The main reason why, despite countless scientific warnings about dangerous consequences, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to increase is rarely mentioned. Yet it’s been obvious for several years – at least to anyone willing to see it. It’s this: most countries outside Western Europe, North America and Australasia are either unconcerned about the impact of GHGs on the climate or don’t regard the issue as a priority, focusing instead for example on economic growth and energy security. Yet these countries, comprising about 84 percent of humanityi, are today the source of about 77 percent of emissions; 88 percent if the United States, which has now joined their ranks, is included.ii Therefore, unless they change their policies radically – and there’s no serious evidence of their so doing – there’s no realistic prospect of the implementation of the urgent and substantial cuts in GHG emissions called for by many Western scientists.
To understand how this has happened, I believe it’s useful to review the history of environmental negotiation by focusing in particular on six UN-sponsored conferences: Stockholm in 1972, Rio in 1992, Kyoto in 1997, Copenhagen in 2009, Paris in 2015 and Belém (Brazil) in 2025.
Stockholm 1972
In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s many Western environmentalists were seriously concerned that technological development, economic growth and resource depletion risked irreversible damage to humanity and to the environment.iii Clearly a global problem, it was agreed that it had to be tackled by international, i.e. UN-sponsored, action.
The result was the UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972.iv From its outset it was recognised that, if the conference was to succeed, an immediate problem had to be solved: the perceived risk was almost exclusively a Western preoccupation, so how might poorer countries be persuaded to get involved?v
After all, technical and industrial development were essentially the basis of the West’s economic success and that was something the rest of the world was understandably anxious to emulate – not least to alleviate the desperate poverty of many hundreds of millions of people.vi The diplomatic manoeuvrings needed to resolve this seemingly irreconcilable conflict set the scene for what I will refer to as ‘the Stockholm Dilemma’ – i.e. the conflict between Western fears for the environment and poorer countries’ aspirations for economic growth. It was resolved, or more accurately deferred, at the time by the linguistic nightmare of the conference’s concluding Declaration which asserted that, although environmental damage was caused by Western economic growth, it was also caused by the poorer world’s lack of economic growth.vii
After 1972, Western environmental concerns were overshadowed by the struggle to deal with successive oil and economic crises.viii However two important European reports, the Brandt Report in 1980 and the Brundtland Report in 1987, dealt with the economic gulf between the West and the so-called Third World.ix In particular, Brundtland – echoing Stockholm – concluded that, because poverty causes environmental problems, the needs of the world’s poor should be given overriding priority; a principle to be enshrined in the climate agreement signed in Rio. The solution was the now familiar ‘sustainable development’.x
Rio 1992
Western environmental concerns were hugely re-energised in the late 1980s when the doctrine of dangerous (possibly catastrophic) global warming caused by mankind’s emissions of GHGs, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), burst onto the scene.xi As a result, the UN organised the landmark Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) – the ‘Earth Summit’ held in Rio in 1992.xii It was the first of a long series of climate-related international conferences that led for example to the so-called ‘historic’ Paris Agreement in 2015.
A key outcome of the 1992 Earth Summit was the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Adopted in 1992 and commonly known as ‘the Convention’, it’s an international treaty that came into force in 1994. It remains to this day the definitive legal authority regarding climate change.xiii Article 2 sets out its overall objective:
‘The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve … stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.’
It’s an objective that’s failed. Far from being stabilised, after 1992 emissions accelerated and, by 2025, emissions had grown by over 65 per cent.xiv This is essentially because the Convention attempted to solve the Stockholm Dilemma by dividing the world into two blocs: Annex I countries (essentially the West and ex-Soviet Union countries – the ‘developed’ countries) and non-Annex I countries (the rest of the world – the ‘developing’ countries). This distinction has had huge and lasting consequences – arising in particular from the Convention’s Article 4.7:
‘The extent to which developing country Parties will effectively implement their commitments under the Convention … will take fully into account that economic and social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of the developing country Parties.’xv [My emphasis]
In other words, developing countries were, in accordance with Brundtland’s conclusion, expressly authorised to give overriding priority to economic growth and poverty eradication – even if that meant increasing emissions. And that’s why the Annex I/non-Annex I bifurcation has plagued international climate negotiations ever since: for example, it’s the main reason for the Copenhagen debacle in 2009 and for the Paris failure in 2015 (see below).
Western countries had hoped – even expected – that the Rio bifurcation would in time be modified so that, in line with their development, major developing countries would eventually become members of the Annex I group.xvi But such hopes were dashed at the first post-Rio climate ‘Conference Of the Parties’ (COP) held in Berlin in 1995 (COP1) when it was agreed that there must be no new obligation imposed on any non-Annex I country.
This principle, ‘the Berlin Mandate’, meant that the bifurcation and its associated ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ principle were institutionalised as tenets of the Convention.xvii And, before the next climate conference in 1996 (COP2 in Geneva), G77+China made it clear that this should not be changed.xviii
Kyoto 1997
The impact of this was made harshly apparent at the next conference: COP3 in Kyoto in 1997. Kyoto was supposed to be critically important – the original hope had been that negotiations would result in all countries accepting commitments to reduce their GHG emissions. But, because the US decided that it wouldn’t accept obligations that didn’t apply to other major countriesxix and because of the Berlin Mandate, in the event the agreed Kyoto Protocol reduction obligations applied only to a few, largely Western, countries.xx As a result and because developing countries refused even to acknowledge that they might accept some future obligation, it was becoming obvious to some observers that the UN process was getting nowhere – somehow the developing countries had to be persuaded that emission reduction was in their best interests.
But how? The passage of 25 years hadn’t resolved the Stockholm Dilemma – difficult enough in 1972, the UNFCCC bifurcation and the Berlin Mandate had made it worse. Yet it was recognised that, without these, developing countries might simply refuse to be involved in climate negotiations, making the whole process meaningless – something the UN and Western countries were unwilling to contemplate. So, if Kyoto was a failure, it was arguably a necessary failure if there was to be any prospect of emission reduction in due course. And that was the story for the next twelve years: at successive COP conferences the major developing countries, ignoring increasingly dire climate warnings from Western scientists, refused to consider amending the UNFCCC bifurcation.
