Charles Moore of the Telegraph has long been one of the towering figures of the mainstream media. In Donald Trump has the courage and wit to look at ‘green’ hysteria and say: no deal (see also at GWPF, Notalotofpeopleknowthat and Tallbloke) he understands not only the impact of Trump withdrawing from the climate agreement on future global emissions, but recognizes that two other major developed countries – Germany and Japan – whilst committed to reduce their emissions and spending lots of money on renewables are also investing heavily in coal. So without climate policy, the United States is reducing its emissions, but with climate commitments, emissions in Japan and Germany are increasing their emissions. However, there is one slight inaccuracy in Charles Moore’s account. He states
As for “Paris”, this is failing, chiefly for the reason that poorer countries won’t decarbonise unless richer ones pay them stupendous sums.
It is worse than this. Many of the poorer countries have not said they will decarbonize. Rather they have said that they will use the money to reduce emissions relative to a business as usual scenario.
Take Pakistan’s INDC. In 2015 they estimate emissions were 405 MtCO2e, up from 182 in 1994. As a result of ambitious planned economic growth, they forecast a BAU of 1603 MtCO2e in 2030. However, they can reduce that by 20% with about $40 billion in finance. That is, with $40bn, average annual emissions growth from 2015-2030 will still be twice that of 1994-2015. Plus Pakistan would like $7-$14bn pa for adaptation to climate change. The INDC Table 7 summarizes the figures.
Or Bangladesh’s INDC. Estimated BAU increase in emissions from 2011 to 2030 is 264%. They will unconditionally cut this by 5% and conditionally by a further 15%. The BAU is 7.75% annual emissions growth, cut to 7.5% unconditionally and 6% with lots of finance. The INDC Table 7 summarizes the figures.
I do not blame either country for taking such an approach, or the many others adopting similar strategies. They are basically saying that they will do nothing that impedes trying to raise living standards through high levels of sustained economic growth. They will play the climate change game, so long as nobody demands that Governments compromise on serving the best interests of their peoples. If only the Government’s of the so-called developed nations would play similar games, rather than impose useless burdens on the people they are supposed to be serving.
There is another category of countries that will not undertake to reduce their emissions – the OPEC members. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Kuwait, UAE and Qatar have all made submissions. Only Iran gives a figure. It will unilaterally cut emissions by 4% against BAU. With the removal of “unjust sanctions” and some financial assistance and technology transfer it conditional offer would be much more. But nowhere is the BAU scenario stated in figures. The reason these OPEC countries will not play ball is quite obvious. To achieve the IPCC objective of constraining warming to 2°C according to McGlade and Ekins 2015 (The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2°C) would mean leaving 75% of proven reserves of fossil fuels in the ground and all of the unproven reserves. I did an approximate breakdown by major countries last year, using the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2016.
It does not take a genius to work out that meeting the 2°C climate mitigation target would shut down a major part of the economies of fossil fuel producing countries in about two decades. No-one has proposed either compensating them, or finding alternatives.
But the climate alarmist community are too caught up in their Groupthink to notice the obvious huge harms that implementing global climate mitigation policies would entail.
ManicBeancounter 