Mind the Gaps: How the UN Climate Plan Fails to Follow the Science

Image credit: livescience.com

That old nebulous concept is invoked again: ‘the science’. It aims to sound like infallible authority, but that’s not what real science is. Talk of “uncharted territory” reminds us that most of Earth’s climate history also falls into that category. Made-up temperature limits based on the use of global averaging have little meaning in reality, as some politicians appear to have noticed.
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Climate negotiators meeting in Dubai last month pledged to chart a course for stabilizing the climate system using good science, says Fred Pearce at Yale Environment360.

But many scientists say these promises are at best ill-defined and at worst a travesty of good science — vague and full of loopholes.

The U.N. climate conference in Dubai agreed on an action plan for two key objectives: to keep the world on track to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F), and to stay below this threshold by achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Negotiators pledged that both objectives would be pursued “in keeping with the science.”

But neither of the objectives have agreed definitions that would allow a judgment on whether they have been achieved.

‘Weak tea’: dismayed climate scientists push back against COP28 cheer

No ‘meaningful progress’. Needless to say, climate alarmists wanted more alarm than was delivered. One wailed: “With every vague verb, every empty promise in the final text, millions more people will enter the frontline of climate change and many will die.” Shouldn’t that already have happened according to previous COP, and other, forecasts of doom? If not, the next claim is that ‘the window is closing’. The melodrama limps on.
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A UN climate deal that approved a call to transition away from fossil fuels has been hailed as a major milestone and a cause for at least cautious optimism.

But many climate scientists said the joyful sentiments of world leaders did not accurately reflect the limited ambition of the agreement.

‘Weak tea at best’
Michael Mann, a climatologist and geophysicist at the University of Pennsylvania, criticized the vagueness of the fossil fuel statement, which has no firm, accountable boundaries for how much countries should do by when.

“The agreement to ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ was weak tea at best,” he told AFP.

UK climate minister mocked for 6,313-mile round trip by plane for ‘crunch’ Rwanda vote

Airport scene
[image credit: Wikipedia]

From one so-called crisis to another. Net zero CO2 obsession takes a back seat to pressing political needs.
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The UK’s minister for climate will make a 6,313-mile round trip to take part in the government’s crunch vote on Rwanda, Number 10 has confirmed.

Graham Stuart has been in Dubai for the COP28 summit, where leaders from around the world have been discussing the best ways to tackle the climate crisis, says Sky News.

But key talks have stalled over commitments to phase out fossil fuels, with negotiations carrying on through the night to try and find agreement between different nations.
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NGOs (non-governmental organisations) at COP have accused the UK of going “AWOL” at a key time, claiming the British government had let millions of people down.

Confirming the decision to summon Mr Stuart, the prime minister’s official spokesman said: “Ministers have a number of roles, the negotiations continue and he will return to COP.”

The return flight is the equivalent of travelling from London to Edinburgh and back 10 times, and will emit around two tonnes of CO2, according to environmental charity Treedom.

Asked about the carbon emissions from the flights, the spokesman added: “This government is not anti-flying.” [Talkshop comment – especially if it’s illegal immigrants to Rwanda].

“We don’t lecture the public to that regard. The most important thing is the outcomes of COP, which minister Stuart is obviously leading for the UK on.”
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The return of Mr Stuart was the subject of ridicule from shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper as the debate began on Mr Sunak’s bill.

She told MPs: “The climate minister called back from the Dubai COP before the vote?

“Well, I guess they can say at least one flight has taken off as a result of this legislation.”

Full article here.

‘Magical’ tech innovations a distraction from real solutions, climate worriers claim

Photosynthesis [image credit: Nefronus @ Wikipedia]

Real ‘solutions’ like degrading entire economies and reducing living standards? How many toytown ‘climate innovations’ does it take in order to grasp that such things are always a dead end, and often an expensive one? The tedium of COP meetings repeating the same worn-out themes grinds on and on.
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Machines to magic carbon out of the air, artificial intelligence, indoor vertical farms to grow food for our escape to Mars, and even solar-powered “responsible” yachts: the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai has been festooned with the promise of technological fixes for worsening global heating and ecological breakdown, says Yahoo News.

The UN climate talks have drawn a record number of delegates to a sprawling, freshly built metropolis, which has as its centrepiece an enormous dome that emits sounds and lights up in different colours at night.

The two-week programme is laden with talks, events and demonstrations of the need for humanity to innovate its way out of the climate crisis.