A result of that refusal was that many developing countries’ economies continued their spectacular growth, resulting in rising living standards and unprecedented poverty reduction.xxi But inevitably emissions also continued to grow: in just 12 years, from 1997 (Kyoto) to 2009 (Copenhagen) and despite 12 COPs, they increased by over 30%.xxii
Copenhagen 2009
In 2007 the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC), a body that reports every seven years on the current physical scientific understanding of climate change, published its fourth report (AR4) – a report that intensified the West’s insistence that urgent and substantial emission cuts were essential.xxiii
A result was an ‘Action Plan’ agreed at the 2007 climate conference (COP13) in Bali.xxiv It set out how it was hoped all countries would come together at Copenhagen in 2009 (COP15) to agree a comprehensive and binding deal to take the necessary global action. Many observers regarded this as hugely significant: Ban Ki-moon, then UN Secretary General, speaking at Copenhagen said, ‘We have a chance – a real chance, here and now – to change the course of our history’’.xxv And, as always, dire warnings were issued about the consequences of failure: UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown for example warned that, if the conference failed to achieve a deal, ‘it will be irretrievably too late’.xxvi
There was one seemingly encouraging development at Bali: developing countries accepted for the first time that emission reduction by non-Annex I countries might at least be discussed – although they insisted that developed countries were not doing enough to meet their Kyoto obligations.xxvii But the key question of how far the developing countries might go at Copenhagen remained obscure – for example was it at least possible that the larger ‘emerging economies’ such as China and India and major OPEC countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia might cease to be classified as ‘developing’? The EU and US not unreasonably thought that should happen, especially as it was by then obvious that, unless all major emitting countries, including therefore big developing economies, were involved, an emission cutting agreement would be neither credible nor effective. Some Western negotiators hoped that the bifurcation issue might at last be settled at Copenhagen.
But it wasn’t. In the event, developing countries refused to budge, insisting for example that developed countries’ historic responsibility for emissions was what mattered. As a result, the West was humiliatingly defeated, with the EU not even involved in the final negotiations between the US and the so-called BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China).xxviii
One commentator noted:
‘There was a clear victor. Equally clearly, there was a side that lost more comprehensively than at any international conference in modern history where the outcome had not been decided beforehand by force of arms.’ xxix
The Copenhagen failure was a major setback for the West.xxx It was now established that, if the developing countries (including now powerful economies such as China, India, South Korea, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Iran) rejected a suggestion that their economic development be subject to emission control, that position would prevail. Yet by 2010 these countries were responsible for about 60% of global CO2 emissions xxxi; without them, major global emission cuts were clearly impossible.
The years following Copenhagen, from Cancún (COP16) in 2010 to Lima (COP20) in 2014, reinforced the West’s concerns as developing countries continued to insist they would not accept binding commitments to reduce their emissions.xxxii
Paris 2015
It was becoming obvious that, if there was to be any prospect of emission reduction, there had to be some fresh thinking. So the UN proposed a new methodology for the summit scheduled for 2015 in Paris (COP21): instead of an overall global reduction requirement, a new approach should be implemented whereby countries would individually determine how they would reduce their emissions and that this would be coupled with a periodic review by which each country’s reduction plans would be steadily scaled up by a ‘ratcheting’ mechanism – a critically important development.
But, when countries’ plans (then described as ‘Intended Nationally Determined Contributions’ (INDCs)) were submitted to the UNFCCC secretariat prior to Paris, it was clear that little had been achieved: hardly any developing countries had indicated any intention of making absolute emission cuts. Instead their INDCs spoke merely for example of reducing CO2 emission intensity in relation to GDP or of reducing the percentage of emissions from business-as-usual projections.xxxiii
It had been hoped that NDCs (as they became known) would be the vehicle whereby major emerging (‘developing’) economies would at last make emission reduction commitments. Yet they turned out to be a problem that undermined the Paris Agreement – see below. And, in any case, other provisions of the Agreement in effect exempted developing countries from any obligation, moral, legal or political, to reduce their emissions.xxxiv For example, the Agreement was described in its preamble as being pursuant to ‘the objective of the Convention [and] guided by its principles’ and further described in Article 2.1 as ‘enhancing the implementation of the Convention’. In other words, the developed/developing bifurcation remained intact and developing countries could continue to give overriding priority to economic development and poverty eradication. Moreover, under Article 4.4 of the Agreement, developing countries, in contrast to developed countries, were merely ‘encouraged to move over time towards economy-wide emission reduction or limitation targets’. Hardly an obligation to reduce their emissions.
It was not an outcome many wanted. For example, when ex UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was asked in early 2015 what he would expect to come out of the Paris summit, he replied:
‘Governments have to conclude a fair, universal and binding climate agreement, by which every country commits to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.‘ xxxv
Western negotiators had intended that Paris should have a very different outcome from that achieved. Hence this 2014 statement by Ed Davey, then UK Secretary of State responsible for climate negotiations: ‘Next year in Paris in December … the world will come together to forge a deal on climate change that should, for the first time ever, include binding commitments to reduce emissions from all countries.’ xxxvi
But it didn’t happen. Developing country negotiators, led by China and India, ignored the West’s (in the event, feeble) demands. And Western negotiators, determined to avoid another Copenhagen-like debacle, didn’t press the issue. Hence the Paris agreement’s failure to achieve the West’s most basic aim: that powerful ‘emerging’ economies should be obliged to share in emission reduction.
The Stockholm Dilemma was still unresolved.
