Poor Nations Demand Money
By Paul Homewood
Developed countries including the UK face a legal claim of hundreds of billions of pounds to compensate poorer nations for damage from storms and rising seas caused by climate damage.
A coalition of island nations, led by Antigua and Barbuda and Tuvalu, is preparing to launch a case at the International Court of Justice in the Hague.
Early next year they plan to seek an advisory ruling that countries with high historical emissions are liable to pay compensation for the damage they suffer because of climate change. If it succeeds they will file claims.
They say that they have made little contribution to global warming and the “polluter pays” principle should apply.
Molwyn Joseph, environment minister of Antigua and Barbuda, who is representing the Alliance of Small Island States at Cop26, said that his islands faced worse hurricanes and were entitled to compensation, not charity. He said that after Hurricane Irma had caused damage totalling more than £170 million to Barbuda in 2017, his government had appealed for international aid but received only a fraction of the amount needed to rebuild. “When damage is done, experts must come in and do their assessment to establish liability,” he said.
Scientists are confident that they can link specific extreme weather events to climate change and show that they were made much more likely and severe by emissions caused by humans.
Campaigners have estimated that in 2030 vulnerable nations will need at least $300 billion to cover loss and damage due to climate change.
There is no trend in the number of hurricanes hitting Antigua:
https://hurricanecity.com/city/antigua.htm
Only two hurricanes have hit or brushed Antigua since 2000, compared to the long term average of one every 6 years:
And only one major hurricane since Luis in 1995:
And thanks to the western economic development which he decries, his people are better off than they have ever been:
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
This proposal takes the biscuit
Strange way to spell p*ss. 🙂
Quite
Perhaps they think there’s been a wind rush…
$$$$$ “to compensate poorer nations for damage from storms and rising seas caused by climate damage.”
Which climate was that? What 30 years? How much did the seas rise?
I suppose there will be claims for the destruction of Port Royal in 1694 by an earthquake and tsunami, and which has also suffered numerous hurricans since, followed by another earthquake in 1907.
Also who do we get compensation from for the Great Storm of 1703?
It might make an interesting precedent if they were to succeed. Presumably the rest of the world could then claim trillions of dollars from China for the damage done by Covid.
He sees western leaders throwing money around and thinks “we’ll have some of that if they’re that stupid”
Is there any chance that the BBC and the MSM will take any notice of this information? I fear not. They hate looking up records of weather events and prefer to live in the present – when any extreme event is “unprecedented”! Keep up the good work, Paul. There are too few of you around, it seems…
There ws a load of nonsense from the BBC this morning in the one news bulletin I happen to hear claiming that 68 million people a year die from heat, and that that number would increase as the climate warms – provably untrue.
Not one mention of the nmbe who die from cold each year!!!!!!
Assuming this ever gets to court then there is the small matter of proof – not global proof, but particular to the individual case. That could be interesting. PH could find himself fully employed as an expert witness. 🙂
Just imagine, the countries who have been banging the drum for CC will be in the doc because they haven’t paid for the damage done by ‘their’ CC: and those countries will now have to show that there is no CC that caused the plaintiffs’ problems. Oh dear.
If any country pays compensation to another, it would be and admission of responsibility and liability. Once this tap is opened, how could it be closed? When would enough compensation be deemed to have been paid? And who would decide what is “enough”? Compensation is a ruinous uncapped liability for any country foolish enough to place itself in this position. For these reasons, no fault should ever be accepted, and no payment should ever be made.
Another point is the failure of developing countries to acknowledge any benefit whatsoever for the past endeavours of the more developed countries. Humankind has a wealth of knowledge and technology available today. This is available to the developing countries, without requiring the cost and risks of knowledge being re-acquired, or technology being re-invented. We may have some sympathy for countries who genuinely struggle to afford all this knowledge and technology, but how about some credit for the more developed countries having obtained it in the first place!
In UN climate speak it is called loss and damage. Scotland just became the first to specifically pay into a loss and damage fund, so the tap is officially open.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59206814
I would like to understand how any of this can be enforced. Are these islands going to impose sanctions on the west? Perhaps boycott goods and services? Perhaps they’ll declare war on us. Or will the Hague marshal Xi and Putin to march across Europe to seize reparation on behalf of these islands?
This is a joke that would go on legally for 100 years benefitting no one but the legal professions and the bureaucrats in an ever expanding merry go round of litigation.
Defence Exhibit #1:
1780 Atlantic hurricane season
” … The 1780 Atlantic hurricane season ran through the summer and fall in 1780. The 1780 season was extraordinarily destructive, and was the deadliest Atlantic hurricane season in recorded history with over 28,000 deaths. Four different hurricanes, one in June and three in October, caused at least 1,000 deaths each”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1780_Atlantic_hurricane_season
Defence Exhibit #2:
Great Hurricane of 1780
” … the deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record. An estimated 22,000 people died throughout the Lesser Antilles when the storm passed through the islands from October 10–16.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hurricane_of_1780
Physics at work! Energy is derived from the difference between highest and lowest temperature, not from a highish temperature alone.
Since IIRC most of the warming is taking place in the Northern latitudes, the the temperature difference between the tropics and Arctic should be less and thus lead to fewer or weaker hurricans. Is this correct?
Irrespective of the true facts i like their style.
The West hoist by its own petard –
“Scientists are confident that they can link specific extreme weather events to climate change and show that they were made much more likely and severe by emissions caused by humans.”
Hang on, Are we not being constantly told “the science is settled”?
