corcoran … Odds are against Paris climate deal.
As the world’s nations and a global army of climate activists, bureaucrats, corporate interests, media and assorted hysterics and propagandists gear up for the Paris climate summit, the full scale of the event and it’s objectives are worth noting — even if it is the Wikipedia version:
The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP21 or CMP11 will be held in Paris, from November 30 to December 11. It will be the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties to the 1992U nited Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The conference objective is to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, from all the nations of the world. Leadership of the negotiations is yet to be determined.
Key words: Legally binding universal agreement. Number of days before the marathons of talks, posturing, leaks and name-calling begin: 48. Number of countries attending: 196. Number of countries with official carbon plans submitted: 147. Number of global carbon emissions: 50-billion tonnes Number of emissions cuts to secure a 50-50 chance to hold temperature gain to 2 degrees C: 14-billion tonnes. Chance of hitting that target under current official proposals: 0. Rating of Canada on climate issue by U.S. Natural Resources Defence Council: F. Dumbest description of the Paris carbon objectives to date: The International Trade Union Confederation has called for a global target of “zero carbon, zero poverty.” Major corporate enemy and symbol of carbon evil: Exxon-Mobil.
We mention Exxon-Mobil because activists, as part of their accelerating warmup to Paris, have recently published lengthy investigative works that claim to have uncovered documents that they claim show that Exxon had all the facts on the catastrophic threat of man-made climate change as early as the 1980s. But then, like the tobacco companies, evil Exxon chose to suppress their own science conclusions. Harvard’s inimitable Naomi Oreskes described it all in a recent New York Times op-ed: “Millions of American’s wanted to smoke. Then they came to understand how deadly tobacco products were. Tragically, that understanding was long delayed because the tobacco industry worked for decades to hide the truth, promoting a message of scientific uncertainty instead. The same thing has happened with climate change.
The story, as told at length by Inside Climate News, is that Exxon, like the tobacco giants, knew their products were killing people and/or the
Obstacles suggest no binding universal agreement is in sight for Paris
planet, but the companies suppressed their findings. According to Oreskes, if Exxon had been “upfront” at the time about the dangers of greenhouse gases, the whole world might have tackled the carbon threat decades ago.
The idea is at best fanciful and in reality preposterous. Whether Exxon’s internal science work led to any pioneer discovery on climate change is highly doubtful and certainly not proven in any of the research uncovered so far. But even if it had, so what? The world has not experienced a shortage of official and unofficial research claiming looming climate catastrophe. Nobody has been in the dark on the issue. Billions and billions of dollars have been spent over the decades by UN agencies, governments, foundations and others on an escalating campaign. The world has been awash in alarmism for 30 years, Exxon’s role being all but non-existent.
The Exxon conspiracy story, thin though it might be, is but one part of the massive build-up to the climate summit. New reports, studies, claims, alarming analyses, speeches, conventions, meetings, advocacy sessions, advance programs, manifestos and screeds will flood global media in coming weeks. It is safe to say that, as November 30 approaches, the world will have been saturated with talk of climate disaster and Paris.
Ah, Paris. In the closing foggy night scene of Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart consoles a teary Ingrid Bergman — about to board a plane alone — by telling her “We’ll always have Paris.” With less than seven weeks to go, there are numerous signs that the Paris climate meetings will end inconclusively. It is really too soon to make predictions, but a good wager at this point: “They’ll never have Paris.”
Among the obstacles to a truly legally binding universal agreement, as opposed to another Kyoto or Copenhagen style waffle, are current geopolitical quagmires. Who needs a massive attempt to dramatically cut growth-creating carbon emissions at a time when the world is struggling with other policy-induced economic problems? With refugee crises and escalating tensions in the Middle East and elsewhere, it is hard to imagine sane political leaders will want to be part of a196-national cabal to curb the use of fossil fuels.
The drafts of key documents released last week suggest there are few settled issues. Observers who have looked at national negotiating positions, and at the emerging battle between developed and developing nations, see little prospect for meaningful agreement.
Which is as it should be. Indur Goklany, in a new report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, argues that carbon emissions, even if they do warm the planet, are the lifeblood of global growth and prosperity. In an commentary elsewhere on this page, Goklany argues that “Empirical data confirm that the benefits of CO2 are real whereas the costs of warming are uncertain, dependent as they are on the results of climate models and impact methodologies that tend to overestimate negative impacts.”
Not only will they not have Paris, the world doesn’t need Paris.