Might that change in the near future? Events since 2015 indicate that that’s most unlikely:
A major post-Paris example was a climate ‘action summit’ convened by UN Secretary General António Guterres for September 2019, calling for national plans to go carbon neutral by 2050 and new coal plants to be banned from 2020.xxxvii But, just before the summit, the environment ministers of the so-called ‘BRICS’ countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) effectively undermined it by reaffirming their commitment to ‘the successful implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), its Kyoto Protocol and its Paris Agreement’. In other words, these five countries (the source of about 45 percent of emissions) were indicating that they continued to regard themselves, under the UNFCCC and Paris framework, as exempt from any binding reduction obligation.xxxviii As a result the summit was a failure.xxxix
So it was not surprising that COP25 (December 2019 in Madrid) made no real progress: it ended with no substantive agreement on emission reduction and was widely described as another failure.xl
Might that change – for example might major developing countries enhance their NDCs as required by the ‘ratchet’ provision of the Paris Agreement? The test would be the next UN conference (COP26) to be held in Glasgow in November 2021 – postponed from 2020 because of the COVID 19 crisis.xli
But COP26 failed that test. And that was despite it being rated by the Guardian in July 2021 as ‘one of the most important climate summits ever staged’, despite Alok Sharma (COP26’s president) stressing that leaving ‘Glasgow with a clear plan to limit global warming to 1.5C’ would ‘set the course of this decisive decade for our planet and future generations’ and despite Prince Charles (as he then was) giving another of his familiar warnings: ‘Quite literally, it is the last chance saloon. We must now translate fine words into still finer actions.’ xlii
That things were not looking good became apparent when several major emitters (e.g. Brazil, China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Indonesia and Mexico) either failed to submit a new NDC in 2021 or submitted an updated NDC that was judged to lack any real increase in ambition, thereby failing to comply with the key Paris ‘ratchet’ requirement.xliii Yet the countries referred to above were in 2019 the source of over 40% of global emissions.xliv
COP26 itself got off to a bad start when China’s president Xi and Russia’s president Putin didn’t attend.xlv And the proceedings included various upsets – in particular a formal request made by a group of 22 nations known at the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC), which included China, India and Saudi Arabia, made on 11 November 2021, that the entire section on the mitigation of climate change be removed from the draft COP26 text.xlvi It wasn’t wholly successful as COP26’s concluding text – the ‘Glasgow Climate Pact’ xlvii – did include an appeal for all countries to revisit and strengthen their 2030 emissions targets by the end of 2022. But that was essentially meaningless in practice as many major emitters had already failed to submit sufficiently strengthened NDCs (see above). In other words, COP26 ended with nothing of real importance being achieved.
All this confirmed yet again that developing countries, determined to grow their economies and improve the lives of their people, had no serous intention of cutting back on fossil fuels. But nonetheless the can was once again kicked down the road; this time to COP27 to be held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt in 2022. And in the meantime events moved on much as before with most countries – even the US – increasing their reliance on fossil fuels (especially coal) and global CO2 emissions reaching their highest level ever.xlviii
And it was hardly a surprise therefore when COP27 turned out to be yet another conference that essentially achieved nothing, with one reviewer noting that key mitigation items — such as a 2025 global emissions peak or a phase-out of all fossil fuels — were dropped under pressure from ‘Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and other petro-states’.xlix Yet, far from giving up, the West now pinned its hopes on COP28 to be held in Dubai – the ‘first global stocktake’.
And the UN hoped that a ‘Climate Ambition Summit’ called by General Secretary António Guterres in September 2023 would boost the Conference’s prospects. But the absence of big emitters such as the US, China and India meant that the Summit turned out to be of little value.l
However the COP28 ‘stocktake’ – otherwise unremarkable – did include what many commentators thought was an important breakthrough.li In its paragraph 28, it said this:
‘The Conference of the Parties … calls on Parties to contribute to the following … Transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.’
So, commentators said, there you have it: at long last we have an agreement (a ‘pledge’) to transition away from fossil fuels! But of course that wasn’t true. The reality was that Paragraph 28 also said that parties must ‘take account’ of the Paris Agreement and, as specifically confirmed further down in paragraph 38, the ‘stocktake’ reaffirmed Article 4.4 of that Agreement. In other words, developing countries, the source of 65% of global emissions, continued to be exempted from any obligation to cut their emissions.
Attention now moved to Baku, Azerbaijan – to COP29 held in November 2024. But this conference was concerned almost entirely with finance and made no serious progress on emission reduction. And in any case proceedings were overshadowed by Donald Trump’s re-election as US President – causing great uncertainty and concern about future global climate politics.
Such concern was justified: it was over 50 years since the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment and there was still no sign of a solution to the Stockholm Dilemma and now a resurgent Trump made one even less likely. Yet once again the circus moved on – this time to Belém in Brazil.
Belém 2025
In the months running up to COP30 its prospects already looked dismal, despite the conference being dubbed ‘the implementation COP’. This was because, despite the Paris Agreement requirement, hardly any significant countries submitted updated NDCs either by February 2025, or even by the extended date at the end of September.lii To make matters even worse, few leaders of major economies turned up for the scheduled pre-COP leaders’ meeting: for example no one came from the United States, China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Türkiye or South Korea. Nonetheless Brazil’s President Lula announced that ‘COP30 will be the COP of truth’.liii
However over 56,000 delegates did turn up at the conference – the third largest number at any COP. And Brazil’s environment minister Marina Silva urged countries to have the ‘courage’ to address a fossil-fuel phaseout, and to work towards a roadmap for ending dependence on fossil fuels.liv It was a requirement echoed by about 80 countries which insisted via a letter to the COP President signed by 29 countries (including the UK, France, Spain and various small countries) that, unless the Conference outcome included a legally binding agreement to a ‘roadmap’ for a global transition away from fossil fuels, they would block the planned deal.lv
Unsurprisingly however negotiators from the majority of countries – not just the Arab oil producers as some commentators suggested, but also major countries such as India, China, Indonesia and other developing countries whose economies and peoples’ welfare depend on fossil fuels – showed no interest in the idea and the COP President simply ignored it. Humiliatingly the objectors climbed down. And the words ‘fossil fuels’ were not even included in the finally agreed text.lvi
This astute comment on the failure of COP30 was made by Li Shuo of the Asia Society (described as ‘a long-time observer of climate politics’):
‘This partly reflects the power shift in the real world, the emerging power of the BASIC and BRICs countries, and the decline of the European Union’.lvii
So once again a COP made no progress at all towards meeting the UNFCCC’s 1992 call for the ‘stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere’. It’s therefore hardly surprising that many commentators have queried whether there’s really any reason at all for continuing to hold all these huge and essentially pointless conferences.lviii
And it’s not only the Belém debacle that illustrates this. Far from it: nothing that’s happening today justifies any realistic hope that fossil fuels are on their way out. For example, major developing countries, especially India, China and in Southeast Asia, are focusing on coal to bolster economic growth and upgrade national security.lix And overall global emissions are still increasing. The early 2020 emission reductions caused by Covid 19 lockdowns were short-lived: as countries emerged from the pandemic determined to strengthen their economies, emission increases have continued.lx
The harsh reality – confirmed time and time again – is that nothing has really changed since the West’s comprehensive defeat at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009. The truth is that most countries do not share the West’s preoccupation with climate change. Nor is there any prospect of that view changing for the foreseeable future.
