% of the global carbon dioxide emissions. There was no commitment from Japan, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, New Zealand (nor the United States and Canada, who were not parties to the Protocol in that period). It was noted that developing countries such as China, India and Brazil are not subject to emissions reductions under the Kyoto Protocol.
The conference made little progress towards the funding of the Green Climate Fund (again, no surprise there) and Terry McCrann summed up the event:
“COP 18 means that this was the 18th such utterly pointless exercise. Pointless, apart from generating lots and lots of CO2, and committing to the next, utterly useless, conference. So, 18 years and 18 conferences have achieved exactly what?
Annual CO2 emissions are perhaps 25 per cent higher than at the time of the first COP and rising inexorably. China is now easily the world’s biggest emitter, and embarked on building many more coal-fired power stations, while pandering to true believers with proportionately irrelevant renewable energy investments and token tiny carbon taxes.”
COP19 was held in Warsaw, Poland in 2013 with the Philippines lead negotiator Na-derev “Yeb” Saño expressing his hope that the talks would reach a “meaningful outcome”.
They didn’t! No progress was made and there was little to report except for the (9th) “last chance” warning and the revelations from investigative journalist Donna Laframboise who noted:
“I’ve often wondered why practically every news story written about UN climate negotiations contains quotes from green activists. Well, that mystery has now been solved.”
She explained:
“At 10 am, the green group Germanwatch had the floor for 30 minutes.
At 11, the World Resources Institute provided its views.
At 12:30 – to a packed house – the Climate Action Network presented the perspectives of Greenpeace and others regarding the first week of the conference. Then an anti-coal coalition released a statement.
At 1:30, we heard from a five-person World Wildlife Fund panel. At 2:30, women’s groups did their thing.”
She added:
“Unlike the public – which is barred from attending the currently-in-progress Warsaw summit – these activists are permitted to set up booths and to distribute mountains of literature/green propaganda. They are given ample opportunity to lobby delegates one-on-one, and to schmooze with the international press corps.”
https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2013/11/18/what-a-nasty-scandalously-rigged-system/
UN official Christiana Figueres reminded everyone that “Time is running out to counter the adverse impacts of climate change.”
COP20 was held in Lima, Peru in 2014 with little to report apart from another (10th) “last chance” warning. Journalist, the late Christopher Booker summarised:
“Finally, at the eleventh hour – or more likely 4 o’clock in the morning – a “breakthrough” is announced. Everyone has finally agreed on a meaningless document that commits no one to anything. Lima is the 20th time something similar has happened, as it will again in Paris next year. So, the dreary farce will continue until the crack of doom – which, like that warming, will never appear as the computer models predicted. Or until they have all died of boredom.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11291389/Lima-climate-talks-The-same-old-farce.html
COP21 was held in Paris, France in 2015 and Pope Francis expressed great hope that the Paris climate summit would succeed. The Paris Agreement was adopted, governing climate change reduction measures from 2020. This so-called climate summit was attended by around 50,000 people with the New York Daily News commenting on the hypocrisy:
“Most of the people travelling to the meeting arrived by airplane, the world’s top transit offender when it comes to belching CO2 into the atmosphere.”
The absurd agreement was to keep the rise in mean global temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and preferably limit the increase to 1.5°C and that emissions should be reduced as soon as possible to reach net-zero by the middle of the 21st century.
No input about how UN officials will know if global temperature has been kept below 2°C above pre-industrial levels or how they will know if the increase has been limited to 1.5°C. The abundance of scientific ignorance at the COP meetings was surpassed only by the displayed level of arrogance and, as expected, the so-called Paris Agreement was quickly criticised by some environmentalists since it was not binding:
“What the report does make clear, however, is that all the posturing by government leaders in Paris was just that. Posturing. None of these countries intended to take the drastic and economically catastrophic steps environmentalist claim are needed to prevent a climate change doomsday.”
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-un-admits-that-the-paris-climate-deal-was-a-fraud/
No surprise there but we were at least given another (11th) “last chance”:
“The next climate summit in Paris (COP21) may be the “last effective opportunity” to negotiate arrangements that keep human-induced warming to a limit safe for humanity, while protecting the poor and the vulnerable from ongoing climate change that gravely endangers their lives.”