The Oil Demand Outlook COP28 Leaders Would Hate

The 28th UN-sponsored attempt to reduce global ’emissions’, in line with its pet climate theories, stares its own failure in the face as emissions keep going up. The renewables industry is running fast to stand still in terms of making a global dent in oil usage, for example. Imposition of ‘net zero’ policies may impact some countries, but oil marches on as demand from the many aspiring – but less developed than the ‘net zero club’ – countries boosts business.
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->> The International Energy Agency said in its recent oil report that oil consumption is close to peaking, thanks to transition efforts and energy efficiency gains.
->> Goehring and Rozencwajg: In 12 of the past 14 years, the IEA has underestimated oil demand by an average annual of 820,000 barrels per day.
->> Goehring and Rozencwajg: “If the IEA’s error were a country, it would be the world’s 21st largest oil consumer”.

This week, a report from a climate organization warned that emissions from the combustion of hydrocarbons are set for a record this year, says OilPrice.com.

Rishi’s Empty ‘Net Zero’ Rhetoric – NZW

Photosynthesis [image credit: Nefronus @ Wikipedia]

Net Zero Watch summarises: ‘Rishi Sunak’s recent speeches on Net Zero are long on rhetoric, but the decarbonisation juggernaut rumbles on uninterrupted.’ — Pursuing climate obsession at a slightly slower rate still doesn’t work. Carbon dioxide isn’t a pollutant.
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Over in the Spectator, Fraser Nelson is inviting us to welcome a change in Rishi Sunak’s tone on Net Zero, says Andrew Montford @ NZW.

His interest has been piqued by the PM’s speech at COP28, which he says shows that Sunak has “started the difficulty work of moving the UK climate agenda from fantasy to policy”.

There will be no more precautionary-principle daftness, we are told, and attention is drawn to the Prime Minister’s claim that from now on decarbonisation will be pursued “in a more pragmatic way, which doesn’t burden working people”.

Nelson is quite correct that the whole drive for Net Zero is a fantasy. It is the triumph of political posturing and bureaucratic trickery over rational decisionmaking.

Cop28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company or ADNOC is the state-owned oil company of the United Arab Emirates

“You’re reading your own media, which is biased and wrong. I am telling you I am the man in charge.” Classic.
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The president of Cop28, Sultan Al Jaber, has claimed there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C, the Guardian and the Centre for Climate Reporting can reveal.

Al Jaber also said a phase-out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back into caves”.

The comments were “incredibly concerning” and “verging on climate denial”, scientists said, and they were at odds with the position of the UN secretary general, António Guterres.

Al Jaber made the comments in ill-tempered responses to questions from Mary Robinson, the chair of the Elders group and a former UN special envoy for climate change, during a live online event on 21 November.

As well as running Cop28 in Dubai, Al Jaber is also the CEO of the United Arab Emirates’s state oil company, Adnoc, which many observers see as a serious conflict of interest.

Continued here.

Why COP28 Will Fail: Policymakers Should Focus on ‘Insufficient’ Energy Tech

Lack of effective technology isn’t the real problem. Inability to accept the lack of a fixable problem, due to blind adherence to IPCC conjectures about the climate, is the problem.
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Summary of a City AM article, from OilPrice.com:

->> In strictly numerical terms therefore, Cop28 will be a failure, like all the climate summits that came before it.

->> Governments across the world are stepping back from their net zero promises because inflation, the cost of living, Ukraine, Gaza and other issues make it appear too costly politically.

->> Politicians should acknowledge that the current level of technology is insufficient to deliver enough carbon abatement in a way that enables an energy system that is affordable, secure and reliable.

Full article here.
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City AM: Why Cop28 will be a failure and leaders should stay at home – by Paul Domjan, a former Energy Security Adviser to the U.S. European Command of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Planet racing toward ‘dead-end 3C temperature rise’, UN chief wails

It’s November again, so time to bring out the climate doomster’s crystal ball and claim once more to know how all global weather systems will behave decades into the future, unless…blah blah. The Climate Obsessives Powwow number 28 will lap up the melodrama (‘racing’?) even if others are less, or not at all, impressed. The notion of one global temperature is just a gimmick.
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Plans to stop emitting greenhouse gases in order to limit global warming are nowhere near enough to avert dangerous climate change, a United Nations body has warned.

In its annual Emissions Gap report, the UN Environment Programme says the climate action plans of governments will fail to limit the global temperature to under 1.5-2C this century, reports Sky News.

That limit was the goal of the landmark Paris Agreement, struck in 2015, when almost 200 countries agreed limiting global warming was necessary to avoid extremely destructive impacts.

Current pledges put the world on track for a 2.5-2.9C of global warming, UNEP said.

Its executive director Inger Andersen told Sky News: “None of these scenarios are acceptable to many, many people who live in low-lying areas, in coastal communities in fire hazard areas or in drought prone areas or flood prone areas.

