Why Nothing Will Be Achieved In Paris
By Paul Homewood
The private jets will soon be flying in from all over the world for the Paris conference due to start tomorrow, bringing with them thousands of politicians, officials and green activists.
But what is it all likely to achieve?
Here are my personal thoughts.
1) No binding agreements will be made.
Developing nations have already made it absolutely clear that they will not agree to any legally binding agreements, although they expect the west to do so.
As they have banded themselves into one grouping, led by China and India, there is no way individual states will be picked off one by one with either bribes or force. It is also clear that China, in particular, will not agree to any external monitoring.
The EU has already indicated that its own binding targets will be reviewed unless a globally binding agreement is reached.
Obama, keen to seal his “legacy”, would love to commit the US, but knows he would never get such a treaty through Congress. Meanwhile, others in what is called the Umbrella Group, including countries like Russia and Japan, are ambivalent about the whole process and are certainly not willing to wreck their economies.
2) No renegotiation of INDC’s
There will be no renegotiation of individual INDC’s. This is not even on the agenda.
3) No action on finance
It was agreed at Copenhagen that a climate fund of $100bn would be set up by 2020, along with commitment to $100bn a year thereafter.
Virtually nothing has been put into the fund as yet, and it is unlikely that more than a few billion will be promised at Paris. Even the small amount of $3bn promised by Obama is unlikely pass Congress.
Developed countries, including the US, are adamant that the large amounts promised in 2009 cannot all come from the public purse, and that much will have to come from private funding.
Look for progress towards the target to be reviewed at meetings next year, the year after, and the year after that.
4) Lots more meetings
This one will run and run.
There will be very little of substance agreed in Paris. China, India and the rest of the developing world will be free to carry on increasing emissions, while Obama and other western leaders will delude themselves that their sacrifices have made a difference.
There will be some form of wording agreed that allows all parties to go away and claim that some progress has been made. And there will be more meetings next year and after to “build on this progress”.
Meanwhile, Greenpeace will moan that we have all missed a glorious opportunity.
And so, next year, we will start all over again.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I predict that Canada will try and set an example(of stupidity) by giving an enormous amount for a relatively small population, at least 3 billion.
Trudeau has already pledged $2.65B. Our First Nations should be up in arms about the waste of money. He thinks he is buying Canada’s reputation in the world.
It would only be given if the Keystone pipeline were to be approved in a quid pro quo: the tax revenue of increased oil sales to the US would pay it back in three years or so.
Just like an increase in oil prices would pay Saudia Arabia to buy the billions of US arms announced …. what goes one way, comes back another.
There is a lot of bizarre manoevering going on politically and financially. And time tables for greening are proposed beyond the next election or two. Backtracking is built in to the “agreements’.
He is buying Canada’s reputation in the world, just maybe not the reputation he thinks he’s buying.
And the doom and gloom crowd will remind us again that if we do not act now we will all fry in 10 years, the same warning they gave 10 years ago, and this will continue year after year until it finally dawns on them that climate is largely beyond our control.
The Prince of Wales, well known for having concern about his carbon footprint, having made his significant contribution to the debate by blaming the conflict in Syria on global warming, will also be flying in on his private jet. Is their any way to measure the carbon footprint of the 40,000 alarmists gathering in Paris?
“And so, next year, we will start all over again.”
Yes & while everyone is focused on ‘the threat’, I wonder what nasty’s will be going on behind closed doors ??
Emily Gosden in the Sunday Telegraph (paper version, does not appear to be online, they only have the daft Ambrose whatever end of fossil fuels nonsense) gives a plausible outcome:
Country targets will not be binding (how could they possibly be, what if mistakes have been made, or circumstances change), but there will be legally binding monitoring and reporting, this is what the UK are pushing for. Uncertainties remain about who pays what into the “fund” and who is held responsible for past warmings.
My take: Worldwide monitoring will be important for the aftermath, the battle in the UK will switch to ditching the 2008 Climate Change Act on the grounds that others are not following suit, not to mention the impossibility of meeting it.
No progress will be made because shutting down every economy for 6 months will not compensate for the CO2 emmissions from the conference itself. As long as these conferences continue, we are all doomed.
I believe your assessment is spot on.
I was hoping that Sceptics could have an annual jamboree as well but I guess we have nobody to pay for it and after all we are all paying for the UN Alarmist ones anyway.
We wouldn’t need a jet to take us to our first one which will be in Barnsley. The pub has been booked together with an upstairs room.
For overseas visitors – Barnsley is in Yorkshire, England, UK.
We could have the meetings in various pubs and the like and Skype the meetings, to show how uncaring we are about the planet.
Mine’s a pint!
The Heartland Institute is staging a sceptics’ counter-conference in Paris.
If COP21 was going to solve everything, COP22 in Morocco would be superfluous.
I suspect they will pass the authority to penalize signees and nations for failure to comply with reduction promises and other failings.
You may be right about nothing going to be achieved. The big achievement will be to recognize that the policy within the INDCs will nothing substantial. The UNFCCC produced a Synthesis report on the aggregate effect of INDCs (INDC portal). The summary is a very large graphic – which you may need to enlarge in another tab.