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/vatican-last-chance-2015.png
Crusading celebrity Sean Penn considered COP21 to be the last great hope to combat climate change although even serial climate alarmist Dr. James Hansen was being realistic when he said:
“The rate of growth increased…Now we got to 2015 and we have the Paris Protocol, all the politicians clapping each other on the back as if something had been accomplished but there is not going to be a reduction in fossil fuel use as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy. And that’s the situation.”
COP22 was held in Marrakech, Morocco in 2016 and attended by more celebrity “climate experts” including Leonardo Dicaprio, Diego Maradona, Robert Redford and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
As expected, the central issue (again) was the need to reduce greenhouse emissions and utilize low-carbon energy sources, moving everyone towards 100% renewable energy by the middle of the century. The President of the UN General Assembly, called for the transformation of the global economy in all sectors to achieve a low emissions global economy. So, extreme disappointment was expressed when nothing was achieved yet again.
Craig Rucker from CFACT said:
“The UN climate agreement will enrich a privileged few while placing crushing burdens on free economies, and will accomplish nothing meaningful for the climate. The hard-working people being asked to pay for the UN’s Paris Agreement need to know.”
https://www.cfact.org/2016/11/07/cfact-headed-to-marrakech-to-challenge-un-climate-pact/
Towards the end of the conference, attempts were made to call for all
nations to honour promises made in Paris and renew their attempts to stave off (imaginary) climate disaster.
To no avail!
COP23 was held in Bonn, Germany in 2017 at which the Fijian Prime Minister and incoming President of COP 23, Frank Bainimarama, launched the logo for the 2017 United Nations Climate Change Conference, to be held at the UN Campus, Bonn in November.
Countries were again urged to make greater efforts to deliver the agreed 100 billion U.S. dollars per year by 2020 for support to developing countries to take climate action
As Lisa Friedman and Brad Plumer noted:
“Delegates wrapping up before dawn congratulated themselves on another year of saving the process, if not the planet …”
And:
“White House officials in Bonn did draw the ire of climate advocates when they staged a forum promoting fossil fuels and nuclear power.”
And:
“Very few countries announced new initiatives to speed up emissions cuts.”
Matt Mcgrath said:
“Climate finance is almost always the root of some of the biggest arguments in this process. Here in Bonn the developing world have pressed hard to get commitments from the richer nations about a timetable for the monies to be delivered into the future.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44060910
As predicted, UN officials told us again that we are running out of time to turn things around. Presumably we were given another (12th) last chance!
COP24 was held in Katowice, Poland in 2018 and attended by more crusading celebrities including Arnold Schwarzenegger. There was little to report except the fact that this climate conference was another failure and a huge defeat for its scientifically unsupported and politically contrived climate alarmist schemes.
Despite saying that Katowice offered the (13th) last chance to limit warming to 1.5°C and that countries must revise national plans at the upcoming climate conference, once again, nothing was achieved. The failure was brought about by global energy needs and challenges to the IPCC’s climate “science” as Larry Hamlin reported:
“Speaker after speaker at conference side-events spoke of expanded coal use. Turkey has plans for 80 new power stations to double its coal capacity and reduce dependence on imports. Chinese provinces are lobbying for more coal and Beijing is investing in coal infrastructure abroad. So are Japan, South Korea and Australia. During his September visit to Indonesia, South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in oversaw a deal to build two new coal plants there. Before the conference, in Polish coal country, Warsaw had declared it would continue burning coal—a matter of national security when the principal alternative is Russian natural gas.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/21/u-n-climate-alarmist-global-process-failing/
COP25 was held in Madrid, Spain in 2018 at which endless talking (more than 70,000 hours) failed to define a “market instrument” something that was meant to have been decided at the 2017 conference in Katowice, Poland.
Chile pulled out of the climate conference as anti-government protests increased and climate activists expressed their displeasure by staging a mock hanging in front of the conference and dumping a truckload of manure.
The current UN Secretary General António Guterres once again displayed his scientific ignorance when he made a number of fatuous statements such as: “The last five years have been the hottest ever recorded.”
