As I write this, the word is beginning to seep through from Copenhagen that a political agreement of some kind has been signed that doesn’t look as though it is worth the paper its written on. It will probably be days before we know what all the spin really adds up to, but the expressions on the faces of politicians and reporters alike would seem to tell a tale of woe.
In the meantime there is one aspect of what has happened over the last two weeks that is worth bearing in mind, and it should be deeply worrying for sceptics and warmists alike. A brief excursion back into history is useful to put this into perspective.
During the 19th Century, some of what are now called the developed countries exported more than just cheap manufactured goods to what have come to be known as the developing countries. Tens of thousands of missionaries left our shores and took the Bible to distant lands. In return for faith in the one true God they offered everlasting life, basic schooling, medical care and cast off western clothes. This was enough to persuade the recipients that it was worth giving up their old beliefs and customs, often with disastrous consequences.
Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, a new breed of evangelists has gone forth to the developing nations carrying – not the Good Book – but the reports of the IPCC.
For the indigenous populations of the countries they visit, espousing this novel faith has similar advantages to espousing the old one. Redemption is offered in return for believing in a new credo, or at least pretending to do so, and with this comes a promise of great bounty. Admittedly the sins that are to be redeemed are not those of the new converts who, in the eyes of the evangelists, are innocent victims of others profligacy. The blame for climate change is laid firmly at the door of the developed countries, who have spewed Co2 into the atmosphere as their economies have grown. The victims have been too poor, for too long, to take a share in the blame. Furthermore, the faithful now have reason to blame almost any natural disaster that afflicts them on anthropogenic global warming.
Agreement at Copenhagen was not thwarted just by rich countries that are reluctant to cut Co2 emissions. Poor countries have demanded that cuts in Co2 emissions should be sufficient to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 oC , or even 1oC, thus emasculating the economies of the developed countries. The prosperous nations, understandably, are not prepared to consider a figure below 2oC .
These demands are entirely justified in the fantastic world of climate change politics. For years now the prophets of the IPCC have been telling anyone who will listen that the consequences of global warming will impact most severely on the least industrialised nations, with visions of mass starvation, mass migration, wars over water, and just about any other pestilence that you can think of. None of this is now considered to be caused by natural phenomena or bad luck. It is believed to be the fault of the rich nations that have polluted the atmosphere while everyone else was too poor to do so. This explains the other sticking point at Copenhagen.
Ever since the Bali climate summit, two years ago, there have been plans for the developed countries to provide financial aid to the developing countries so that, as their economies grow, their greenhouse gas emissions can be limited. But a new element has entered the equation at Copenhagen. Those who think that they are already suffering as a result of global warming are now using words like ‘compensation’ and ‘reparations’. Sums running into hundreds of billions of dollars per year are being demand by the developing countries. They blame the profligacy of the industrialised world for problems that they are now convinced are not natural hazards at all, but the result of human activity. And of course the holy writ of the IPCC informs them that things can only get worse as the 21st Century progresses.
It has taken a great deal of effort to spread the doctrine of human caused climate change to every corner of the globe, but it looks as though we have succeeded. The developing nations have really got the message, no doubt about that. Now they are using their new-found wisdom in a way that few had anticipated. Their demands are too onerous to be met, and the only way for the developed countries to duck what the developing countries see as a moral responsibility to atone for environmental havoc wreaked on them may be to cast doubt on the pronouncements of the IPCC.
We live in interesting times.
Update: Apologies to anyone who tried to plough through this post in the very rough form in which it appeared last night. I have now corrected it.
I can do no better here than quote from Robert Mugabe, the heroic, beleaguered president of a vulnerable nation oppressed by the carbon polluters of the West:
“When these capitalist gods of carbon burp and belch their dangerous emissions, it’s we, the lesser mortals of the developing sphere who gasp and sink and eventually die.”
“Why is the guilty North not showing the same fundamentalist spirit it exhibits in our developing countries on human rights matters on this more menacing threat of climate change?”
“When a country spits on the Kyoto Protocol by seeking to shrink from its diktats, or by simply refusing to accede to it, is it not violating the global rule of law?”
And here’s the bottom line: “We who bear the burden of healing the gasping earth must draw the most from the global purse for remedial action.”
Further comment from me would be superfluous.
Well put. They have made a stick that will beat us all.
I have a horrid fantasy that as the globe cools and the North slips into an Ice Age of whatever duration, the ‘South’ will prosper and spit in our faces.
I understand Brown shared food with Mugabe – must have been an interesting meal.
You’re certainely right there, Tony. We do live in interesting times.
Thought this was an interesting slant on things, falls short of Monckton’s raving about a world government, but Bali, Poznan and now Copenhagen have woken the people up if not to the illegitimacy of the whole chararde, then at least to the toothlessness of the UN
but http://agwfraud.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/dopenhagens-meaningful-deal/
3rd world countries remind me of those children who are in their 40s and still living at home with mum and dad.
I guess the word is infantilised. They are addicted to AID handouts – just like the stay-at-homes only like their own mum’s cooking and rely on dad to help with any grown-up stuff like getting ice off the car.
