It’s not 100% definite yet, but it looks like Trump is going to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement. This would be a big deal, not for the climate, as many alarmists suggest, but for the global credibility and viability of the whole UN IPCC driven climate change narrative.

At the G7 meeting in Italy, Trump refused to sign up to an endorsement by the other members re-affirming their commitment to the Paris Agreement. Angela Merkel, Europe’s one-woman nemesis, was not amused, in fact she’s said to be “furious” with The Donald for subtracting one from G7 to get G6 (Diane Abbott was not present) – at least as far as trade and climate change are concerned. I wish I could reassure her personally that, in spite of her own personal angst, there are those of us who are amused. I feel that if she knew that, she might feel better about things and perhaps look on the bright side of life, rather than keep fretting about Trump behaving badly (yet again). Perhaps she will read this blog and take heart.

But she’s not the only one to be fretting about Trump’s global misdeeds. Scientists are warning that if the US withdraws from the absurd and toothless Paris Agreement (which lets India and China keep belching out planet-destroying CO2 but demands Western nations dramatically reduce their emissions) then the world will heat up much faster than it already is. In fact, Trump’s withdrawal, according to some, will have an “apocalyptic effect” on our climate:

I tend to agree with the apocalyptic part, though I’m not sure it will be the climate which is most affected:

https://twitter.com/Balinteractive/status/868950148776431616

Whatever the case, if Trump does withdraw, it looks like it’s going to be fun from the point of view of irresponsible, pathological climate deniers like myself – watching (self) important, puffed up climate scientists, politicians and green activists rage impotently at The Donald for imperiling the earth and the entire human race. At least it will be a welcome break from dismally monitoring the progress of the real emerging apocalypse which Merkel and her globalist cohorts have inflicted upon us.

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24 Comments

  1. This is not how I wanted to win.

    I’m still holding out for a Science Nuremberg. There’s a lamp-post in the historic town square of Klimanaturgewissenschaftnürnberg-am-Rhein with MannJonesKarolyOreskesLewandowskyCookHoegh-Gudberg’s name on it (upside-down). It’d be a shame for it to go unhung with the strange fruit.

    Liked by 3 people

  3. Brad. Who said you have one? Trump seems to be rather alone among world leaders and even his own daughter is suspect. There was great anticipation in the UK that the immaculate Theresa might join in, but those hopes proved false.
    No doubt a counter reformation is being prepared, and an Inquisition awaits those that might stray from strict climatic doctrine. Mann et al. will be canonized and will wear big hats.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Meanwhile, developing countries want reliable power:

    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/03/17/china-kickstarting-new-coal-boom-pakistan/

    China is “very interested” in investing in Thar coal, said Ali Akbar, executive director at the Association for Water, Applied Education and Renewable Energy (Aware).

    Thar is home to one of the largest coal deposits in the world, with 175 billion tons of coal over 9,000 square kilometres.

    https://www.thethirdpole.net/2016/08/23/pakistans-coal-expansion-brings-misery-to-villagers-in-thar-desert/

    At the UN climate summit in Paris, Pakistan pledged to reduce its green house gas emissions by 5%, but at the same time it plans to develop its fledgling coal industry with five new power plants scheduled to start producing electricity by 2018 and many more in the pipeline.

    http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/101315/biggest-oil-producers-latin-america.asp

    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/lamu-island-coal-plant-kenya-africa-climate/

    Liked by 1 person

  5. From the Independent article which is the source or this piece of doomery:
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/scientists-donald-trump-pull-out-paris-climate-change-agreement-a7759411.html

    One expert group ran a worst-case computer simulation of what would happen if the U.S. does not curb emissions, but other nations do meet their targets. It found that America would add as much as half a degree of warming (0.3 degrees Celsius) to the globe by the end of century. 
    Scientists are split on how reasonable and likely that scenario is. Many said because of cheap natural gas that displaces coal and growing adoption of renewable energy sources, it is unlikely that the U.S. would stop reducing its carbon pollution even if it abandoned the accord, so the effect would likely be smaller. But others say it could be worse because other countries might follow a U.S. exit, leading to more emissions from both the U.S. and the rest.

    Did you get that, children? 0.3°C by 2100! Except that “many say” that “ it is unlikely that the U.S. would stop reducing its carbon pollution…” (because reducing carbon emissions is what developed economies do, whether they sign meaningless agreements or not, especially when they’re sitting on centuries-worth of cheap gas.)

