South Korea’s Climate Plan A Joke
By Paul Homewood
http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
Continuing with our round up of the INDC’s, the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution, submitted by some of the largest GHG emitters.
We have already seen how Russia’s plan will involve no reduction in emissions at all by 2030, how Japan’s will require only a 10% cut from 1990 levels, most of this generated by the return of nuclear to the mix, and how India’s means a tripling of CO2 emissions.
So far, therefore, there does not appear to be much encouragement for the greenies. Let’s now take a look at the Republic of South Korea, which is the world’s 7th biggest emitter, just behind Germany.
Their plan is remarkably short, just four pages, which I suspect reflects their antipathy towards the whole process.
All that we need to see is on the first page..
http://www4.unfccc.int/submissions/indc/Submission%20Pages/submissions.aspx
1) The first thing to note is that the committed reduction is against a business-as-usual level. This is highly significant because BAU can be a moving feast.
Suppose, for instance, that the population increases faster then the current projection, or GDP, or that they find themselves exporting more? It is then easy for the Korean government to simply up the BAU number, and thereby increase their emissions allowed target.
Indeed, it must be apparent that the government will happily massage the figures to suit themselves if needs be.
2) The plan only mentions CO2eq, which incorporates all GHG’s. However, we can glean from an EDF research analysis last year that non-CO2 gases account for about 100 Mtco2eq.
Therefore, given a target of 37% below 850.6 MtCO2eq, ie 536 Mt, this would imply a target of about 473 Mt for CO2 alone (assuming a cut of 37% in non-CO2). This is probably an understatement as it seems likely that there will be greater cutbacks in the non-CO2 gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide.
A target of 473 Mt, while representing a cut of 23% from current levels, would be nearly twice 1990’s. Perhaps more significantly, though, it would simply return South Korea’s emissions back to 2006 levels, hardly world saving.
3) The third issue is that the plan states that part of the emissions reduction will be achieved by using carbon credits, rather than actually emitting less.
Although no figure is given, the Carbon Tracker website believes from earlier government statements that nearly a third of the mitigation will be achieved by buying credits.
The government clearly believes that this will be a much cheaper than ruining their economy on the back a global warming agenda, that it seems they have little faith in.
As it stands, it is abundantly clear that the western nations are going to be done up like kippers, taking all of the pain and paying compensation to boot. And all simply on the basis of some imagined guilt that the industrial revolution has made the world a worse place for everybody else.
Mark Carney seems to think this is a good idea. I wonder why?
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
OT, but I’ve been watching Iain Stewart’s Planet Oil on BBC4. My tv has been lucky to survive having something thrown at it after all the usual bs about peak oil and cagw, but at least he included a part on the future of Thorium as a fuel.
Most users use oil to produce power and waste heat is a consequence.
The BBC uses the money from oil to generate hot air and gain power from that.
Thanks, Paul, for this excellent series of analyses – useful and interesting. As for western nations being stitched up, you may recall the Technical Summary of the IPCC’s AR5 WG3: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_ar5_technical-summary.pdf. Look at the graph at TS2 on page 43 (top graph RH panel). You’ll see the OECD (the blue block) was responsible for less than 50% of cumulative CO2 emissions from all sources from 1750 to 2010. It’ll be even less today. Perhaps the developing countries should be paying compensation to the west.
You could make a case that the benefits to humanity from the earlier use of fossil fuel, such as steam powered railway networks, was more significant than its later worldwide expansion.
Every country’s ‘climate plan’ is a joke because they will all make zero measurable difference to ‘the climate’.
When you really dig into the mindset of a hardcore alarmist/activist (I don’t do this anymore on doctor’s orders), you’ll be quite likely to find an ingrained philosophical belief in the ultimate desirability of an equal emissions budget for all. Many/most propose this is implemented only once the developing world has reached cumulative per capita emission levels equivalent to that of the developed world to date, or, preferably, once reparations have been paid equal to the supposed trillions of dollars worth of harm the legacy “excess” western emissions are supposed to have caused. There is a belief that that would be “fair”, or “justice”. Really. I have had these conversations.
So the fact that the “Climate Plan” of many non-western countries is a joke won’t faze these guys in the slightest. All part of the “plan”.
This is referred to as “equally shared misery.” These folks are miserable and hope to feel better when all are made to feel equally miserable. I cringe at the use of “fair,” because it means all are the same and must be brought to the lowest common denominator.
..and you know what?.. even if we could afford to pay all those ‘reparations’, then the recepients would still go and spend the money on SUVs and air conditioning.
CO2 emissions will continue, whatever is agreed in Paris. And the apocalypse is still refusing to tun up.