This is effectively keeping them on benefit rather than allowing them to develop and become fully functioning countries.
This letter from Greenpeace shows the false and refutable beliefs based loosely on An Inconvenient Truth, which are re-cycled ad infinitum and re-inforced by the constant output from institutions such as the Tyndall Centre and its German twin, the Potsdam Centre.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/open-letter-barack-obama-20091216
As Tony says, the facade of global warming has been long in the making and it will not be easily torn down. Hopefully the edifice is now starting to crumble with the CRU leaks.
TonyN
Thanks for lead post.
Closing Press Briefing on United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
http://unfccc.int/2860.php
Key points:
· The accord is not legally binding
· Objective to keep the maximum temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius.
The objective should be quite easy to reach.
We have not seen any extended period so far with an increase as high as 0.2°C per decade (the highest was around 0.17°C per decade in the last two decades of the 20th century).
The first decade of the 21st century is not quite over yet, but it has shown a decline in temperature at a rate of 0.1°C per decade.
So we have 9 decades left to reach 2.1°C, which means the current cooling has to reverse and we need to warm by an unprecedented 0.23°C per decade for the next ninety years to reach the 2°C “commitment” by the year 2100.
Sounds like staying below 2°C increase is a slam-dunk with no carbon tax or cap and trade even needed.
Looks like the Copenhagen Climate Conference resolved the AGW issue (thanks to U.S. President Obama?).
In addition, it spread the AGW message globally (as you point out) and showed the world what the real strong AGW advocates (on the streets of Copenhagen) are really like.
Truly a win-win situation and a great success.
Max
Max, Reur #6:
Hang-on a minute, didn’t Obama declare, concerning the accord, that it had been:
“a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough”
Followed by some more thinking hesitation I guess: Did I say that?….yep that’s good, and to make sure to the world, again:
“a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough”
Yep, something that should be said twice!
Bob_FJ
“a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough”
OK. Mrs. Max alerts me to the fact that the toilet is plugged (first time, as far as I can remember).
I get the plunger and unplug it, so that water can flow through it again.
Mrs. Max is happy.
Would you call this:
a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough?
Max
Bob_FJ
Are you sure it wasn’t on the teleprompter twice?
Max
Does anyone know whether there really is such a thing as a ‘Copenhagen Accord’? The UN, EU, and UK are certainly spinning that there is, but so far as I am aware only a very small number of countries signed a piece of paper bearing that name that was slapped on the table at the last moment by the US. The other nations have only ‘noted’ it, which is a very different thing in diplomatic terms, so far as I am aware, from signing up.
Tony, I don’t think anyone agreed to anything as far as I can see. And it appears as if the UK delegation was the only one from a major industrialised nation willing to give everything away, where as the US and others were trying to con the third world (developing nations)into giving up any hope of improving their std of living by accepting only expensive power.
They are all just beyond foolish as the argue over half a degree of temperature rise. Do they really take us for being that foolish?
In October, when he addressed the Major Economies Forum, Gordon Brown said,
In other words, Copenhagen was the last chance to tackle climate change. But yesterday, he described the non-binding, feebly worded, virtually meaningless “accord” as a “necessary first step”. So that’s OK then.
Gordon went on and on about a legally binding agreement, in other words “something for him to hide behind” whilst he increased taxes to extract him from the mess he has got the economy into.
He is going to spin Copenhagen like nothing has been spun before in the hope that we all swallow “climate Change” and the need to “lead the world” or indeed save the world. The man is delusional.
In fact I can’t recall seeing one news item of him in Copenhagen. Is this an indication of how irrelevant he has become.
I posted this on the NS thread (8682). Perhaps it should have been here:
Here’s an example of the utter insanity to which world leaders have committing us as a result of the Kyoto treaty, renewed at Copenhagen last week – [arguably the real purpose of the conference].
The massive Indian conglomerate, Tata – currently putting British steel workers on the dole by closing its steel works at Redcar – is to get, as well as cheap international loans, over £500M’s worth of “carbon credits” (paid for, inter alia, by energy companies in the UK) to develop a new project in Gujarat.
What is this worthy project?
Well, it’s a giant coal-fired power station – which alone (and Tata is building more such plants) will increase India’s CO2 emissions by over 600 million tons. It will be one of the biggest such power stations in the world. It qualifies for credits (which incidentally are making entrepreneurs such as Al Gore very rich) because, using what is claimed to be efficient coal burning technology, it is expected to produce fewer emissions than it would have done had it used older technology. The reality, of course, is that, using the Greens’ number one enemy coal, it will massively increase India’s overall CO2 emissions.
Yet the Indian plant will use the same technology as the UK’s Kingsnorth plant so vilified by the Greens (and James Hansen) even though, were it allowed to go ahead, that plant would be obliged to increase its operating costs by buying those wonderful carbon credits in return for being allowed to operate.
And the Indian plant will be four times bigger than Kingsnorth – as will other similar plants in India.
The inhabitants of the 3rd world are not the same as their leaders. I doubt if the average african bean farmer reads blogs or even newspapers. I would not be surprised if they have not even heard of “climate change”.
Their leaders have always had a pan-handling mindset – so there is no change there.