Conclusion
At the time of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 the West’s emissions were 41 percent of the annual global total – today (without the US) they’re only 9 percent. Thus it’s clearly impossible for what’s left of the West to satisfy many scientists’ calls for an urgent and substantial (about 50%) global emission reduction. That can only happen if all the other major countries completely change their climate policies. And that’s obviously not going to happen.
Yet, despite that clear message from the past thirty or more years of climate negotiation history, it’s a key reality that’s still being overlooked by many in the West: in particular by net zero supporters; by the mainstream media; by many scientific publications; by all climate ‘activists’; by many respected academic and scientific organisations; by politicians, governmental and non-governmental organisations; and by celebrities and social media. And by the United Nations.
It’s quite remarkable that there are still so many Western observers who seem not to have noticed that, over the past fifty years, the nature of the climate debate has radically changed as a result of major global political and economic developments. What’s happened is that what was once the so-called Third World has for a long time been powerful enough to ignore the West and take charge of environmental negotiation – a process that started with the ‘Berlin Mandate’ at COP1 in 1994 (see above). And the increasingly meaningless distinction between the ‘developing’ world and the ‘developed’ world, introduced by the UN in 1992 as a way of persuading poorer countries to get involved in climate negotiation, has paradoxically become the reason why progress on GHG reduction has become virtually impossible.
It’s surely obvious by now that the Stockholm Dilemma will never be resolved. And that there’s nothing the West (or more accurately the EU, the UK, Australia and a few smaller countries) can do about it.
Notes and references
i See https://srv1.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-region/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
ii See https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2025?vis=ghgtot#emissions_table
iii See for example Fairfield Osborn’s book The Plundered Planet (1948), William Vogt’s Road to Survival (1948), Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), the dire predictions in the Club of Rome report, Limits to Growth (1968) and, in particular, Barbara Ward’s report, Only One Earth (1972). Several of today’s environmentalists share the view that economic growth causes environmental degradation. See for example Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save The World (2021) by Jason Hickel.
iv Maurice Strong, a Canadian businessman-turned-diplomat, organised the Conference and was its Secretary General, having first commissioned Limits to Growth (see Note 3) that established much of its intellectual groundwork. He is widely seen as a pioneer of international environmental concern and of institutionalising it within the United Nations.
v At the time these countries were commonly referred to as ‘underdeveloped’ or, preferably, as ‘developing’. The ‘Third World’ was a standard label used for countries outside the Western or Soviet blocs.
vi Franz Fanon’s book The Wretched of the Earth (1961) was very influential in intellectual circles in the West at this time. Indian PM Indira Gandhi’s keynote speech at the Conference sets out the dilemma clearly: http://tiny.cc/dl6lqz. The speech is epitomised by this comment: ‘The environment cannot be improved in conditions of poverty.’
vii See Part One, chapter I (especially ‘proclamation’ 4) of this UN report on the conference: http://un-documents.net/aconf48-14r1.pdf.
viii See for example: https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/oil-shock-of-1978-79.
ix For Brundtland, see Our Common Future: http://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf.
x ibid – see paragraphs 27, 28 and 29 which do little to clarify the meaning of this rather vague concept.
xi Heralded in particular by James Hansen’s address the US Congress in 1988: https://www.sealevel.info/1988_Hansen_Senate_Testimony.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
xii Described as the largest environmental conference ever held, the Summit’s outcome is outlined here: https://www.sustainable-environment.org.uk/Action/Earth_Summit.php
xiii For the full text of the UNFCCC see: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf
xiv See Note 1 above.
xv The omitted words are concerned with a different, but arguably equally important, issue: finance and technology transfer from developed to developing countries.
xvi See Article 4.2 (f) of the UNFCCC, under which parties might review ‘available information with a view to taking decisions regarding such amendments to the lists in Annexes I and II as may be appropriate, with the approval of the Party concerned’.
xvii See Article 2 (b) here: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/cop1/07a01.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
xviii This report provides some interesting background re non-Annex I parties’ determination: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/1996/agbm/05.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
xix See the Byrd-Hagel resolution adopted unanimously by the US Senate in June 1997: https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/senate-resolution/98/text It stated that the US would not sign a protocol putting limits on Annex I countries unless it imposed specific, timetabled commitments on non-Annex I countries.
xx For the text of the Kyoto Protocol see: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.pdf. Note in particular how Article 10’s provision that it did not introduce ‘any new commitments for Parties not included in Annex I’ ensured that developing countries were not bound by the Protocol’s emission reduction obligations.
xxi Note for example how China was responsible for an astonishing reduction in poverty from the 1980s to the early 2000s: https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/extreme-poverty-in-china-has-been-almost-eliminated-first-in-urban-then-in-rural-regions?utm_source=chatgpt.com
xxii See Note 1 above.
xxiii See for example: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar4/syr/
xxiv The Bali Action Plan can be seen here: https://www.preventionweb.net/files/8376_BaliE.pdf?startDownload=true
xxv See the UN Secretary-General’s extraordinary speech in Copenhagen just before COP15: https://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop_15/statements/application/pdf/speech_opening_hls_cop15_ban_ki_moon.pdf
xxvi The full extract: ‘If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement in some future period can undo that choice. By then it will be irretrievably too late.’ See https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/oct/19/gordon-brown-copenhagen-climate-talks
xxvii In particular those confirmed by section 1(b)(i) of the Bali Action Plan – see Note 24 above.
xxviii See this overall review of the outcome: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8426835.stm.
xxix Rupert Darwall: The Age of Global Warming, 310
xxx The ‘Copenhagen Accord’ was an attempt by some countries to rescue something from this debacle: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf. A non-binding document (the Conference only ‘took note’ of it) it stated for example that global temperature should not rise more than 2ºC above pre-industrial levels – although it didn’t specify a date for this.
xxxi See Note 1 above.
xxxii See for example this report on the 2014 conference in Lima: http://tiny.cc/w4zv001
xxxiii For example, China’s INDC said only that it planned to ‘achieve the peaking of carbon dioxide emissions around 2030’ (no mention of the level of such ‘peak’ or of what will happen thereafter) and to ‘lower carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 60% to 65% from the 2005 level’. And South Korea merely said that it ‘plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 37% from the business-as-usual (BAU,850.6 MtCO2eq) level by 2030 across all economic sectors’, i.e. emissions will continue to increase but not by as much as they might have done.
