No investigation was ordered, no scientific survey was done, no public debate was held, there was no waiting around for the results of a Royal Commission of Inquiry and there were certainly no tiresome disputes over the interpretations of any actual experiments.

The Framework Convention on Climate Change written by these geniuses bypassed all that inconvenient and unnecessary process. They weren’t going to ask for proof for something so important as determining the welfare of mankind, because it was obvious what had to be done. They cut to the chase. So the Convention begins:

“… human activities have been substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, … these increases enhance the natural greenhouse effect, and … this will result on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and may adversely affect natural ecosystems and humankind”

Otherwise, we could say: in the beginning was a scientific inquiry. Read more… »

Lord Turnbull, former Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service from 2002 to 2005.

From the GWPF come these remarks by Lord Turnbull to the House of Lords on January 12th, two days ago.

House of Lords: That this House takes note of the Government’s green agenda: My Lords, in a short debate, I will concentrate my remarks on one issue only, the governance of the science, as this is vital for the credibility of the thinking upon which the Government’s policies are based.

In a debate in December 2009 on a report by the Committee on Climate Change, I said:

“Below the surface there are serious questions about the foundations on which it has been constructed”.—[Official Report, 8/12/09; col. 1051.]

Complete decarbonisation

Over the subsequent two years my concerns have increased rather than been assuaged.

This is an adopted article.

The governing narrative for our climate change framework can be summarised as follows. Read more… »

I’ve been sent some emails from people connected with the IPCC review process. The First Order Draft of the WGI contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis is available for Expert Review from 16 December 2011 to 10 February 2012.

The WGI Bureau invites all experts with expertise and/or publications in the specific areas covered by the WGI Report to assist in the IPCC assessment process by registering to review here.

I have to say that it’s strange that the web site for this professional organisation, which is meant to be secured by encryption certificates, isn’t set up correctly and makes Firefox think the site is being spoofed. It appears quite amateurish. Read more… »

At Durban’s COP 17 climate conference, the EU secured a road map aiming at an international agreement by 2015, to be ratified by all parties by 2020.

Although there was much arm-waving celebration of this “extension” of the Kyoto Protocol, nobody actually believes any legally-binding replacement can be sewn up during the next decade. Some of the most important players think 2020 is too ambitious. The “delayers” include USA, Canada, Japan and Russia. Read more… »

A fresh breath of air just blew through the climate. New Zealand (with its buddies Australia) refuse to do more for the climate if nobody else does.

Our climate negotiator, Tim Groser, said what we’ve been telling the Nats for years: “You will not carry public opinion if the debate is ‘you are the only idiots doing anything.’”

The Nats have finally given up the world-leading role they took on climate. Hurrah, hurrah, and break out the balloons! Read more… »

This will blow your socks off.
It is not made up; the people promoting the global climate crisis promise to control the weather — but first they need to control you (actually, don’t be fooled, controlling you is their real objective and it has been since before the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was agreed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992). These people might be highly dangerous, but they are certainly patient.
In the article below, published as an “exclusive” at Cimate Depot, Lord Christopher Monckton blows the whistle on the contents of the “failed” climate treaty being put together in Durban. You won’t hear this from our proper news media — if you want to see them carry it, start writing your letters to them now.

This is an adopted article.

UPDATE: Lord Monckton referred me to the UNFCCC site to find the draft documents. He told me the draft he read was dated 7 December, which I guess would be this “amalgamation of draft texts“. But there are others – look under “Latest Documents” on the right-hand side. They’re changing rapidly but you might find them interesting.

Special to Climate Depot – Lord Christopher Monckton reports from UN Climate Summit

Durban: what the media are not telling you

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley in Durban, South Africa

DURBAN, South Africa — “No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve.

Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document. Read more… »

UN “scientists” are taking desperate risks with their reputations, attempting to cover up their deceptions about a climatic peril that doesn’t exist.

Some scientists at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) have become desperate to cover up their hamfisted deceptions aimed at generating support for their hypothesis that mankind is causing the Earth to catastrophically heat up. In their desperation they’re still misleading the public, but also abandoning science and, incredibly, telling actual lies about the climate.