Except that, in 2017, there were over 300 peer-reviewed, published papers showing that modern temperatures are not unprecedented or unusual:
Guterres claimed that:
“Sea levels are the highest in human history.”
Except that Parker and Ollier (2016) found that: “If sea levels are only oscillating about constant trends everywhere as suggested by the tide gauges, then the effects of climate change are negligible.”
http://www.klimarealistene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/1-s2.0-S0964569116300205-main.pdf
A number of peer-reviewed, published papers show that 5-10,000 years ago, global sea levels were 3 metres higher than today:
Guterres continued to parade his scientific ignorance, claiming that:
“Ice caps are melting at unprecedented speed and the oceans are becoming more acidic with all its consequences.”
Except that ice caps are not melting at unprecedented speed and there are no oceans on the planet that are acidic with no prospect of that ever happening:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/23/overview-ocean-acidification/
Apparently, nobody corrected Guterres on more of his nonsense when he claimed that:
“Climate-related natural disasters are becoming more frequent, more deadly, more destructive, with growing human and financial costs.”
He recently continued with his lies or ignorance by attributing the 2022 floods in Pakistan with imaginary global warming:
“[We] have all seen media images of the extraordinary destruction. I can only imagine the power and ferocity of the water as it bore down on villages, roads, bridges and everything else in its path. It was clearly terrifying – a wall of water. No country deserves this fate, but particularly not countries like Pakistan that have done almost nothing to contribute to global warming.”
In fact, Pakistan experienced severe floods in 1992, 2001, 2007, 2009, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2019.
Whereas alarmist media reporting such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) claimed that one third of Pakistan had been flooded, the facts show that the Indus Valley is prone to catastrophic floods and
around 8% of Pakistan was flooded as a result of 2 strong La Nina events.
https://cliscep.com/2022/08/29/a-closer-look-at-pakistans-floods/
Dr. Michael Kelly from Cambridge University challenged the claim by Guterres on extreme weather:
“It is widely promulgated and believed that human-caused global warming comes with increases in both the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. A survey of official weather sites and the scientific literature provides strong evidence that the first half of the 20thcentury had more extreme weather than the second half, when anthropogenic global warming is claimed to have been mainly responsible for observed climate change.”
António Guterres
Guterres went on to lament that many countries were not meeting their commitments.
In reality, many countries have no intention of meeting those commitments since they are coming to the realization that the UN’s climate policies have nothing to do with science and the climate but everything to do with promoting socialism and penalising successful developed economies by targeting their emissions of carbon dioxide – that colourless, odourless, life-giving gas.
António Guterres said:
“I am disappointed.”
Perhaps he should have added:
“But I’m not surprised.”
The ABC pointed out (3rd December, 2019) that Guterres issued yet another dire warning that “humanity is running out of time to save itself from climate change.”
Greta Thunberg at COP 25
Even a passionate speech by child activist Greta Thunberg didn’t stop COP 25 sliding into failure.
Marc Morano observed:
“You’d also be surprised just how many delegates here at the UN climate summit are fully aware just how much of their official narrative is nonsense designed for a few to make a buck.”
https://www.cfact.org/2019/12/12/cfact-mixing-it-up-at-cop-25/
COP26 was the latest meeting (2021) and was held in Glasgow, Scotland. Fortunately, we were offered yet another (14th) “last chance” by Prince Charles to act on (imaginary) global warming and save the world before it’s too late. This is the same Prince Charles who said on the 15th December, 2009:
“For the grim reality is that our planet has reached a point of crisis and we have only seven years before we lose the levers of control.”
Fortunately, Charles has given us another last chance.