Note that ‘Intended Nationally Determined Contributions’ (INDCs) are referred to as ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDCs) in Articles 3 and 4 of in the Paris Agreement – see Note 34 below. All NDCs submitted to the UNFCCC secretariat can be found here: https://unfccc.int/NDCREG
xxxiv The full text of the Paris Agreement can be found here: https://unfccc.int/files/meetings/paris_nov_2015/application/pdf/paris_agreement_english_.pdf
xxxv From an interview with the Observer in May 2025. Annan’s other comments are also interesting: https://www.kofiannanfoundation.org/publication/we-must-challenge-climate-change-sceptics/
xxxvi See the Ministerial Forward here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/360596/hmg_paris_2015.pdf
xxxvii https://climateaction.unfccc.int/Events/ClimateActionSummit
xxxviii My note was an extract from a press release by the PRC’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment: https://english.mee.gov.cn/News_service/news_release/201908/t20190829_730517.shtml?utm_source=chatgpt.com
xxxix https://populationmatters.org/news/2019/09/un-climate-action-summit-fails-to-deliver-climate-action/
xl http://tiny.cc/zg0w001 The official summary noted how countries such as China — speaking for the bloc including Brazil, India, South Africa — repeatedly called for developed countries to meet financial commitments: http://tiny.cc/3h0w001
xli https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-climatechange-idUSKBN21J6QC/
xlii http://tiny.cc/js1w001, http://tiny.cc/dv1w001 and http://tiny.cc/zs1w001
xliii https://ca1-clm.edcdn.com/assets/brief_-_countries_with_no_or_insignificant_ndc_updates_2.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
xliv See Note 1 above.
xlv http://tiny.cc/w22w001 and http://tiny.cc/w22w001
xlvi https://kyma.com/cnn-world/2021/11/11/china-and-india-among-22-nations-calling-for-key-section-on-emissions-be-ditched-from-cop26-agreement/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
xlvii The Glasgow Climate Pact can be found here: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cop26_auv_2f_cover_decision.pdf
xlviii See Note 1 above.
xlix See observations here: http://tiny.cc/q52w001
l The Guardian’s view: http://tiny.cc/872w001
li https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2023_L17_adv.pdf
liii President Lula’s comment can be found here: http://tiny.cc/ja2w001 A prescient observation – although not perhaps in the way he intended.
lv This Guardian article notes how the 29 objectors’ demands were ignored: http://tiny.cc/ei2w001.
lvi https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2025_L24_adv.pdf
lvii Under ‘EU had a bad COP’ here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp84m16mdm1o
lviii For example the Guardian is unhappy: http://tiny.cc/ux2w001
lix See this https://www.cfact.org/2025/11/20/coal-is-still-a-fuel-of-choice-in-the-global-south/ and this https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/fossil-fuels/coal/coal-is-still-king-globally/
lx See Note 1 above.
Climate Scepticism 
A beautifully clear summary of how we got to where we are, and something that really should be read by policy-makers. COPs are a dead-end, and it’s time they gave up.
LikeLike
Wow – great summation of the the COP pointlessness/failures Robin. Hope It gets a wider read, it deserves a more public forum, just to see if anybody (net zero supporters) can argue against your points.
ps – that post has so many links, must have taken ages to write the post (hope you get grant money for your efforts:-)
LikeLike
Gee, I’d never realised how effective mass brainwashing can be. Simply gather enough people together, and a kind of mass hysterica takes over.
LikeLike
dfhunter,
Yes, it’s a superb summary by Robin, with the explanation of how we got here very neatly and clearly expressed.
If only we got paid! Unlike the thousands of “green blob” employees making a living from green billionaires, we here at Cliscep do what we do because we believe the alternative narrative – the one the MSM doesn’t want the public to know about – makes more sense than the official one and we believe the official narrative is causing massive harms. We seek to put the record straight for the good of the country, not for financial reward. If we go quiet from time to time it’s because we’re all volunteers, this isn’t the day job, and many of us are busy with other things too.
But a big thank you to all the readers of our work. It makes it worthwhile.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Robin for this history, much of which I had forgotten, or didn’t know. I had recently, by coincidence, read this old Guardian article on Copenhagen:
“Did Ed Miliband save the Copenhagen summit from complete failure?”
16 years ago, Fred Pearce records how, at 7 a.m. an exhausted Rasmussen was about to bring the gavel down and declare no agreement.
Three hours later, the meeting resumed, some nonsense was cobbled together, and (of course) wild applause broke out.
LikeLiked by 3 people
That’s a most interesting find Jit – thanks.
It’s particularly interesting because I think there may be some evidence that Ed Miliband believes he also saved the day at Belém. It seems that, in a late night negotiating session, the UK and EU dropped their earlier demand (via a letter to the COP President) for an explicit fossil fuel phaseout provision, thereby allowing a weak but consensual COP30 deal to go through. In other words, far from being a humiliating climbdown as I said in my article, this last-ditch act of pragmatism was a brave step that kept the global COP process alive. I have my doubts about the validity of that claim and, in any case, global best interests would probably have been better served by facing up to reality and allowing the obviously pointless COP process to die.
LikeLike
In the article it is stated:
‘The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve … stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.’
It’s an objective that’s failed.”
Well has it failed? Surely that depends on the “level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference”. Have we reached such a level? Maybe we need to stabilise at a level we have not yet reached!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ian C, very good point. However, in terms of what the alarmists believe to be a dangerous level, the COPs have failed in their own terms.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s a very interesting observation Ian – thank you. Perhaps we haven’t yet reached that level. However I’m pretty sure most climate scientists in the West believe we passed it long ago.
LikeLike
It is easy to get a misleading impression by focusing on UNFCC and subsequent official statements from COPs. I was heavily involved in the work leading up to the Rio summit in 1992, among other things as one of the lead authors of the World Bank’s Development Report on the Environment. The Annex 1/Annex 2 division arose because we were absolutely clear that there were more important environmental priorities than climate change in most of the developing world – both then and for the foreseeable future. Hence the Millennium Development Goals focusing on health, water supply, air pollution, etc. This was not just China et al demanding to be left out of restrictions on GHG emissions but a recognition that other environmental priorities were more important, not just economic growth.