This makes for particularly dangerous implications for public policy. We need to be on our guard.

That this is going on is so easy to discover (but not through the mainstream media) that one cannot help but speculate whether our local journalists either have very strong reason to be sympathetic to these activist scientists or are even actually in league with them. Read more… »

Climate crisis called off

UPDATE 1500 NZDT – see below

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) to a Special Report, Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX). (Actually, they haven’t.)

The SPM (I’ll call it the “report” from now on) is remarkable in its candour. The IPCC, once wanting to become the world’s evil overlord, with fingers in public and private pies everywhere to compel compliance with its anti-carbon agenda, acknowledges its ignorance and uncertainty about the climate.

The evil giant has finally spewed forth something wholesome. Read more… »

Yes, yes, but it’s easy. More severe taxes will make people seriously cut their energy use, we could even move them down here to Antarctica. It’ll soon be warm enough. That will keep the Earth safe and protect it from changing. That’s all we want.

Many people trust the IPCC, that it tells governments around the world the truth about global warming. But their trust is being seriously challenged by accumulating lines of evidence that this is not a good characterisation of the IPCC’s process.

The IPCC is coming under ferocious attack by climate sceptics using documentary evidence of astonishing, widespread disregard of fidelity. Read more… »

Perhaps it was simply poor management. Although it would still be grounds to disband the whole dysfunctional team.

Mark Lynas, of all people (for he’s a confirmed believer in man-made warming), writes an excellent article on the ramifications of one Sven Teske, an IPCC lead author and also, by-the-by, a lead author for Greenpeace, using his elevated position on the UN body to get world exposure for his Greenpeace activism.

In applauding Steve McIntyre’s discovery of the latest embarrassment from the IPCC, Mark comments: “McIntyre and I have formed an unlikely double-act.” He’s got that right.

Steve concludes:

The public and policy-makers are starving for independent and authoritative analysis of precisely how much weight can be placed on renewables in the energy future. It expects more from IPCC WG3 than a karaoke version of [a] Greenpeace scenario.

I concur.

The IPCC climate forecasts from 20 years ago compared with the latest temperature data. Thanks to Clive Best. Click for larger version.

Several readers, among them the evergreen Mike Jowsey (thanks, Mike!) have drawn my attention to Clive Best’s simple yet remarkable post from yesterday. It brings together in a most accessible way the early IPCC forecasts (or “scenarios”, actually — they were never predictions) and the latest observations of global temperature.

So, after 20 years, how well have the consensus scientists done in forecasting the climate? It could be said the results are patchy. Read more… »

The banner from Judith Curry’s blog. Click to visit.

Judith Curry draws a radical conclusion from this radical paper. The authors claim that climate forcings from both human influence and natural variation are likely of similar magnitude, which is the first time since the IPCC was created that the climate establishment has expressed that possibility. Then they admit that telling the difference between them is difficult (the science is not settled). That’s the second time that’s been said (the first time was in an early IPCC report). Since “human influence” has become a hot-button code word for guilt, perhaps the guilt might now subside. Finally, Judith has a plea for the IPCC authors: “No more ‘unequivocals’ or ‘very likelys’ in the AR5, please.” Amazing — you must read this and share it with everyone you know or don’t know. It’s sober and persuasive evidence that a tide is turning — a belief in dangerous warming no longer holds a trump card in climate studies. Make the politicians face this new scientific reality or they’ll go on for years with their ETS and carbon taxes – h/t Barry Brill

Separating natural and anthropogenically-forced decadal climate variability

– by Judith Curry. Posted on April 7, 2011

The issue of separating natural from anthropogenically forced variability, particularly in context of the attribution of 20th century climate change, has been a topic of several previous threads at Climate Etc. The issue of natural vs anthropogenically forced climate variability/change has been a key issue of contention between the climate establishment and skeptics. There are some encouraging signs that the climate establishment is maturing in their consideration of this issue. Read more… »

A guest writer inspires thought.

