Climate Change: Why Does Matt McGrath Still Not Get It?

By Paul Homewood

 

h/t Robin Guenier

 

The BBC have given great prominence to this absurd video from Matt McGrath, who has spent the last decade spouting global warming propaganda without ever giving even a thought to a bit of objectivity:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-46496140/climate-change-why-are-governments-taking-so-long-to-take-action

 

This is the BBC blurb for the video:

Climate change: Why are governments taking so long to take action?

A UN conference is being held in Poland to discuss how the world is going to stop climate change.

Last month a report by leading climate scientists found progress is way off track, and the world is heading towards 3C of warming this century rather than 1.5C.

With the impacts of climate change already being felt in severe weather events like floods and wildfires, why is it taking so long to take action?

The BBC’s Matt McGrath explains what needs to happen to speed things up.

 

Poor Matt McGrath looks genuinely puzzled and can’t understand why governments are not doing anything “to save the planet”.

He still seems to think that this was all sorted out at Paris. This was what he wrote at the time:

 

I’m not a fan of hyperbole, but it would be churlish to say the adoption of the Paris Agreement was anything other than a globally, historic moment.

This carefully worded document that balances the right of countries to develop with the need to protect the planet is a truly world changing instrument.

It sets out, for the first time, a global approach to a problem of humanity’s own making: the recent rapid warming of the Earth that science says is mainly down to the use of fossil fuels.

The deal sets out a firm goal of keeping temperature rises well below 2C, and will strive for 1.5C.

This is no easy task as researchers say that this year 2015, the world has gone through 1C above pre-industrial levels.

It also sets out a means of getting there. It’s a little convoluted in terms of language, but that’s what you get when you try and get 196 parties to agree to a plan of action.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35085758

 

Those of us why actually bothered to read the Paris Agreement, analysed the various countries’ pledges, and worked out the numbers quickly realised that Paris was no more than a virtue signalling sham.

Whilst all of the world’s leaders beamed in front of the cameras and put their names to the meaningless and non binding goal of 2C, the Agreement changed little in practice, and simply kicked the can down the road. Business as usual in other words.

Even the Paris Agreement noted that, even if all of the pledges made were carried out, emissions would carry on rising up to 2030.

Just as importantly most ordinary people around the world have little interest in climate scares and have much more serious problems to worry about in their lives.

In this latest video he witters on about the “effects of climate change that we are already seeing” – floods, wildfires, heatwaves (all either fake or irrelevant). Then says there are three things needed to speed up action:

• More money for poorer countries
• Greater transparency, so richer countries can check what the rest are doing.
• Greater ambition – quicker, deeper cuts in emissions now from the richer countries.

This however shows that McGrath still fundamentally fails to understand what has been going on.

There is zero chance that developed countries will cough up $100bn a year, which was set only as a “goal” in the Copenhagen Accord,  itself only a non-binding “political agreement”.

The Paris Agreement did not alter anything agreed at Copenhagen in this respect for a very good reason. Western governments don’t have this sort of money lying around, and certainly would not get voters’ agreement to hand it over to the UN.

Greater transparency is largely irrelevant. But it is the last item which really shows up McGrath’s lack of understanding. OECD emissions of CO2 only account for 37% of global ones, and this share will continue to fall as the developing world continue to grow theirs. If global emissions are to fall drastically and quickly all countries need to act.

The idea that China, India or a host of smaller countries will abandon plans to develop their economies as soon as they see the West commit economic hari kari is perfectly ludicrous.

If Matt McGrath really wants to see a rapid reduction in emissions, he needs to turn his attention to China, India and the wealthy oil states of the Middle East – all of whom are nonsensically still regarded as “developing countries”.

There is another problem which McGrath seems unaware of. Fossil fuels still account for 85% of the world’s energy, and with nuclear and hydro power unlikely to grow much the world has no alternative to carry on relying intensively on oil, gas and coal. Put simply, no other alternatives can replace them with the current state of technology.

 

McGrath’s partner in crime, Roger Harrabin, often writes about how renewable energy sources are now competitive with fossil fuels, and how this would lead to nirvana anyway, regardless of Trump or the Paris Agreement.

However, McGrath’s desperation, evident in his latest video, gives the lie to this. As does his insistence that richer countries hand over huge amounts of ransom money every year. Renewable energy remains little more than a niche market, expensive, unreliable and utterly incapable of running modern, industrialised economies.

 

One would expect the BBC News website to actually feature news items. Yet every day, it seems, another piece of barely disguised climate propaganda appears on it.