By Peter Burrows elburropete@gmai.com - silvercityburro.com 12/20/19
What would you think if Congress sent everybody in Grant County to Madrid for two weeks to solve the world’s climate “crisis,” and the most significant thing we agreed upon was that we’d do it all over again next year in Glasgow, Scotland? A waste of money, ya think?
I’m alluding to a United Nations climate conference that just concluded, called COP25, officially known as “the 25th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP25) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),” which took place in Madrid, Spain, December 2-15.
OK, I cheated a little, because the conference had “only” 27,000 attendees and Grant County has about 29,000 people. If I had said, “able-bodied adult Grant Countians,” it would have been closer. Regardless, you get the idea.
Some of you really smart folks are thinking, “OMG, Burro, does COP ‘25’ mean they have been doing this for TWENTY-FIVE years!?!?”
Actually, a little longer. The first UN climate conference was in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, 27 years ago. The Conference of the Parties (COP) nomenclature began in 1995, and refers to the 165 nations—the parties—that signed on to the UNFCCC. That leaves 28 UN member nations that didn’t sign, probably because they couldn’t afford to send delegations off to party down someplace new every year.
That’s being a little unfair to those attendees who sincerely believe the UN can do something to curb global greenhouse gas emissions, but, after 27 years of failing to do that, a cynic could be forgiven for thinking the word “exhausted” in the following BBC summary of COP25 is just a euphemism for “hung over.” The following is slightly edited, my caps:
“COP25: Longest climate talks end with compromise deal By Matt McGrath, BBC Environment correspondent, Madrid, 15 December 2019: Difficult issues proved impossible to resolve in Madrid. The longest UN climate talks on record ended in Madrid with a compromise deal. Exhausted delegates reached agreement on the key question of increasing the global response to curbing carbon. All countries will need to put new climate PLEDGES on the table by the time of the NEXT major conference in Glasgow NEXT YEAR. Divisions over other questions—including carbon markets—were delayed until the NEXT gathering. ---After two extra days and nights of negotiations, delegates finally agreed to a deal that will see new, improved carbon cutting plans on the table by the time of the Glasgow conference NEXT YEAR.”
I can confidently predict next year’s COP will have similar results. This is because, even if the climate alarmists are correct, it will still be in the developing nations’ best interest to expand electricity production as fast as possible by the cheapest means possible, which means burning more and more coal. If you are an Indian without electricity, you really don’t give a damn about Greta Thunberg’s feelings, do you? Or, for that matter, do you care if Manhattan is under water?
To put the matter into perspective, India is the world’s fourth largest CO2 emitter, at about 7% of global emissions. (China is about 30%, the U.S. 15%, and the EU 9%.) India emits about half of what the U.S. emits, but India has four times the population. To get to only one-half the per capita level of the U.S. would be an increase equal to 150% of today’s total U.S emissions. We couldn’t offset India’s growth even if we wanted to. Add China, Africa, and Southeast Asia and you get the picture.
Some of you may be thinking, “But Burro, we can institute a world-wide ‘cap-and-trade' policy that would give developed nations incentives to reduce their per capita CO2 emissions.” In fact, cap-and-trade has been part of the UN effort since COP3 in Kyoto, way back in 1997. Developed nations were given Assigned Amount Units, AAUs, representing allowed CO2 emissions, and Certified Emission Reductions, CERs, were created as marketable certificates representing CO2 reductions achieved. Real simple, right?
Here’s a blurb I got from CFACT on COP25: “The big COP breakdown was over something called "Article 6" which deals with international carbon markets. Australia refused to give up past carbon credits and was joined by Brazil which shut the whole thing down.” The “past carbon credits” referred to Kyoto-era CERs and AAUs. The bottom line is that the UN has been trying to figure out how to make cap-and-trade work since 1997, to no avail.
Here’s a headline that sums it up: “The Cap and Trade Market Is Going Global—If Politics Are Put Aside" By Renae Reints Fortune Magazine December 14, 2019.” IF politics can be put aside?? That’s kind of like saying you can fly off the top of the Empire State Building if you can get your arms to move up-and-down fast enough. For those of you who want to get into the weeds on the problems with the UN cap-and-trade, here’s another interesting article:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop25-key-outcomes-agreed-at-the-un-climate-talks-in-madrid
All this COP nonsense proves that government bureaucracies are, as Ronald Reagan said, “the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth.” What’s especially outrageous is that almost everybody knows that COP’s mission is impossible to achieve. The idea was that nations would agree to cut carbon emissions enough to prevent global temperatures from rising by 1.5 -2 degrees centigrade by 2100.
That may have seemed feasible in 1992, not so today. In fact, greenhouse gas emissions are actually increasing at an accelerating rate, according to the climate alarmist in the video below, Dr. Peter Carter. (A medical type of doctor.) He is confident this will lead to a “biosphere collapse,” which will mean the “destruction of the earth” and “the end of humanity.”
I strongly recommend you watch the 23-minute video. I enjoyed it very much and agree with Dr. Carter that “nothing good is ever going to come out of these COPs,” and that we will never reduce emissions enough to make a difference. Trump had the good sense to pull the U.S. out of the agreements reached at COP21, held in Paris, the “Paris agreement” we hear so much about.
I think it’s all nonsense, but what if Dr. Carter is right? Then there is nothing we can do. If he is wrong, there is nothing we should do. What if he is right, but off by 50-100 years? Then there are two things we can do: research CO2 sequestration and develop cheap, safe nuclear power. That makes a lot more sense than subsidizing wind mills, solar panels and Tesla cars.
12/18/19 You Tube, 23-min, Dr. Peter Carter at COP25 = we are doomed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa13KrOvE2s
This article supports the above and also gives a good summary of new coal projects = we are doomed: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/19/biosphere-collapse/