Rupert Wyndham, 12 December 2010

We now have the details of a proposed stitch-up at Cancun. $100bn, it is intended by 2020, should be levied from the taxpayers of “rich” nations to help poor ones adjust to the manifestly and absurdly extravagant alleged effects of climate change. The outcome of any such a fund actually being collected and distributed is predictable, of course.

Unimaginably vast sums will go to enriching the dictators of such countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa but elsewhere too, no doubt, as well as the so-called environmentalist movement in the West. A few years hence there will be little, if any, measurable evidence of investment in “measures to save the planet”.

It is illuminating to recall that Kenya now acknowledges that 43% of its annual receipts of grant aid are syphoned off into sleaze. It is also salutary to recall that WWF now expects to reap revenues of $2bn plus from such a “world fund”.

Is it too fanciful to suggest that the quid pro quo for the enrichment of the third world classe politique is an undisclosed agreement for a percentage back-wash into the Lichtenstein bank accounts of our own political protagonists, amongst whose number in the UK, may well be the heir to the throne as well as individual propagandists at the BBC and not forgetting other dedicated quangos, for example?

Will they get away with it? I don’t think so – after all, where’s the money to come from? And let’s not forget that there’s an ocean of difference between promise and performance. Still, if personal enrichment is actually the real undisclosed name of the game, we may have to anticipate interesting times.

Just a thought – ignoble, I know, but then we live in a funny old world, do we not?

The Cancun anti-climate conference, for the enjoyment of those hard-working household names, our beloved representatives, was held at a beach resort. But one must giggle, for the climate, being irritated, raised objections. Said Anthony Watts: “One record low was funny, three in a row was hilarious, a new record low for the month of December was ROFL, but now six straight days of record lows during the U.N. COP16 Global Warming conference? That’s galactically inconvenient.”

No we can’t

UPDATE 1: 5:10 p.m. NZT

The conference is over. There are 25 separate documents listed here at the UNFCCC web site called “Cancun Agreements” which one must presume represent what has been agreed to. Plus a joint expression of gratitude to Mexico and its leaders for running the conference (and who knows what horrors could be hidden away in that one?). Total: 26 documents.

They’re in two groups, reflecting the fact that two conferences were taking place (COP 16 and CMP 6). Actually, I mislead you: there were three other conferences also taking place. Confusing, isn’t it?

Who could distinguish who was who with so many hats being swapped and shared?

It could take a while to find out what the heck they’ve been up to. Read more… »

A symbol of the proposed, unelected “Secretariat”.

I will resist these proposals with all the means at my disposal for as long as there is breath in my body.

Here’s a selection from Lord Monckton’s hard-hitting exposé of the United Nation’s plans for a world government which were first revealed by him in Copenhagen a year ago. The plans are being further stitched together this week in Cancun, to be finalised the year after next in Rio de Janeiro.

This material is from what is euphemistically termed the Chairman’s “note” (actually, “Note by the Chair”, as though a chair might speak) and which is subtitled “Elements of the outcome”.

It is impenetrable, impossible to understand – and that, Christopher Monckton explains, is deliberate; we’re not meant to know what it means. Read more… »

Mrs Christina Figueres, appointed as Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC earlier this year to replace Yves de Boer, who resigned after Copenhagen failed to achieve a treaty to replace Kyoto. She sounds just as unscientific as her predecessor in her beliefs about mankind’s influence on the climate and she looks well capable of getting her own way in an international (or any other) forum.

On 17 May, 2010, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of Mrs Christina Figueres as the new Executive Secretary of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat based in Bonn, Germany. The appointment was endorsed by the Bureau of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). She replaced Yvo de Boer, who resigned in February, 2010, declaring himself “appalled” by the failure of the international community to reach agreement at Copenhagen on “fighting climate change”.

Yvo De Boer — “appalled” at failure.

The AP quotes Mrs Figueres as saying today in Beijing, China:

“Countries have felt a renewed urgency to address global warming given this year’s series of frequent and catastrophic disasters, including massive flooding in Pakistan, drought and fires in Russia, and mudslides and floods in China.”

