Climate change: COP24 fails to adopt key scientific report
By Paul Homewood
h/t Joe Public
Hardly an auspicious start!
Attempts to incorporate a key scientific study into global climate talks in Poland have failed.
The IPCC report on the impacts of a temperature rise of 1.5C, had a significant impact when it was launched last October.
Scientists and many delegates in Poland were shocked as the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait objected to this meeting "welcoming" the report.
It was the 2015 climate conference that had commissioned the landmark study.
The report said that the world is now completely off track, heading more towards 3C this century rather than 1.5C.
Keeping to the preferred target would need "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society". If warming was to be kept to 1.5C this century, then emissions of carbon dioxide would have to be reduced by 45% by 2030.
The report, launched in Incheon in South Korea, had an immediate impact winning praise from politicians all over the world.
But negotiators here ran into serious trouble when Saudi Arabia, the US, Russia and Kuwait objected to the conference "welcoming" the document.
Instead they wanted to support a much more lukewarm phrase, that the conference would "take note" of the report.
Saudi Arabia had fought until the last minute in Korea to limit the conclusions of the document. Eventually they gave in. But it now seems that they have brought their objections to Poland.
The dispute dragged on as huddles of negotiators met in corners of the plenary session here, trying to agree a compromise wording.
None was forthcoming.
With no consensus, under UN rules the passage of text had to be dropped.
Many countries expressed frustration and disappointment at the outcome.
"It’s not about one word or another, it is us being in a position to welcome a report we commissioned in the first place," said Ruenna Haynes from St Kitts and Nevis.
"If there is anything ludicrous about the discussion it’s that we can’t welcome the report," she said to spontaneous applause.
Scientists and campaigners were also extremely disappointed by the outcome.
"We are really angry and find it atrocious that some countries dismiss the messages and the consequences that we are facing, by not accepting what is unequivocal and not acting upon it," said Yamide Dagnet from the World Resources Institute, and a former climate negotiator for the UK.
Others noted that Saudi Arabia and the US had supported the report when it was launched in October. It appears that the Saudis and the US baulked at the political implications of the UN body putting the IPCC report at its heart.
"Climate science is not a political football," said Camilla Born, from climate think tank E3G.
"All the world’s governments – Saudi included – agreed the 1.5C report and we deserve the truth. Saudi can’t argue with physics, the climate will keep on changing."
Many delegates are now hoping that ministers, who arrive on Monday, will try and revive efforts to put this key report at the heart of the conference.
"We hope that the rest of the world will rally and we get a decisive response to the report," said Yamide Dagnet.
"I sincerely hope that all countries will fight that we don’t leave COP24 having missed a moment of history."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46496967
The most significant sentence is :
The report, launched in Incheon in South Korea, had an immediate impact winning praise from politicians all over the world.
Precisely! It was never anything other than a report cranked out to satisfy a political agenda, as every other IPCC report has been.
Let’s now hope that the US, Russia, Saudi, Kuwait, and hopefully a few others back up this stance with positive to stop Katowice in its tracks. And send a message to the UN and its paid for cronies that the world is no longer falling for its shoddy science and impoverishing policies.
Trackbacks
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Let’s see. When the conference fails to get anywhere, that failure will be blamed on this absurd argument. And, as the US is one of the countries saying that the IPCC report be “noted”, the whole debacle will be blamed on the evil Trump. Meanwhile the big “developing” countries – China, India, South Korea, etc. – will be able to sit back, smile quietly, watch it all happen and continue to develop their economies by burning yet more fossil fuel.
Spot on, Robin!
And they will ignore the fact that – if it mattered at all – the US has reduced CO2 (I refuse to say ‘carbon’) more than any other country. If they had any belief in the urgency of the problem they would be taking a leaf out of Trump’s book and pushing for fracking wherever it can be practical.
Reblogged this on Roald J. Larsen.
After nearly fifty years of study scientists still haven’t discovered the correct relationship between CO2 and warming. In the past few years they have been trying to discover where all the predicted extra heat is hiding.
One wouldn’t find the ridiculous BBC reporting fairly and quoting a ‘real’ science article that mentions the word ‘hiatus’ –
“The new paper says lowering of the limit was partly “an effect of considering observations over the warming hiatus”. This refers to the last 15 years or so in which surface temperatures have risen slower than in past decades, even though we’re emitting greenhouse gases faster.”