In 2014 Charles said:
“This year marked potentially the “last chance” to save the world from the perils of global warming.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/10/13/prince-charles-adds-to-his-list-of-climate-last-chances/
The reader might think that all those COPS, the journeys to exotic locations and the thousands of COP attendees with their food and accommodation being provided have achieved their goal of reducing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and haven’t wasted any taxpayer money. Judge for yourself:
The optimistic reader might also think that the World Meteorological Conference on Climate in the 1970’s and Hansen’s questionable testimony to Congress in the 1980’s along with the UN Framework on Climate in the 1990’s, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement must have led to a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. After all, that is what all those accords, agreements and protocols, drawing on millions of taxpayer dollars, were supposed to achieve. Again, judge for yourself:
Around 400 private jets flew into COP26 carrying politicians, unelected UN officials, big-business executives, along with a coterie of celebrities and royals. As Brenden O’Neill commented:
“Ordinary people are guilt- tripped for taking one poxy flight a year to escape the trials and vagaries of life in capitalist society for a couple of weeks, while those who quaff champagne on airplanes that it costs $10,000 an hour to hire out get to pose as hyper-aware defenders of poor Mother Nature.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/11/01/the-elites-are-laughing-in-our-faces/
After all the rhetoric in Glasgow and the other 25 COPS, there still appears no prospect of “consigning coal to history.” Coal continues to dominate the world’s electricity inputs and recent energy shortages across Europe and China have shown how the world still relies on coal. After all, the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitters failed to sign up to any of the UN’s ridiculous goals.
John Kerry unloads his private jet on his way to the climate conference
Why didn’t COP26 achieve more with the presence of those other fountains of climate science knowledge such as John Kerry, Joe Biden and Barack Obama?
Christopher Monckton added another climate “expert” to the list:
“The British hosts of the conference – particularly Boris Johnson, described as a “Prime Minister”, have proven themselves to be even more scientifically and economically illiterate than most. If Britain were to go in a straight line from today to net-zero emissions by 2050, the cost, according to the grid authority, would be a staggering $4.2 trillion.”
Irony was also at the forefront at COP26 as Michael Shellenberger pointed out:
“Over the last decade, climate activists have successfully pressured governments, banks, and corporations to divest from oil and natural gas companies. At first such efforts appeared to be strictly symbolic. But in recent years climate activists succeeded in driving public and private investment away from oil and gas exploration and toward renewables. The result is the worst energy crisis in 50 years.”
The reality of shutting down power stations and industry in forlorn attempts to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels is now dawning on those politicians who have promoted a “net zero” world with the elimination of fossil-fueled power, transportation, home-heating and the transformation of agriculture.
Perhaps the last words should come from Dan Wooton and Dr. Bjorn Lomborg. Wooton said:
“I want to save the planet but I resent being told how to do it by a bunch of biased BBC reporters, unelected billionaires, royals, celebrities and tone-deaf politicians whose private jets have turned Flop 26 into an orgy of hypocrisy.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/11/04/dan-wootton-on-the-biased-bbc-the-orgy-of-hypocrisy/
Dr. Bjorn Lomborg agrees, saying:
“If you’re a wealthy, climate-concerned jetsetter with private health insurance and a recession-safe job, you don’t need to worry about malaria, recession, waiting in line for cancer tests or your children falling behind when schools close again.”
In 2022 UN Secretary General António Guterres finally realised that all those taxpayer funded conferences have achieved nothing:
“The goal to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, highlighted in the Paris Agreement on climate change, and driven home in last November’s COP26, gathering in Glasgow, is now on “life support” and “in intensive care.”
He further lamented:
“The enormous emissions gap – “the main problem was not solved – it was not even properly addressed.”
It might have finally dawned on Guterres that: “Countries could become so consumed by the immediate fossil fuel supply gap that they neglect or knee-cap policies to cut fossil fuel use.”
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114322
At least Guterres and his fellow-travellers can look forward to COP27 when another cast of thousands will pump more life-giving carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from their jets and limousines and continue with those tedious speeches that, as Macbeth would say, will again be “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Dr. John Happs M.Sc.1st Class; D.Phil. John has an academic background in the geosciences with special interests in climate, and paleoclimate. He has been a science educator at several universities in Australia and overseas and was President of the Western Australian Skeptics for 25 years.
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boudicaus
Fri 09/23/2022
Reblogged this on boudica.us.
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Eric
Wed 09/21/2022
Reblogged this on Calculus of Decay and commented:
Excellent composition here
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whatyareckon
Sat 09/17/2022
Reblogged this on whatyareckon and commented:
Do all the NUTS control the rest of us?
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HiFast
Fri 09/16/2022
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