The failure of the EU and like-minded Western countries to persuade developing countries to abandon the distinction has been a consequence of what was a complete unwillingness to recognise and acknowledge that environmental priorities other than climate change might be as or more important to the rest of the world. Look at China and India – both countries have been extremely focused on reducing local air pollution, difficult though that it, and on expanding access to water and sanitation. People used to argue about the associated benefits of reducing GHG emissions but no-one now takes that very seriously.
The larger point is that the obsession of rich country environmental groups with a climate emergency has cut them off from any potential alliances with developing country groups who understand perfectly well that the Greenpeaces of the rich world have no interest in the issues that dominate daily life in much of the developing world. Such organisations are regarded as the epitome of colonial and rich country arrogance. Of course they can buy support by paying people but they will never obtain the whole-hearted consent of governments and most of the population until they are willing to recognise and respond to local priorities. That is why the story that you tell is, in effect, a story of deaf and blind western elite groups running into local national sentiments that drive both governments and environmental groups who are no longer willing to be bullied by an arrogant assumption that western priorities must be “right”.
Finally, what is striking is the extent to which rich donors to climate change organisations live up to the image of rich obsessives with no knowledge or interest in the rest of the world. I will exempt Bill Gates from this because anyone must recognise what his charity has done on health issues in the developing world. But many of the donors to organisations who fund climate activism live up to the image of arrogant and ignorant – usually American – jerks who are happy to ignore what matters to most of the population of the world. Of course, they know better, don’t they!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Gordon: thank you for this exceptionally informative and interesting comment. I think you’re spot on when you say that the story I tell ‘is, in effect, a story of deaf and blind western elite groups running into local national sentiments that drive both governments and environmental groups who are no longer willing to be bullied by an arrogant assumption that western priorities must be “right”.‘ I have suggested – less elegantly – that it boils down to old white men (politicians and scientists) in the West telling people of colour in the non-Western world what they should be doing. Unsurprisingly, I said, the latter are unimpressed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robin, congratulations on this most useful update on the ongoing slow-motion environ-mental train crash of the economies of the West.
You are obviously a very kind and tolerant person.
I, unfortunately, have a much more nasty temperament. I only hope to live long enough to see at least a few of the obvious malefactors in this half century long charade being held to account.
Consequently I am irked by your description of many of the actors in this saga as “scientists”.
I am not a scientist but a retired Chartered Engineer whose work and responsibilities necessitated a good understanding of real science and the genuine scientific process.
I suggest that, whilst genuine scientists, including great geniuses, may eventually be found to be wrong about some of their conclusions, no-one deserving of the title “scientist” can fixate on obvious enormous exaggerations and even barefaced lies to advance their hypothesis. No “scientist” can attempt to ‘cancel’ the careers of those proposing alternative hypotheses and resolutely refuse to debate the merits and demerits of opposing views. No “scientist” can totally ignore clear evidence that, even if (improbably) there are legitimate concerns about increased CO2 levels (dwarfed by entirely natural increases), there are obvious benefits to consider (Global Greening).
And as an Engineer, I am revolted by those pretending to be “scientists” who are entirely relaxed about the gargantuan costs they load onto Society, costs not only financial but in terms of the quality of life of the poorest members of the human race. Usually, whilst being financially bolstered by Billionaires following their own personal agendas. (Soros, Hone, Grantham, Gates etc. etc.)
Rant over.
LikeLiked by 1 person
While an excellent article, it misses one critical point. Whether it is “global warning” or “climate change’, it is basically computer models predicting the future. Computer models the COP negotiators know are wrong (see below). So CO2 reductions and their subsequent global warming (sorry climate change) can’t be accurately modeled, even if every country in the world agreed to reduction limits. I was possibly one of the earliest scientists in America to understand that you can’t accurately model future temperatures. Therefore, I feel comfortable in saying since you can’t accurately model the impacts of CO2 reductions, the actual level of CO2 reductions is in fact irrelevant as a mater of science.
As a matter of politics, it is critical because it could create a binding One World Government control system. Oddly, since even if you know the amount of CO2 reductions countries commit to, because the models are flawed, it doesn’t help you predict future temperatures. The actual CO2 reduction levels are not translatable into a valid temperature change forecast, so the actual reduction levels are scientifically irrelevant. Politically, they are everything. But not because of global warming control. It is because the goal is global government.
From an article I published “The Blunt Truth about Global Warming Models” – American Thinker
“https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/08/the_blunt_truth_about_global_warming_models.html”
“When the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made even a pretense of being science based they used to admit it. From the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report
“The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
The weather is a coupled, non-linear chaotic system. Chaos theory says very small changes in inputs can result in totally different outcomes. This concept is very counterintuitive for most people. We intrinsically think if you’re a little off at the beginning you should be a little off at the end. Try that on a mountain trail next to a cliff.
The Climate Mafia knows this is true but they still want money and power. They argue that even though you can’t make a real temperature forecast, they can create a completely bogus forecasting approach where they take a bunch of different climate models that don’t agree (so much for settled science) and combine their outputs. They then say voila we have a correct prediction and use psuedo-statistics to get around the error problem. The way I visualize it is, if you take a bunch (an ensemble sounds more scientific) of wrong answers and then combine them, that is the right answer. Absurd.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Interesting Vic. But I fear it misses the point of my article which is that what was once described as the Third World has taken charge of international climate negotiations, leaving the West on the sidelines.
LikeLike
The real irony is that Dr. James Hansen was wrong in his presentation to the US Senate on June 23, 1988, when he attributed the warming at that time ( 0.28 deg C) to “Greenhouse Gas” warming, when in actuality it was due to the1970’s “Clean Air” legislation of the US and Europe that required decreases in the amount of industrial SO2 aerosol pollution.
Temperatures began rising in 1980 as the air became cleaner, which increased the intensity of the solar radiation striking the Earth’s surface, naturally causing warming.
There is not a single example of any global temperature change (apart from seasonal and albedo changes) that cannot be attributed to changing levels of atmospheric SO2 aerosol pollution.
In other words, warming due to rising levels of CO2 does not exist–it is a hoax! other words,
LikeLike
Robin,
This is only half the story and it’s why the COP process has moved on, from talking about how to reduce global GHG emissions, to ensuring so called ‘climate justice’ based on the summation of past (developed world) industrial emissions and the ‘unfair advantage’ which the West has gained by expanding and developing their economies on the back of their exploitation of fossil fuels. Third World countries now want a slice of that cake. They want the West to fund their climate mitigation measures, and they want compensation for the bad weather, the storms, the droughts, the deluges, which the West has caused (and still is causing) by virtue of its cumulative emissions since 1850. The Third World (and its climate activist cheerleaders at the COPs) intend to soak the rich (us) to pay for the Green infrastructure of poor countries and to compensate them for natural weather disasters.