    “Scientists say” is the modern equivalent of “O’Grady says” for adults who still enjoy infant playground games. Scientists say: “Trump will cause an imperceptible third of a degree warming in a hundred years’ time” (some of them, in a worst case scenario, with many disagreeing.) Headline screams: “We’re doomed!” But they didn’t say “scientists say,” so they’re in the clear, and we’re the silly ones.

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  6. The Paris Accord is quite dangerous and has poisonous fangs. It is designed to allow NGO s to go into courts and get judges to make rulings to enforce the NGO s interpretations of Paris with force of law. As for Merkel, she is bad news for Europe and the world: she is the most extreme and powerful leader pushing the destruction of Europe by her decision to have Muslim immigrants invade the West. She doesn’t care a bit about European values or lives. As to the environment she knows the windmills and solar will never work. Any reasonable person knows that windmills destroy huge areas of land. She is back to building coal….quietly. Yet she shuts down nuclear. She makes her people suffer the loss of environment today for a fantasy vision of a climate catastrophe in a distant day. She has put all of Europe at risk to terror, environmental destruction, loss of culture, and economic damage. For what? To save the climate? She even lies about that. There is no climate crisis occurring in the reality based world. Yet she threatens the US over her mental climate crisis. Reality us going to slap thus delusional woman in the face. I hope it is soon.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Ms. Merkel, however, sounded a somewhat bleaker note. “The whole discussion about climate was very difficult, not to say unsatisfactory,” she said. “There’s a situation where it’s six, if you count the European Union, seven, against one.”

    “This is not just any old agreement, but it is a central agreement for shaping globalization,” she said. “There are no signs of whether the U.S. will stay in the Paris accords or not.”

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  8. Geoff Chambers, all those temperature projections are highly suspect on two counts: 1. The model they use may be running hot, the climate sensitivity is too high, and 2. The emissions pathways and concentrations may be juiced up. I notice there’s a tendency to focus on the climate sensitivity, and ignore the emissions and the carbon cycle model. I focus on the emissions and the carbon cycle, and as far as I can tell they need thorough review any time anybody comes up with a predicted temperature change.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. ” Excuse me, is this where I board the Lemming Express?”

    “Yes it is, but I think it’s run out of … ”

    (Choose yer own ending –
    steam
    gravy
    euros
    lemmings.)

    Liked by 4 people

  11. Mostly off-topic: Back in December, a proponent of ‘agential riskology’ (I thought he was joking when I first read that phrase; it made me think of The Fast Show’s Dr Denzil Dexter) set out five areas in which a Trump presidency might threaten mankind’s survival. Climate change was one of them, natch.

    https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/torres20161114

    Apart from #4, which I confess worries me a bit too, it’s laugh-a-line stuff, the sort of semi-informed eschatonanism you’d read at SkS in its early years but with a bit of bonkers transhumanist scifi thrown in for extra chuckles. (Apparently, to survive the Trump-triggered End Times, we’ll all have to become feminized demi-robots.)

    *

    Totally off-topic: Thanks to a Ben Pile Tweet, I’ve just noticed that a month after the UNFCCC’s COP22, at which Morocco signed contracts with a Saudi company to build two huge solar plants in occupied Western Sahara, UNEP awarded the Moroccan government’s renewable energy agency its top environmental prize: its solar energy programme earned it the title of Champion of the Earth for (bizarrely) Entrepreneurial Vision. The award page mentioned one of the new plants, though it was somewhat coy about its location, saying only that it was ‘under construction in one of Morocco’s most disadvantaged regions’.

    The UN doesn’t recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara; and various development lenders – including the World Bank and the EU – have said they won’t touch the projects; yet here is a UN agency saying that that the illegal occupier’s plans to build stuff on its illegally occupied land shows ‘entrepreneurial vision’ and rewarding it with a fancy title. (None fancier, really.)

    If the UN had been around in 1939… No, best not go there.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. If 0.3oC = an “apocalyptic effect” on our climate caused by the dastardly Yank profligacy , aren’t we going to run out of superlatives to describe the hideous effect of super-duper- hyper- mega-temperature inflation we will inflict upon ourselves?

    This afternoon I was reading some decade-old computer files. Interesting that evidence and arguments used then to suggest climate alarmism was overblown are still as relevant now as they were then. Questions asked then still haven’t been addressed. The gravy train runs along the same tracts, but the train fares increase remorselessly.

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  14. Geoff, the journalist who wrote that piece for the Independent obviously had the same arithmetic teacher as Diane Abbott.