Also it is just possible that the science community have been re-evaluating their models –
“…there’s a growing realisation in the scientific community that energy balance models may be oversimplified, says Gabriel Hegerl, professor of climate system science at the University of Edinburgh. Insights gained since the IPCC’s most recent report have led scientists to “query the simple model based estimates”, she tells Carbon Brief.”
https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-sensitivity-is-unlikely-to-be-less-than-2c-say-scientists
An amazing and stunning ability of those many so concerned about taking action are NOT able to see that taking action will do nothing about the climate but would decimate global economies if attempted.
Of course if decimating global economies is your plan …
It certainly was/is the plan of Christiana Figueres who wrote the UN garbage to replace capitalism with Marxist socialism. She is a member of Costa Rica’s National Liberation Party.
Erm, they do see that, they are hoping it will happen. Its nothing to do with ‘climate’ its all to do with wealth distribution and NWO.
Yes Jim… The leaders of the UN-funded IPCC have said so…
“But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy…One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy any more.”
—Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-chair of IPCC WG III, New American, Nov. 19, 2010
What is necessary is a more equal distribution of capitalism and liberty. The wealth will follow.
Obviously, a COP25 is needed.
http://sdg.iisd.org/events/unfccc-cop-25/
But just incase you can’t make that one. (Oh, Brazil & Costa Rica are interested in “hosting” it)
http://sdg.iisd.org/events/2020-un-climate-change-conference-unfccc-cop-26/
Then we’ve got
http://sdg.iisd.org/events/2021-un-climate-change-conference-unfccc-cop-27/
And!
http://sdg.iisd.org/events/2022-un-climate-change-conference-unfccc-cop-28/
“Climate science is not a political football,” said Camilla Born, from climate think tank E3G.
“All the world’s governments – Saudi included – agreed the 1.5C report and we deserve the truth. Saudi can’t argue with physics, the climate will keep on changing.”
So someone from a “climate think tank” wants to accept that, just because governments agreed to commission a report the conclusions must be accepted as “the truth”. Surely any body calling itself a think tank owes it to itself and others to apply some rigorous questioning of the results of a commissioned report? What happened to scientific scepticism?
I’m not aware that the Saudis are “arguing with physics”. The climate will keep on changing, as it always has, and we should use our best efforts to prepare for those changes, whether warming or cooling, drought or flood. Or, more probably, a major volcanic eruption and crop failures causing famine.
Meanwhile, what is actually needed is for us to realise the extent to which we are polluting the planet in a hundred different ways and do something about that now (such as pricing products to include a charge for the clean-up they will require).
A cause-and-effect relationship between mankind’s activities and climate change is irrelevant: we must do both of the above!
A good result. Highlights the fact that COP24 (and the rest) have little to do with science.
Political manipulation of science at the international level is a huge problem.
Saying the IPCC report should be ‘noted’ is just a polite way of saying they don’t take it seriously.
With any luck it may mean that fundamental failures in climate science are now being taken seriously.
1. The TCRE climate science procedure shows that global warming is driven by cumulative emissions
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/05/06/tcre/
That procedure also shows that global warming is driven by UFO visitations
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/03/tcruparody/
2. The ECS climate science procedure shows that atmospheric CO2 concentration drives surface temperature
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/15/climate-sensitivity-research/
That procedure also shows that atmospheric CO2 concentration drives the homicide rate
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/11/26/ecsparody/
Very Good. Yes UFOs are a more logical cause of GW than co2.
This is the 24th COP-OUT. There will be lots more COP-OUTs (I was taught it should be COPs-OUT) to keep 20,000+ people busy wasting money.
No, COP = Carry On Partying!
Ho Ho, perhaps they need an official body to regulate the conferences, COP-OFF?
Or set up a red/blue team situation, BAD-COP, GOOD-COP?
The only agreement the COP24 will arrive at is, to all meet up and talk another load of anti science cobblers: at the COP25
COP24 Cops out as Australia of all countries sits on it’s hands. Macron hiding under the bed as his country tears it’s self apart after lecturing Trump and the Saudi Crown Prince. These really are interesting times for the globalist climate cabal.
Irony escapes the people who attend these conferences then.
‘Attempts to incorporate a key scientific study into global climate talks in Poland have failed.’
Well then, Matty, it ain’t ‘key.’
Climate porn fiction ’50 shades of disaster’ ain’t scientific either!