Have they, indeed? First, how does she know this, or is she merely stating what she would like to hear? Read more… »

An adopted article.

by Matt Ridley of The Times
September 04, 2010, 12:00 noon

After years of darkness, there are signs of light returning both to climate science and the mainstream media! What is instinctively unacceptable in one (uncontaminated) scientific realm is at last observed as being practically the rule in the (deeply flawed) realm of climate science. (How NZ climate scientists can continue to pretend that the practice of their science has not been besmirched and remains beyond reproach is a mystery.) In this story we hear that a scientific inquiry actually does its job properly, The Times begins to stir and a real journalist concludes we don’t need a neck tourniquet for a nose bleed. Fascinating!
    - Richard Treadgold

Here’s the full story: Read more… »

Rajendra Pachauri – is science his real concern?

From the New York Post, September 1, 2010.

If this keeps up, no one’s going to trust any scientists.

The global-warming establishment took a body blow this week, as the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change received a stunning rebuke from a top-notch independent investigation.

For two decades, the IPCC has spearheaded efforts to convince the world’s governments that man-made carbon emissions pose a threat to the global temperature equilibrium — and to civilisation itself. IPCC reports, collated from the work of hundreds of climate scientists and bureaucrats, are widely cited as evidence for the urgent need for drastic action to “save the planet.”

But the prestigious InterAcademy Council, an independent association of “the best scientists and engineers worldwide” (as the group’s own web site puts it) formed in 2000 to give “high-quality advice to international bodies,” has finished a thorough review of IPCC practices — and found them badly wanting.

False claims, no evidence

For example, the IPCC’s much-vaunted Fourth Assessment Report claimed in 2007 that Himalayan glaciers were rapidly melting, and would possibly be gone by the year 2035. The claim was actually false — yet the IPCC cited it as proof of man-made global warming. Read more… »

Have the revelations of impropriety, mistakes and sheer deception finally forced substantial change, or is this an attempt merely to gloss over the shattered credibility of the IPCC? Whatever the outcome, nothing will remain as it was; there have been titanic shifts in opinion, few people believe that mankind is responsible for changing the climate and investors are leaving the “carbon” markets in droves. The following article is a good summary of how the IPCC’s credibility has been destroyed.

Reported today on Fox News (subheads added):

U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) head Rajendra Pachauri, left, and Thirteenth Finance Commission Chairman Vijay Kelkar look on at a press conference in New Delhi. – AP Photo/Gurinder Osan

by Ed Barnes – FOXNews.com

In the wake of its swift and devastating fall from grace, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) says it will announce “within the next few days” plans to make significant changes in how it does business.

Just one year ago a pronouncement from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) was all that was needed to move nations and change environmental policies around the world. But today, the panel’s creditability and even its very existence are in question.

In the wake of its swift and devastating fall from grace, the panel says it will announce “within the next few days” that it plans to make significant though as yet unexplained changes in how it does business.

Brenda Abrar-Milani, an external relations officer at the IPCC’s office in Geneva, Switzerland, said changes have been slow in coming because “we have to inform the governments (all 194 member States) of any planned steps, and they are the ones who eventually take decisions on any revision of procedures.”

“We put everything on the table and looked at it,” she said, explaining that the panel’s reforms would be extensive. She refused to detail any of the changes, but she did confirm that are in response to recent scandals involving the panel. Read more… »

This, from Watts Up With That, needs no comment from me.

This QOTW [Quote Of The Week] is from our friend and WUWT contributor Willis Eschenbach who writes:

I just got my 29 January 2010 copy of Science Magazine, which contains an interview with Rajendra K. Pachauri, the future ex-Chairman of the IPCC. In it, he gives the following astounding answer:

Q: Has all that has happened this winter dented the credibility of IPCC?

R.K.P.: I don’t think the credibility of the IPCC can be dented. If the IPCC wasn’t there, why would anyone be worried about climate change?

Why, indeed? …

The shrewdly-woven fabric of the great climate change narrative has begun to tear. Remarkably, its resistance to tearing is proving non-existent. The rifts widen daily as exaggerations are piled upon naked lies and climate theories and snake-oil remedies are dissolved to expose the venal money-making schemes that lie at their root.