    “It found that America would add as much as half a degree of warming (0.3 degrees Celsius) to the globe by the end of century.”

    Unless I am mistaken, half a degree is 66% greater than 0.3C. Also, the complete failure to address the reality of China’s and India’s sharply rising CO2 emissions, whilst insisting that the US keeps reducing its own, is simply breathtakingly hypocritical. I really do hope that Trump does pull out of Paris, to show what an absolute farce the whole thing is. The UK should pull out too – and repeal the Climate Change Act 2008.

    Liked by 3 people

  15. Alan,

    “Brad. Who said you have one?”

    One what? Lamp-post? I did. If that’s a lie, which it is, and I’m not saying it is, but if it is, then it’s my lie.

    [Update: I take your point though, Obi-One. And I don’t think it’s over yet.]

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  17. Catweazle:

    ‘Merkel, After Discordant G-7 Meeting, Is Looking Past Trump’

    If Merkel were a male leader, the headline would never focus on his looks. Shame on the NYTimes. The Gray Lady may be a lot of things (old, venerable, very old, been around the block a few times, etc.) but I never knew she was sexist!

    Liked by 2 people

  18. Concerning lamp posts Brad, I believe that the performance of politicians deteriorated drastically when the old cast iron gas street lamps were replaced by concrete electric lamps.

    The old gas lamps that I remember from my youth had a very convenient crossbar to support the lamplighter’s ladder, it was absolutely ideal for chucking a rope over.

    https://images.static.worldstores.co/images/products/SS/5F/Endon_Lighting_Black_1_Head_Bar_Lamp_Post_A_SS_1.jpg?i10c=img.resize(width:480,height:480)

    Liked by 2 people

  19. I’m not sure whether Trump will pull out or not. He’s been dithering for ages. It seems like we’ve been hearing for months now that he’s going to make a decision this week. I don’t think it will make much difference in real terms since the so-called agreement doesn’t really commit anyone to anything.

    That Indy article about the apocalypse is really dumb, but it’s encouraging to read the comments underneath it.

    Some people on the lukewarm side are saying that things might be better without Trump anyway. Pielke says that Trump has won, either way (not quite sure what he means by that) and that “The rest of the world should preempt Trump and just kick the US out.”
    While on twitter Brad Plumer says “The idea that pulling out of Paris will mean the end of US leadership on climate change seems exactly backward to me. The US gave up climate leadership the day Trump came to office. Pulling out of Paris is a symptom of that, not a cause. Hence the worry that the US could seriously disrupt climate talks even if it ends up staying in Paris.”

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  20. Paul, I’m not exactly sure where Pielke Jr is coming from in that blog article but he’s right when he says this:

    “So think of the Paris Agreement not as a policy framework, but rather as a potent political symbol.

    As a symbol, here is how the politics works: Trump pulls out of Paris, Trump wins. Trump stays in, Trump wins. Fun game, huh?”

    Paris is largely symbolic and very political. But it’s not about Trump winning or losing, it’s about the global climate alarmist network winning or losing and if the US exits Paris, there will be headless chickens running amok among the remaining signatories, desperately hoping to find new leadership on climate. Neither China nor the EU, the most obvious candidates, appear to have the authority to be able to do that.

    Also, I’ve read that the real teeth of the Paris Agreement lies not in its non-binding policy prescriptions, but as a framework for allowing green activists to legally challenge governments who don’t engage with the spirit of the agreement.

    Liked by 1 person

  21. Jaime 0.3C depends whether half a degree was in Fahrenheit and then converted to Celsius and rounded up? Who knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the crisis is because each side is using different units. I don’t want to be part of the EU but I don’t want to go back to imperial measurements as well!

    I don’t know why they’re so obsessed with the Paris agreement. We still don’t have any serious competition for fossil fuels and no amount of agreement will make serious renewables pop into existence. The global timetable for cutting CO2 remind me of Rimmer’s style of revision.

    Nobody really thinks that any serious progress is being made but they keep on rewriting the timetable but with even more ambitious but impossible targets.

    Trump doesn’t care about the agreement one way or the other, it’s not like he has to meet the fictional targets. May doesn’t know what to think and hopes it will be quietly forgotten. Merkel clings to it like a mad woman because she still can’t admit that it’s another massive thing the Germans have got wrong and can’t make right, just by bullying everyone else.

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  24. Thomas the Tank Engine is now on his side, with his little pistons going like the clappers. Somebody’s just shouted ‘look out he’s gonna blow!’

    Liked by 1 person

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