“Climate science is not a political football,” said Camilla Born, from climate think tank E3G.
On the contrary, that’s all it is.
This is a bit long but it is the most sensible assessment of the green futility. i have ever come across. ( and its in a newspaper)
The Boston Globe
Arguable – with Jeff Jacoby
Monday, December 10, 2018
Don’t even think about banning fossil fuels
Yellow-jacketed protesters took to the streets of France en masse, roused by a hike in fuel taxes intended to curb carbon emissions.
In their drive to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, climate activists have for a long time been pushing hard to impose carbon taxes. Their goal is to drive up the cost of using fossil fuels, thereby forcing the public to switch to other forms of energy to heat their homes and commute to work.
But there’s a problem with carbon taxes: People hate them.
The ongoing Yellow Jacket protests in France are only the latest manifestation of widespread public opposition to attempts by “green” elites to penalize the use of petroleum. What triggered the protests, some of which escalated into reprehensible rioting, was a punitive new gasoline tax imposed by the government of Emmanuel Macron. The French president is a hardliner in the campaign to combat climate change by cracking down on fossil fuels. (More than a year ago he announced that France would do away with gasoline-powered vehicles altogether by 2040.) The new fuel taxes, he insisted superciliously, were essential to France’s decarbonizing mission, and the pain they caused was something drivers would simply have to live with.
But French drivers — especially those outside of Paris, for whom public transit, carpools, and hybrid engines are not a realistic alternative to driving existing cars and trucks — angrily objected. Gasoline in France already costs a staggering $6.50 a gallon; Macron’s tax would have driven that price even higher. A few days ago, after three weeks of increasingly widespread and fractious demonstrations, Macron backed down, suspending the fuel taxes that had generated such antagonism.
As the Wall Street Journal noted on its editorial page, it isn’t only in France that proposed carbon taxes draw public hostility:
The carbon tax revolt is world-wide. Voters in Washington State last month rejected a carbon tax that would have started at $15 per ton of emissions and climbed $2 a year indefinitely. Washington ranks 25th among American states in carbon emissions and when we tried to estimate its contribution to global emissions, our calculator couldn’t handle a number that small. Governor Jay Inslee and green activists nonetheless wanted voters to pay $2.3 billion in taxes over five years.
Ontario province in Canada is suing to block a federal carbon tax, and the issue could topple the Alberta government and perhaps Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Ontario Attorney General Caroline Mulroney warned that the federal tax grab “takes money from families’ pockets and makes job creators less competitive” . . . .
A carbon tax is in theory a more efficient way than regulation to reduce carbon emissions. But after decades of global conferences, forests of reports, dire television documentaries, celebrity appeals, school-curriculum overhauls and media bludgeoning, voters don’t believe that climate change justifies policies that would raise their cost of living and hurt the economy.
My own longstanding view is that the worldwide use of fossil fuels — oil, coal, and natural gas — is not something to be deplored, but celebrated. The carbon-based energy on which the modern world runs has generated an almost inconceivable amount of good and made human life far more comfortable, safe, and healthy than at any time in history. I don’t doubt that climate is changing — climate patterns are always in flux — but I am skeptical that climate change will lead to the world-shattering scenarios routinely described by alarmists in the media and elsewhere on the left.
At the same time, if climate change does turn out to pose serious environmental threats, wealthy societies will be best equipped to meet those threats — and without fossil fuels, no society can create the necessary wealth. A billion human beings, mostly in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, still have no access to electricity ; millions of men, women, and children die prematurely each year because the air in their homes is polluted from burning dirty fuels such as wood and dung. What those populations desperately need is affordable fossil fuels and the higher standard of living they make possible. Only after they pull themselves out of dire poverty will they be able to concentrate on broader environmental goals. That has always been the pattern: Until there is economic progress, there can be no progress on climate.
Meanwhile, the doomsayers continue to whip up terrors of imminent environmental catastrophe.
At the opening of the UN climate change summit now underway in Poland, the celebrity naturalist Sir David Attenborough warned that mankind is on the brink of apocalypse now:
“Right now we are facing a manmade disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change,” he intoned. “If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”
Does that sound familiar? Of course it does. It’s the way environmentalists have sounded for decades, always dialing the hysteria up to 11, always pushing the worst-case scenario, always reaching for the most hyperbolic rhetoric.