But that’s not working out too well either, especially now that Trump is backing out. This was COP29:
https://www.philosophy-world-democracy.org/posts/article/why-the-finance-cop-failed-climate-justice-the-need-for-pricing-carbon
Maybe this is why the IPCC AR7 ‘science’ is set to focus new attention upon extreme weather attribution via the appointment of Friederike Otto as a coordinating lead author. It sets the stage for future COPs to demand that an international slush fund be set up to compensate third world countries for ‘climate disasters’.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think there is something missing in this analysis. In the 1992 Rio objective of the UNFCCC it says “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.“
You focus on the term “stabilization” and then proceed to say that this objective failed. But the emphasis from Rio was, and still is, “dangerous”. That is what keeps the by now laughable 2030-ambitions and 1.5 degree target alive.
It is also the primary reason behind the X degree targets – as Schellnhuber stated in that piece in Der Spiegel back in 2010. They set these simplistic numbers based on the idea that they knew the temperature history for the past 130.000 years and average global temperature had never departed beyond 2 degrees off the “pre-industrial temperature” in that timeframe. Thus it was deemed “not dangerous” to stay below 2 degrees departure from “pre-industrial temperature”.
And it is the primary reason why 1.5 and 2 degrees are still on the table – the objective has not failed until it is determined that the world has passed the 30-year average temperature of 2 degrees. That is still a way out, although it can already be clearly seen that we will get there.
I believe this is an important thing that is missing in your analysis.
LikeLike
Anders:
An interesting observation – thanks. See my and Mark Hodgson’s exchange with Ian C who made a similar point: above (10 December).
LikeLike
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe…..:
“The Paris climate treaty changed the world. Here’s how
There’s much more to do, but we should be encouraged by the progress we have made”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/12/paris-climate-treaty-anniversary
I love the fact that they had to issue a correction, so inaccurate is much of the Guardian’s reportage:
This article was amended on 12 December 2025 to clarify that 2025 is the year renewables, not just wind and sun, outstripped coal as an energy source.
But even that’s wrong – they outstripped fossil fuels only as a source of electricity, as the Guardian reported just a couple of months ago:
The world’s wind and solar farms have generated more electricity than coal plants for the first time this year, marking a turning point for the global power system, according to research.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/07/global-renewable-energy-generation-surpasses-coal-first-time
LikeLike
Mark: as you note it’s necessary to be rather careful about this Guardian story. With ChatGPT’s help, I found that the claim was made by our old friend Ember. And it’s seemingly impossible to find another energy research organisation that confirms it. The best ChatGPT can come up with is an IEA projection that wind + solar’s continued rapid growth will result in them overtaking coal for electricity generation in 2025 or 2026. A very different kettle of fish.
LikeLike
Robin,
Why use ChatGPT when you have access to the Cliscep back catalogue? 😉
LikeLike
A good point Mark – apologies. In my defence I would say that I was making a rather different (and simpler) point.
LikeLike
Another point of obfuscation by climateers …..when talking about electricity generation, “renewables” often include hydro and biomass. I rather doubt that wind & solar on their own are anywhere near the output from coal – will try and remember to check later.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The FT this morning:
Mark Carney’s fossil fuel pivot bewilders climate experts and business leaders
Canadian prime minister’s legacy as one-time UN envoy and clean power advocate undermined by energy shift
‘Climate experts’ perhaps – but I doubt if all that many business leaders are bewildered.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Another good article by Tilak Doshi in Climate Skeptic:
America’s New Security Doctrine and the Reordering of Global Energy Geopolitics
Cloud cuckoo land Europe is being left behind
It’s about Washington’s newly released National Security Strategy (NSS) and is well worth reading.
From his concluding paragraph:
But I mention it here in particular because I made this comment:
I added a link to Cliscep.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robin, Mark Carney’s “pivot” may well be a reaction to the open threat from the premiere of Alberta to start secession proceedings if Ottawa continues its campaign against fossil fuels. Were Alberta to secede, Saskatchewan would probably follow suit and maybe even BC and Manitoba.
LikeLike
Following on from my post of Dec 13th, according to OWID, in 2024 the major sources of the world’s electricity were (TWh):
Solar: 2100
Wind: 2500
Hydro: 4400
Bio & other renewables: 800
Nuclear: 2800
Oil: 800
Gas: 6800
Coal 10,600
So all of the renewables produced 9800 TWh with Hydro the largest contributor. That is slightly less than Coal alone and only 54% of the total for fossil fuels. Wind and Solar alone fall well short of half the output of Coal.
LikeLike
MikeH,
And of course , electricity is only a small proportion of global energy use. Fossil fuels power the vast bulk of the world’s needs, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future and beyond.
LikeLike
The FT this morning:
Coal demand reaches new annual record as US output rises
IEA forecasts a decline in years to 2030 despite ‘many uncertainties’
Pity about those uncertainties.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh dear, things aren’t looking too good for the FT today:
Is the ‘energy transition’ a real thing?
Fossil fuel demand has kept growing amid the rise of low-carbon technology
LikeLiked by 1 person
Every year the IEA makes an optimistic forecast about renewables, and every year it’s wrong.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I sent the above essay to an old friend who passed it on to his family. It turns out that his daughter-in-law is a ‘sustainability expert’ – involved at Cambridge U, a board adviser to some companies and running a ‘sustainable’ jewellery company. She wasn’t so keen on the essay. Here’s her response to it:
Any comments – especially re her principal argument that the reason negotiations have failed is disagreement about who should pay for the necessary action?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, I am sure that if the developed world was prepared to devastate its finances by paying the hundreds of trillions of pounds/dollars/euros that would be necessary to enable me rest of the world to “decarbonise”, then the COPs might make some progress, but that isn’t going to happen, and was never going to happen. If that’s the issue, why are we persisting with COPs that are doomed to failure?
