Paris pantomime reaches final act
The Paris COP21 farce is now entering its final act.
As predicted by Josh, stage 5 has now been reached, with some reports of deadlock between developed and developing nations. The next stage of the corny melodrama will be the long, agonising extension of the deadlines, followed at last by the triumphant announcement that the planet has been saved from certain doom.
A draft statement has been produced, full of self-righteous rhetoric, phrases such as “Recognizing the intrinsic relationship between climate change, poverty eradication and equitable access to sustainable development,” and “Noting the needs and integrity of terrestrial ecosystems, oceans and Mother Earth,” but nothing of any substance seems to have been agreed.
The BBC’s Cardinal Harrabin was on form this morning on the Today programme, surpassing himself with delusional exaggeration, starting with “Negotiators here are in effect discussing the shape of a new world order” and ending with the declaration that “Delegates have 36 hours to start re-shaping the way the world sees itself”. Sadly for Roger, someone at BBC News clearly doesn’t agree with him about the earth-shattering nature of his news story, as it was placed well down the order.
A little later in the programme, Harrabin said “What we’re trying to do in Paris, the delegates are trying to do, is to codify the shape of a changing world”. A bit of a slip, but it removes any doubt over whether he’s a serious professional journalist or an agenda-promoting activist.
This was an introduction to a fawning interview with the President of Kiribati, discussed at Bishop Hill. As with a previous BBC piece, the misleading impression was given that the islands are about to disappear under the sea – despite the fact that an earlier BBC article reported the opposite, that many Pacific islands are growing rather than shrinking.
Donna Laframboise is in Paris and reports on COP21’s Green Gibberish. Do read her post, and see whether you can tell the difference between the devout witterings of Elle magazine, the Air France COP21 magazine, and the equally profound statements generated by the New Age Bullshit Generator.
There is much talk of meaningless targets. Just a few weeks ago, the theme was that the 2C meaningless target was unachievable. So the great new idea is to come up with an even more meaningless and unachievable target of 1.5C. The Canutery here reminds me of Geoff’s Silly Cnut post. As discussed earlier, it’s all about virtue-signalling. See Blair King’s excellent post on A case against the empty symbolism of the 1.5C climate change goal.
I’ll leave the final words to Peter Cook: “The war’s not going very well you know … we need a futile gesture at this stage”.
Climate Scepticism 
I was wondering, what’s the target temperature we are supposed to be wishing for? I never see that number anywhere. Something like 17 or 18 degrees C?
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Predictable in three intracrable dimensions.
1. US constitution will not permit a binding agreement (no chance of Senate ratification). Yet China will not permit the main alternative, transparent outside scoring of INDCs.
2. Developed world wants less ‘differentiation’ (developing world gets a pass). India and China will not agree.
3. Developed world unwillingness to fund Green Climate Fund extortion ($100 billion/year by 2020), yet Group of 77 unwilling to do much without the Copenhagen spawned bribe.
Hard to see where Josh’s last minute compromise(s) will come from this time around.
Of course, none of it matters because observational sensitivity is settling between 1.5 and 1.7, not the modeled 3-3.4. The pause has already falsified both the CMIP5 models and anthropogenic CO2 attribution. Sea level rise is not accelerating. Arctic ice is undergoing cyclic recovery. Planet is greening. All good news in the real world. Bad news only for the warmunist faithful.
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Apparently there is a new version of the “agreement”.
https://t.co/teCBN0SqYY
As far as I can see it contains nothing concrete whatsoever. On twitter some people are saying it is weaker than the previous version.
There was a brief mention on the BBC news at 10. David Shukman said that the document had been watered down.
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This morning BBC Radio 4 interviewed Naomi Klein – introducing her as one of the most respected climate commentators, and giving a plug for her book on destroying capitalism. She said that there are enough loopholes in the draft agreement to drive an SUV through.
John Humphrys: It seems they’ve done a deal at the climate talks in Paris, a deal that will limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees above what it was at the start of the industrial revolution. So does that mean we can sleep more easily in our beds? Well not according to Naomi Klein, one of the most respected voices in this debate. She’s written a book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism Versus The Climate, and she’s on the line from Paris, good morning to you.
Naomi Klein: Good morning.
John Humphrys: You are, I think fair to say, deeply sceptical about this.
Naomi Klein: I am, based on the draft text that was released last night. I’ve been reading it and there are enough loopholes in it to drive a gas-guzzling SUV through them. You said that it’s going to keep temperatures below 2 degrees
but let me quote some of it. It actually say that parties ‘will pursue efforts’ to limit the temperature increase, in this case to 1.5 degrees, what does that mean, pursue efforts to limit? It says ‘parties aim to reach’ the peaking of greenhouse gases. Aim to reach? That does not mean they are bound to do so.
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‘Will pursue efforts’ means that they will breath in more than they breath out.
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Dammit, STOIC! That’s yet another keyboards bites the dust, splattered in tea.
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It’s telling isn’t it, that global-warming alarmists like Naomi Klein can understand the sophistry of vague phases such as “will pursue efforts” and “parties aim to reach”, yet appear unable to understand all the lame “mights” “coulds” and “possiblys” emanating from the alarmist model predictions which are going so badly wrong?
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