A fatuous and arrogant statement given that there exists no statistically significant empirical data of any kind to support what they claim and they know it! To be able to “link” there must be statistically significant empirical data supporting that link and it would be the most famous data in the world! With that non existent data they should be able to demonstrate quantitatively “how much but no, they speak as if quantitative data exists and then draw qualitative conclusions!
There is no statistically significant empirical data of any kind to : 1. Link CO2 to global warming. 2. to link CO2 liberated by man back into the Carbon Cycle from where it was locked away to global warming and 3. there is zero empirical data to support the much repeated and unfounded claim that warmer weather means more bad weather. The reality is the opposite and we have empirical data drawn from history to tell us that (as well as physics which does not like to see any of the Laws of Thermodynamics trashed without empirical data based compelling evidence.
So, my reply to that asinine statement is NO! Who ever these “scientists” are they should be censured immediately because science is NOT about forcing data (models) towards a pre ordained conclusion. I suppose they would argue they are only following the lead of the IPCC and copying their trashing of the Scientific Method. That is the politicisation of science.
Even though the IPCC framing documentation is an attack on the fundamental premises of science, namely that they began with a conclusion, that man is responsible for global warming now let’s prove it. (There are few if any proofs in science only weight of supporting evidence for a hypothesis which tomorrow may be completely replaced by data supporting a completely different thesis)- Real science means only after data has been gathered using a falsifiable methodology can those responsible look at what conclusions can be drawn from it start from a conclusion and they must then not impose any preconceived idea on the data.
Also this maggot ridden can of worms called reparations (who cares about cause…slavery, inequality, dreamed up klymutt chaenje as long as we can get some easy cash to waste/steal) is gathering momentum and oh what a surprise, it is the much to be relied on marxists in socialists clothing who are running with it. Have you noticed that Western Civilization is reeling already from body blow after body blow. The intention here and make no mistake is to make Western Society collapse. Beyond that, those who would wish it have no plan.
I suspect such a court case may not be quite as likely as some may think. Imagine what happens when they LOSE?
Pop goes the ‘man made warming drives extreme weather’ theory.
Michael Mann won’t go into the same court as Mark Steyn for a very good reason.
Always assuming that appropriate jurisdiction can be determined it will be fascinating and not a little amusing to watch the nations which are the target of the suits scrambling to uncover the information which contradicts the claims. We can help with that, can’t we?
I assume demanding money under false representation is still an offence?
It was always about money.
‘A coalition of island nations, led by Antigua and Barbuda and Tuvalu, is preparing to launch a case at the International Court of Justice in the Hague.’
I hope they win. I hope the court gives them a trillion dollar judgement.
“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
Your government* deserves to be shot in the ass.
*Yeah, mine too.
The BBC News report had David Shukman telling us more people are vulnerable to extreme weather.
That is undeniably true as in 1970’s there were 4 billion of us there are now 7.9 billion of us. That bit of information got overlooked in his earnest award winning piece of journalism.
The remarkable fact is far less people are dying of extreme weather events even though they are more vulnerable. That bit got missed as well.
So in response to this lack of any existential crisis the leaders of the world are going for a really expensive net zero emissions policy that paradoxically will make even more people vulnerable to extreme weather.
In general, human emissions of carbon increase at an average of 0.5 bt/yr (billion tonnes/year); the current rate of increase for total carbon in the atmosphere is approx. 4.25 bt/yr; thus, Mother Nature is increasing carbon at seven to eight times the human increase, even assuming all such carbon remains in the atmosphere.
I am yet to see any mention at COP26 of how the powers that be plan to curtail Mother Nature’s annual vastly greater emissions increase. Without any such achievement, global warming (we could do with some of that right now down here!) in climate change will continue on its merry way – rather like the outcome of the prophecies from King Canute’s expert advisers.
Not sure i get this but your saying the earths natural carbon emission rate is 4.25Bt/pa but presumably this is what the planet naturally absorbs? So climate lot are saying human actions is adding 0.5Bt/pa that is in excess of what is naturally absorbed?
Anyhow what research has been done into how the plant kingdom responds to higher CO2 concentration ie do plants absorb more carbon in this situation?
I’m referring to the rate of increase of carbon not the addition of carbon to the atmosphere – that is acceleration not velocity. With an accelerated increase considerably greater for Mother Nature, even a zero man-made acceleration yet alone velocity would have almost zero effect on temperatures; the quest should be to slow Mother Nature’s output, about which little is said, not surprisingly.
So what is mother natures main contributors?
Sea water contributes some 80%, much of the remainder from increased plant growth.
“Scientists are confident they can link…”
That’s the people writing the papers that link events. So of course they are confident. But as others have shown conclusively, their methodology is fatally flawed.
Of course these countries are asking for money due to ‘Climate Change’.
The West tell the world that sea levels are increasing and they promised developing countries money to combat ‘Climate Change’, why wouldn’t they demand what was promised?
The mainstay of their economies is tourism, generated by us becoming wealthy and flying.
Is this a case of the not so stupid suing the totally stupid? Follow the money…..
Hoist by their own petard! Developed countries decide to declare an emergency, developing countries decide to cash in!
If the debate on global warming finally gets into the courts, would that not be a good thing. Isn’t that what supports of Paul’s views want to happen? However, I am not holding my breath.
Courts tend to avoid science, because they have no knowledge of it.
Paradoxically, politicians have no knowledge of science, either, but that doesn’t stop them from diving in.
They need to check their own weather history, for example the hurricanes of 1848 and 1871:
Click to access A.J.%20Berland%20Thesis%202015.pdf
The Age of Imperialism is looking better and better as time goes on.