“So we really do need to step up.”

At 3C of warming, scientists predict the world could pass several catastrophic points of no return, from the runaway melting of ice sheets to the Amazon rainforest drying out.

“Present trends are racing our planet down a dead-end 3C temperature rise,” said UN secretary general Antonio Guterres.

“The emissions gap is more like an emissions canyon.”

Full report here.

Global discord threatens COP28 climate talks, EU commissioner says

Yet another round of the usual excesses of costs and consumption looms, ending with the usual fudges and indecision presented as somehow worth mentioning, to the usual bemusement of onlookers. All paving the way for future COPs ad infinitum of course, or so it seems.
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The need for agreement to tackle global warming is “higher than ever”, but it has never been harder as the geopolitical backdrop complicates international cooperation, the European Union’s climate chief said on Monday (30 October) ahead of next month’s COP28 summit. Euractiv reporting.

Climate Action Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra also said the EU would not accept an outcome at COP28 that only reached deals on less contentious topics – such as increased use of renewable energy – if it failed to solve tougher issues such as phasing out fossil fuels.

“This is not an à la carte menu. It is actually all that is on the menu that needs to be delivered on,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of a preliminary COP28 gathering in Abu Dhabi ahead of the UN summit starting at the end of November.

UK government drops support for controversial deep sea mining as it backs temporary pause

Seabed mining

The report explains that the driver for a supposedly ‘greener energy future’ faces an expected global shortage of ‘critical’ raw materials. The problem of course is that just like so-called fossil fuels all these minerals have to be extracted from somewhere, so somebody is inevitably not going to like it. Plus they won’t be relying on renewable power to do the work.
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The UK has for the first time come out in support of a pause in highly controversial mining of the deep sea bed, having previously supported it, reports Sky News.

On Monday, the government added its name to a group of countries seeking a moratorium on new licences to exploit minerals such as lithium, copper and cobalt – vital for green energy – from the deep sea.

The environment department said the precautionary pause is designed to protect the world’s ocean from such projects, which involve heavy machinery scraping deposits from the world’s largest habitat, until more evidence on the impact is available.

World can’t ‘unplug’ existing energy system: COP28 head

Will the never-ending annual COP show series ever get to grips with the utter inadequacy of renewables? Or of the uselessness of blaming trace gases for the weather, as the globe-trotting hordes of delegates produce ever more of them to get to and from the venue?
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The president of the upcoming COP28 climate talks in Dubai called on Sunday for governments to abandon “fantasies” such as hastily ditching existing energy infrastructure in pursuit of climate goals, reports Phys.org.

“We cannot unplug the energy system of today before we build the new system of tomorrow. It is simply not practical or possible,” Sultan Al Jaber said during the opening session of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Climate Week, a UN-organized conference hosted in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

“We must separate facts from fiction, reality from fantasies, impact from ideology, and we must ensure that we avoid the traps of division and distraction.”

Much of international climate diplomacy revolves around the thorny issue of how and when to quit fossil fuels.

UAE puts oil company boss in charge of Cop28 climate talks

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company or ADNOC is the state-owned oil company of the United Arab Emirates

Sounds like a sensible chap, on energy matters, but some ‘campaigners’ are already frothing. Pointing out that oil and gas demand is continuing to rise isn’t a crime, it’s just reality.
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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) government has appointed Sultan Al-Jaber to be the president of the Cop28 climate talks in November, reports Climate Home News.

Al Jaber heads the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), the twelfth largest oil company in the world, and the emirates’ much smaller renewable energy firm Masdar.

He has been a key figure in national climate and energy policy for over a decade. While Al Jaber has promoted renewable energy, in November 2021 he called for increased global investment in oil and gas.

“The oil and gas industry will have to invest over $600bn every year until 2030 just to keep up with the expected demand,” he told an Abu Dhabi oil conference.

UAE plans to have it both ways as Cop28 climate summit host

Work this one out. Hydrocarbon production is booming in the UAE, due to high demand. Its Dubai International Airport is the world’s busiest by passenger numbers. Next year it will host a conference that in theory at least wants to knock all that on the head, because… climate etc. At COP27 it fielded dozens of oil and gas lobbyists.
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If there was a sign the United Arab Emirates is taking its role as host of the next UN climate talks seriously, the 1,073 delegates it registered to attend the Cop27 summit in Egypt would be it, says Climate Home News.

The Persian Gulf petrostate came out in force in Sharm el-Sheikh with the second largest delegation in the history of climate summits, including 70 oil and gas lobbyists – a flavour of what is to come.

The UAE takes on the UN climate talks presidency from the Egyptians at the end of November next year, when it hosts Cop28 on the site of the Dubai Expo.