This shrillness serves a purpose. Back in 1989, the late Stephen Schneider, a professor of environmental biology at Stanford and the founder of the journal Climate Science, contended that such fearmongering was justified as a means of advancing the climate agenda:
“We are not just scientists but human beings as well,” he told an interviewer.
We’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. . . . Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.
And so the scary scenarios and simplified, dramatic forecasts proceed without letup, even as actual facts on the ground consistently fail to bear them out. The Himalayan glaciers were vanishing, the experts declared — wrongly, as it turned out. Sea levels would rise by 20 feet “in the near future,” Al Gore famously warned in 2006 — wrongly, as it turned out. The oceans are warming much faster than previously thought, scientists claimed earlier this year — wrongly, as it turned out.
An international conference of scientists and policymakers predicted in 2005 that the planet was just a decade away from global warming’s point of no return as measured in “widespread agricultural failure,” “increased disease,” and “the death of forests.” All of that, too, turned out to be wrong: The wails of the self-anointed Cassandras notwithstanding, food today is more plentiful than ever, human beings are living longer, and forests are healthier.
Indeed, by almost any objective yardstick you choose — education, homicide rates, famine, clean air, freedom, child labor, infant mortality, leisure time, global poverty, literacy — humanity is thriving as it has never thrived before. And all this progress has coincided not with a dramatic retreat from fossil fuels, but with the steep rise in the world’s reliance on carbon-based energy . Given that juxtaposition, is it really so obvious that eliminating carbon-dioxide emissions from the atmosphere should be mankind’s most important policy goal?
Climate alarmists remind me of immigration alarmists who link undocumented aliens with surging violence and crime. During the decades that illegal immigration was reaching new heights, violence and crime were falling to unprecedented levels. Yet nativist fearmongers, against all the evidence, have kept right on warning that unless unlawful immigration is forcibly halted, more and more Americans will become victims of homicide and rape.
In similar fashion, climate doomsayers continue to insist that unless radical steps are taken to reduce CO2 emissions, life on earth will grow ever more ominous and bleak. In reality, CO2 emissions have been growing for decades — and life on earth has been become safer, richer, cleaner, and healthier.
Energy from fossil fuels has led to dramatic gains in human progress over the past few generations. Isn’t it reasonable to conclude that forcibly suppressing the use of such energy will slow or reverse those gains? Hundreds of thousands of angry French residents certainly seem to think so. Green elites may be gung-ho for the war against carbon. The people know better.
The greens are ignoring the fact that Carbon Dioxide is the elixir of life for this planet. It is needed for photosynthesis, which produces all of our food. The increase in Carbon Dioxide concentration has increased crop yields. Can going from 0.02% to 0.08% concentration really destroy this planet, and is it really going to happen?
We need to get some good press for Carbon Dioxide.
I notice over on Notrickszone in the 1000 pages list of attendees that Guinea has over 400 while UK has 54 greenies led by a chap called Young. Who is he? Who is paying for this useless junket?
“Guinea has over 400”
only 3 delegates but big families..
The bottom of the BBC piece reads:
“Why you can trust BBC News”.
It should read:
“This is why you cannot trust BBC News”.
AR5 with Best Guess +1.5°C/2100 showed that the good scientists working with the IPCC were winning and the alarmists had lost. One and a half degrees is pretty much what sceptics would put down for S, the equilibrium climate response to a doubling of CO2. This is as close as we might expect warmists and sceptics to get. The American NCAR is thus heresy as it contradicts the forecasts of the Warmist Bible. That’s the angle to take on attack.
As Judith Curry has written https://judithcurry.com/2018/11/26/cagw-a-snarl-word/ there are two kinds of warmists. One kind reports the sober science. The other uses the vocabulary of climate science to make the wildest, scariest predictions imaginable, untainted by any actual science.
It’s bad enough that the good warmists are too scared to speak out against the abuses of their alarmist brethren, lest they be tarred and feathered and lynched by rabid mobs. It’s going to be up to us, the deniers, to reach out to the good scientists instead of condemning them wholesale as colluding in the global hoax. We’ve got the common ground. Let’s build on it.
Serendipitously, Dr Judith Curry has just published an article https://judithcurry.com/2018/12/12/cliff-mass-victim-of-academic-political-bullying/ about good warmist Cliff Mass being torn to pieces by the zombies for refusing to endorse climate lies.