The IPCC is doomed, Pachauri faces removal

As much as I would like to focus on local facets of the climate change dreamland it is nevertheless impossible to ignore the continuing revelations from abroad that are tearing at the fabric of the “Grand Narrative”, to use Philip Stott’s term at the Clamour Of The Times.

These tectonic changes will demand alterations to or even cancellation of our own ETS and other responses to “global warming”, so we need to know about them. New Zealand needs a dialogue to debate the implications. Read more… »

This is a good summary of the Himalaya glacier story. Jonathan Leake and Chris Hastings, at The Times Online, go through the details and discuss the implications.

The IPCC tell us constantly that they use experts in every field to assemble its reports. It’s scandalous that any of their teams might be led by a person who could know so little that this kind of school-boy error is possible.

Their reputation is getting worse by the day.

UPDATE 1 Jan 19, 3:54 pm: I’ve just come across Roger Pielke Jr’s view on this. He’s disgusted.

Dr Richard North, at Eureferendum, explains how a mistaken claim from about five years ago made its way into the latest IPCC “summary of the latest science” on climate change, has been thoroughly discredited and disproven, and yet still allows Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman and public front of the IPCC, to make a lot of money from it.

We’re constantly told that the IPCC reports “are put together by 2500 scientists” but so what, if they miss this kind of thing?

How can we trust this man and the alarming climate predictions he gives us?

The Times of India, under an odd-sounding headline, carry the following story on their web site today:

Pachauri-led TERI under UK scanner

LONDON: The British government is to carry out due diligence on New Delhi-based The Energy Research Institute following a local newspaper’s relentless campaign against the organization and its director-general, Rajendra Pachauri, who is also the IPCC chairman.

A British Department for International Development statement said, ‘‘As is routine, DFID is undertaking a full Institutional Assessment of TERI as part of our due diligence process.’’

The Sunday Telegraph’s persistence seems to have ‘‘triggered the routine’’.

The paper attacked DFID and its secretary of state (cabinet minister) Douglas Alexander for presenting 10 million pounds of British tax-payers money to TERI in Delhi last September. In its most recent piece, titled ‘‘The curious case of the expanding environmental group with falling income’’, it once again questioned TERI and Pachauri’s probity.

It alleged, ‘‘He (Pachauri) enjoys a lavish lifestyle; his Delhi home is in the Golf Links area, the most expensive stretch of residential real estate in India, and he is famous for his $1,000 suits.’’ The piece also insinuated that while the registered charity, TERI Europe’s business in the past six years had increased, its published turnover had decreased.

When ‘‘The Sunday Telegraph’’ reportedly put it to one of its two directors, Dr Ritu Kumar, a south London resident, that the body’s income and expenditure in recent years were both much greater than the figures it declared, she is said to have admitted anomalies in the accounts. Teri Europe’s accountants have now been instructed to produce a revised version.

Let us hope it achieves a frank disclosure of the financial affairs of arguably the most important figure in the climate change scandal. With the reputation of the IPCC taking almost daily hits on multiple fronts, it’s little wonder recent polls show fewer New Zealanders now worried by “global warming”.

Pachauri – climate prophet for profit

Is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), dealing with us (his global constituents, as it were) honestly?

Richard North, in a blog piece called Pachauri: How much is this man getting?, says:

What we are seeing here … is an interesting modus vivendi — three different payments to support the chairman of the IPCC, yet each payment is made by a different organisation to a different organisation — one in the US, one in the UK and one in India. No one knows what the other is doing — except Pachauri, of course.

Why were these payments made in such complex fashion? Apparently his United Nations salary is not publicly disclosed — why not?

On January 6, 2010, in an article entitled Pachauri: the smoking gun, Dr Richard North describes how

TERI Europe was engaged in the production of a report for which it must have attracted funding in the order of £70,000 and incurred considerable expense, yet it shows an income of £9,000 and an expenditure of £5,000.