I’m also tired of the excuses made for China. The suggestion that its per capita emissions are low compared to the developed world is an oft-repeated trope, but it isn’t true. For example, they are significantly more than 50% higher than the UK’s per capita emissions.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lake Chad:
https://cliscep.com/2022/06/28/niger-negatives/#comment-124985
This is a perennial favourite of the climate alarmed. It’s one of those that at the best is an example of attaching carbon dioxide to any bad thing that has happened, and at worst, it proves the case of the defence, as the data shows the opposite to the claims made.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Robin – the daughter-in-law makes the case that developing countries would switch to renewables ASAP but need “trillions of pounds/dollars/euros” to make that happen. Wondering if that money transfer happened today, how long would it take to get renewables up & running in (some of) those countries & as we know, backup would still be needed.
However, she makes the valid point that “who should pay for the transition. Climate finance has been the major stumbling block at COP after COP”. Well we know who pays, or do we?
Sounds a sensible lady, so maybe worth asking for a expanded comment or post?
LikeLike
Robin,
Your friend’s daughter-in-law wrote, “China, for example, is now a global leader in renewable energy, having invested heavily in wind and solar manufacturing. It has committed to significant reductions in greenhouse gas intensity and a long-term transition away from fossil fuels …” There are several points that could be made which show that the lady is, unsurprisingly, barking up the wrong tree. However, the key point is this:-
Unfortunately CURRENT wind and solar technologies are far from renewable for grid applications. In other words, over their lifetimes, they waste energy compared to more conventional thermal plant as is shown by the Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROEI) parameter discussed by Turver (https://davidturver.substack.com/p/why-eroei-matters) based on the (unchallenged but wilfully ignored?) work by Weissbach et al. over a decade ago. Hence there will be no energy-competent transition way from fossil fuels led by CURRENT renewables; a politically driven transtion is a different question suited to authoritarian politics.
I have long wondered about Lake Chad since the days, about 60 years ago when I studied Africa for O-Level GCE (remember them?); it seemed to defy my geography master’s assertion that rivers drained into the sea. Anyway, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chad shows that Lake Chad has been shrinking for about 7,000 years. The Wikipedia article accounts for the most recent shrinkage as follows, “Lake Chad is a shallow inland lake, and the rainfall in the Chad basin is very sensitive to small changes in atmospheric circulation, so the surface area of Lake Chad is greatly affected by climate change. Dry climate due to vegetation loss from overgrazing and deforestation and large-scale irrigation projects that diverted water from the rivers that feed the lake are the main reasons for the shrinkage of Lake Chad.”
Givern that the climate/weather has always been changing, it seems a forlorn hope, perhaps common to climate scaremongering conservatives, that it would stop changing if only humanity kept fossil fuels in the ground.
In summary, and I hope I am not being unfair, your friend’s daughter-in-law seems to personify Upton Sinclair’s observation, “It is difficult to get a [wo]man to understand something when h[er] salary depends upon h[er] not understanding it.” https://www.azquotes.com/author/13641-Upton_Sinclair
Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks John. Yes, I’m afraid her comments betray numerous misunderstandings, both of what I said and of climate negotiation reality. I plan to reply to her this weekend and, if my reply is not too long, I’ll post it here.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Robin; it would be worth questioning whether the COP negotiations reflect what “developing countries” really want. This declaration at the recent G20 is unequivocal in calling for Africa’s development to be driven by fossil fuels:
Africa G20 Declaration: Let African Fossil Fuels Power Our Industrial Future – African Energy Chamber
Thanks to dfhunter for providing the link.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Mike (and dfh) – a compelling declaration.
LikeLike
Here’s the text (without endnotes) of my proposed reply to my friend’s daughter-in-law:
Any suggestions/comments/criticisms before I send it?
LikeLiked by 3 people
My only comment is that it’s very nicely done. Go for it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The sustainability expert makes several mistakes, and I would not want to be part of a company taking her advice on this topic. I suppose in her defence these views are the dominant ones at the moment, but as they say, even a dead fish swims with the tide.
I wonder how you would distinguish a genuinely climate-alarmed country from one that is merely treating the UK and others as suckers? In both cases, we:
It could be argued that Chad would have the same public position, regardless of how fearful of climate change they really are.
As to China, just how much should the West believe their promises are worth? Has China made any compromises illustrating any willingness to cause itself harm in the name of saving the planet from climate change? So far, China has benefited handsomely from our neurosis.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks Mark. And beautifully put Jit – I particularly liked the dead fish analogy.
I’ll send it to her today. With a friendly and polite covering email.
LikeLike
I got this prompt and very short reply from my friend’s DiL:
No comment.
LikeLike
It sounds as they you have won the argument, but a climate alarmist is incapable of recognising or acknowledging the fact!
LikeLike
China, of course, is part of “thre rest”:
“The second China shock is coming – and the UK’s response is too timid
Beijing’s push to dominate technology through state-backed industrial policy is reshaping global trade and could devastate European industry”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/23/the-second-china-shock-is-coming-and-the-uks-response-is-too-timid
…We all need to pay attention as we brace for the second China shock. The first, which followed China’s accession to the WTO in 2001, was about China’s integration into the global trading system, with huge consequences for global labour and resource markets and the harm experienced by many communities around the world as firms and jobs were lost. The second one is China’s attempt to lead and dominate advanced technologies, such as electric vehicles, batteries, semiconductors, biotechnology, robotics and AI, via state-directed industrial policy on an unprecedented scale.…
…China’s exports to Europe are now a material threat to the latter’s industrial base and jobs, with cars, machinery and high technology equipment joining older problem areas such as apparel, appliances and steel. Meanwhile, stagnant imports into China because of weak local demand and Beijing’s goal of self-reliance are restricting opportunities for producers from Europe and elsewhere to develop more business there.
Part of the reason Chinese exports are booming is an undervalued exchange rate, now about 20% lower in real effective terms than three years ago – taking it back to where it was in 2012, when Chinese manufacturing was considerably less significant. The International Monetary Fund is now urging China to reverse policy on the yuan, but the government only speaks of maintaining the “basic stability” of the currency.…
…Starmer should resist the temptation to say that a strongly mercantilist China is a significant driver of global and UK growth, which it is not. On the contrary, he should focus instead on gaining first-hand experience of what the second China shock actually means, not least for the UK.
This is all pretty much true. However, the article fails to mention the key point, which is that UK energy/net zero policies (and those of the EU until it recently apparently began to wak up to reality and ploddingly change track) are playing right into China’s hands, and destroying UK/EU industry and competitiveness.
LikeLiked by 2 people