Paris Round Up – Day 1

By Paul Homewood  

 

Round up Day 1 in Paris from the GWPF. Much grandstanding and pontificating, but little else!

 

 

 

 

COP21: Daily GWPF Briefing – Day 1 In The Big Brothers House

• The first day of the UN climate conference in Paris saw a change to the tradition of world leaders attending on final day, instead turning up today to sermonise about the dangers of climate change, in a move the organisers hoped would garner momentum for the conference.

• While the day was full of alarmist grand-standing, one of the few policy developments came from the Australian delegation with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull opting out of a key pledge to phase out fuel subsidies, amid concerns about Australia’s diesel fuel rebates.

• The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told developed countries which powered their way to prosperity on fossil fuels that it would be "morally wrong" if they shift the burden of reducing emissions on developing countries like India. "The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities should be the bedrock of our collective enterprise. Anything else would be morally wrong," he wrote in today’s ‘Financial Times’.

• The language of President Xi Jinping emphasised ‘fairness and justice, a clear signal that China wants Western countries to do the heavy lifting when it comes to climate change.

• Xi Jinping has also demanded that the green gravy-train keeps rolling, asking for Western nations to deliver on their commitment in 2009 to provide $100 billion in climate finance to developing nations by 2020, and even more after that.

• According to Professor Stuart Haszeldine of Edinburgh University, Britain will enter the Paris climate change talks this week “with its credentials as a responsible, low-emission power generator in tatters.” Haszeldine believes George Osborne’s last-minute decision to axe the government’s £1bn support for a scheme to capture and bury carbon dioxide emissions from power stations was a final act that utterly undermined British negotiators’ status in Paris. The fact that Britain has some of the strongest commitments to eradicating coal and has some of the most expensive energy prices for energy intensive users in Europe does not seem to cut it with Professor Haszeldine.

• In some of the stranger developments of the day, German Chancellor Angela Merkel linked the conference to standing up to terrorism – “Through our presence here today we show we are stronger than the terrorists”, in comments that were symptomatic of the fervour with which alarmists believe the battle against CO2 must be fought.

• David Cameron continued to pedal the ‘97% myth’ – that 97% of scientists believe climate change would have catastrophic impacts on humanity. In his brief speech, he used a discredited statistic to urge action to prevent what he believes will be the disastrous effects of increased carbon dioxide emissions.

• The fervour with which red-green campaigners want to cut emissions can be seen clearly in the words of Bolivian President Evo Morales, who said “Mother Earth is getting close to the end and the capitalist system is partly responsible for that. Capitalism has fostered and introduced and driven forward over the past 200 years the most savage and destructive formula against our species.”

• Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, has called for a legaling binding commitment to tackling man-made climate change. A big stumbling block to such a deal could be the US Senate; while Obama hopes the conference will be a “turning point”, any legally binding deal would require the Senate’s approval.