Even if there is a substantial discount on the SI2 report, it is simply not credible that TERI Europe could have operated that year with an income so low, or spent so little. On the face of it, we are very much closer to showing that this organisation has indeed been guilty of false accounting, and misleading the Charity Commission. Read more… »

We Kiwis should stay in touch with Australian developments, so here’s another in a continuing collaboration with the friendly dingos across the ditch. Download the original pdf (153KB) from Carbon Sense.

Guest post by Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, Australia.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on the Australian Parliament to repudiate the
Copenhagen giveaways promised by PM Rudd to the failed states of Africa and the welfare
beggars of the islands.

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that the three Climate Crusaders,
Obama, Brown and Rudd, had been comprehensively conned in Copenhagen by African
mendicants and fakers from the islands.

“They have agreed to hand over mega-bucks of our money (anywhere from $5 billion to
$100 billion) as compensation for alleged damage caused by our production of carbon
dioxide – the Africans citing climate damage and the islanders claiming rising sea levels.

“Even a cursory examination of the facts would prove that both of these claims are
fraudulent.

“There is no evidence that carbon dioxide has caused global warming, or causes damage to
any aspect of life on earth. The vast majority of earth’s warming originates from the sun, and fluctuations there are the major cause of climate changes.

“In addition, careful recent surveys show no unusual rising of sea levels. Read more… »

First published at the National Post: December 21, 2009, 2:33 pm

There’s trouble over tree rings as the Climategate emails reveal a rift between scientists. For Part 1, go here.

By Terence Corcoran

In the thousands of emails released last month in what is now known as Climategate, the greatest battles took place over scientists’ attempts to reconstruct a credible temperature record for the last couple of thousand years. Have they failed? What the Climategate emails provide is at least one incontrovertible answer: They certainly have not succeeded.

In a post-Copenhagen world, climate history is not merely a matter of getting the record straight, or a trivial part of the global warming science. In a Climategate email in April of this year, Steve Colman, professor of Geological Science at the University of Minnesota Duluth, told scores of climate scientists “most people seem to accept that past history is the only way to assess what the climate can actually do (e.g., how fast it can change). However, I think that the fact that reconstructed history provides the only calibration or test of models (beyond verification of modern simulations) is under-appreciated.”

If temperature history is the “only” way to test climate models, the tests we have on hand — mainly the shaky temperature history of the last 1,000 or 2,000 years — suggest current climate models are not getting a proper scientific workout.

Two scientists, one British and the other American, straddle the initial Climategate battle over recent global temperature history. Later, the same two scientists appear to abandon their internal disagreements and join forces to present a united front to fight off critics and put down skeptics. Read more… »

Scroll down to a guest post from Christopher Monckton

Copenhagen finally exposed the world-government desires of the global warming devotees.

It is now in the open. United Nations officials, environmentalists and sundry politicians have spoken over increasingly over the last year of the “need” to govern all nations’ decisions relating to the use of fossil fuels in order to get the climate under “control”. There has been the occasional leaked report discussing how to achieve such governance.

But with the release of the actual wording of the Copenhagen Treaty all camouflage and obfuscation has been put aside. What has been revealed is a naked grab for power, which—thank the gods—has been thwarted.

Even now I shrink from talking about it, since it seems simple-minded, or even paranoid, to give credence to just another conspiracy theory. But too many people have expressed a desire for world government, from the French President to the leader of Greenpeace, to disbelieve it any longer. Lord Monckton expressed the issues and the dangers in his superlative style in a speech he gave to the Minnesota Free Markets Institute on October 14.

Now, immediately following Copenhagen and with a newly sore head from police brutality, he writes in the SPPI blog this summary of the agreement and his view of its likely effects. He finishes on a note of hope, but watch for the unstated sting in the tail.

*************************

From The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley in Copenhagen

The mountains shall labour, and what will be born? A stupid little mouse. Thanks to hundreds of thousands of US citizens who contacted their elected representatives to protest about the unelected, communistic world government with near-infinite powers of taxation, regulation and intervention that was proposed in early drafts of the Copenhagen Treaty, there is no Copenhagen Treaty. There is not even a Copenhagen Agreement. There is a “Copenhagen Accord”. Read more… »

The Carbon Sense Coalition, highlighting the hypocrisy which surrounds the global warming circus, today called for the “climate conspirators” attending the Copenhagen carnival to walk home.