– the orange is the pre INDC forecast.
– the yellow is the INDC impact
– the blue is the policy scenarios required to achieve the 2C objective.
To achieve the 2C aim global emissions must be reducing as quickly as possible. The longer the delay, the faster the emissions decline. Without the INDCs emissions will keep on rising. The INDCs do not change this picture very much. Most relevent is are the arrows in the “2030” box on the right hand side. The yellow arrow is “Reduction due to INDCs” and the blue arrow “Remaining reduction for least-cost mitigation”. For 2030 the INDCs seem to get a quarter of the way to the desired reduction. The UNFCCC spends has a 66 page main document that waffles around this main finding.
This is in total contradiction to a statement made at the end of October UNFCCC by Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres as reported by the BBC:-
The support for this statement comes from two other organisations, referenced at the very end of a separate technical annex. The details I hope to post on later.
I guess that these projections are based on the same accurate models that failed to predict the “Pause”. They are well proven to produce doom-laden graphics and keep the BBC and the clown prince happy. It will no-doubt be honed for this weeks fun.
I have now published details of the claims made above.
The claim by UNFCCC by Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres that the INDCs will lower 2100 warming from 4C to 2.7C is not supported from UNFCCC. The claim is made by two external organisations – International Energy Agency (IEA) and Climate Action Tracker (CAT).
The IEA obtains its post-2050 emissions from the mixing RCP models that assumes policy not contained in the INDCs. This despite the RCP website explicitly stating that the models should not be used for policy evaluation, and that different scenarios are non-comparable.
CAT bases the projection on understating the emissions growth in China and India; probably ignoring the long-term contribution to emissions of Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam etc, and taking a one-sided perspective on ambiguities in the INDCs. CAT also does this provide country-by-country estimates of the INDC impacts to 2100, so it may be making similar errors to the IEA.
The situation we have with policy is analogous to the hockey stick graph. With Mann et al, the hockey stick shape was obtained by splicing actual average temperatures from around 1900 to proxy temperature from earlier periods. The two were not comparable.
With emissions there are short-term forecasts based on the policy pledges through to 2030. Beyond that is more difficult. The IEA (and possibly CAT) splice on modelled emissions estimates that include policy assumptions dreamed up by some modellers.
But there will be lots of fabulous meals, free-flowing alcohol, and high-priced prostitutes. (None of which will be reported in the lapdog mainstream media.) Much, if not most, will be paid for by taxpayers. But all to save the planet, of course.
The Green Malthusian media and clergy pretty much line up and agree with Paul, some more pessimistic, others grasping for spin. Look the Asian are building 500 coal plants this year with another 1,000 on the drawing boards. I hope they install scrubbers because coal emits terrible pollutants , though CO2 is not one of them.
I do hope the builders put scrubbers on the coal plants or the Chinese children will continue to color skies gray, as was reported when China hosted the Olympics.
I predict that China will start installing the scrubbers within the next decade or so. Since Tienanmen Square (sorry Paul, you are now blocked by the Great Firewall) the Chinese Government have pursued a policy of maximizing economic growth. This resulted in over two decades of 10% growth rates. As China fully industrializes growth rates will slow dramatically. To keep the populace happy living standards will need to rise in other ways. One way will be to reduce pollution.
I guess you’ve all seen the current BBC website
Climate Change related articles ‘wallpapered’ all over the pages
Its like an extension of that source of all truth & wisdom the Skeptical Scientology site
How do these guys get away with blatant favoured reporting ????
BLACK PEARL commented : “…How do these guys get away with blatant favoured reporting ????
This bothers me as well but the answer is simple. They are paid to spin information to enforce certain narratives….AGW is just one of them….or they don’t have a job. The news outlets they are employed by have been bought by Liberal leaning people to bring nothing but Socialist/Marxist views in the positive light to the masses. Don’t just blow it off as a conspiracy theory. Look at the facts and make up your own mind. UN/IPCC has said openly that Climate Change is not about the environment but about destroying Capitalism.
Can the climate alarmists keep their scam going through the next inevitable cooling period? Claims about a connection between CO2 emissions and excessive global warming can be maintained by well-funded propaganda campaigns. But claims about a connection between CO2 and general climate change will be harder to sell to the public.
I don’t think they’ve thought that far ahead. These are really not the brightest bulbs on the block. For reference, see the comment above about Trudeau fils anteing up 2.6 billion for the cause.
A related good read is
Margaret Wente, “Your handy guide to the Paris climate talks”, Globe and Mail, 20 November 2015.
“Why Nothing Will Be Achieved In Paris”
Because not a single one of the troughers attending wants to accomplish anything, of course.
They’re not going to do themselves out of the best free party of the year, are they?
They’re not daft!
Exactly Paul! More importantly: nothing learned, nothing gained, lots wasted.
have a look at a column in today’s DT (30/11)by that celebrated scientist Ambrose Evans Pritchard. Paul you’ve got it wrong again!!! Paris will be a resounding success and the likes of India and China are bursting with enthusiasm to sign up to carbon limiotation
“private funding”? Such as?