The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, added: “Right now, over 15,000 green hypocrites, mostly funded by the world’s suffering taxpayers, have winged their way in comfortable carbon-fuelled air travel to Copenhagen’s best VIP accommodation. There they will be seeking ways to forcibly reduce our carbon footprint while doing nothing about their own.

“Top-rated airlines are booming as prominent people top up their frequent flyer carbon credits. Concierges are smiling as limousines glide in, full of exalted envoys with their entourage of minders and courtiers, all with lights blazing, air conditioners humming, kitchens cooking, champagne bubbling and caviar disappearing.”

Mr Forbes said that the global warming industry would also be there, creating scares, talking about drowning polar bears and melting ice, demanding handouts, seeking exemptions, defending paper credits and pushing for subsidies and special deals.

He said, “There will be battalions of largely gullible and fawning media, many also from government media monoliths touring on the tab of the taxpayer. We are told that Australian taxpayers have sent 114 official delegates there, all concerned to reduce our consumption of carbon fuels.”

“If they are fair dinkum,” he fumed, “they should all lead by example, use “green energy”—and walk home.”

Can’t say we disagree with too much of that, really. Drop a note to your MP and let him/her know what you think of this junket.

The Carbon Sense Coalition opposes waste of resources and pollution and promotes the rational and sustainable use of carbon energy and carbon food.

It’s been a busy day and it’s close to its end. I check out the NZ Herald for the first time and see a headline: “Tiny Tuvalu outgunned by oil giant”. Curious, I click on it. Now I’m furious. That was yesterday, it’s taken until now to finish researching and writing this damned rebuttal and adjust the images and I’m still furious.

There is no justification for a high level of alarm over future sea level rise and no reason to blame human emissions of carbon dioxide.

The “oil giant” is Saudi Arabia, apparently anxious not to have its oil exports reduced too much. “Outgunned” means opposing votes squash Tuvalu’s motion for developed nations to more aggressively curb their emissions. So Tuvalu’s leaders are distressed, thinking their island nation will soon disappear beneath the waves.

Activists claim that sea level rise is already making life difficult for islanders on Tuvalu and on Kiribati, another set of low-lying Pacific islands to the north-east of Australia.

They quote damaging effects such as fortnightly “king tides” attacking the coastline, wells contaminated with sea water—even one village in Kiribati abandoned to “waist-high water”. It is very distressing. Read more… »

This from The Guardian of 5th November:

A global treaty to fight climate change will be postponed by at least six months and possibly a year or more, senior negotiators and politicians conceded today.

In a day of gloomy statements, the world’s key industrialised nations said they had abandoned hope of a legally binding treaty at the Copenhagen summit next month and had begun to plan only for a meeting of world leaders.

Makase Nyaphisi, the Lesothan ambassador speaking on behalf of the UN’s least developed group of 49 countries, responded by saying: “We cannot afford delaying tactics in any way. It’s a matter of life and death.”

Poor countries stand to gain enormous sums of money in the name of climate change. Just announced in Barcelona was $1.1 billion funding from the World Bank for “clean energy” and “preparation for climate change” in Africa, from a total pot of $6.3 billion pledged by donors in funds for developing nations.

It’s hardly surprising Lesotho wants the process to move on. The climate change scam scheme is promising poor nations a Lotto win, the biggest pot of gold they could imagine. The best thing is that it’s completely open-ended, since there’s no finish date. When will the climate be “changed” enough? When will western countries stop feeling guilty about causing climate change?

To be plain, once begun, there will be a Niagara of money flooding into the poor nations. How on earth will it stop? Because the climate won’t stop—it’ll keep changing forever. If there is to be an exit method or a review date, what is it? It is scandalous that our government is negotiating this treaty without disclosing to us its contents.

For undeveloped countries, it must seem like the very best kind of extortion—the kind the victim volunteers for. All the poor people have to do is keep asking for more.

With “climate change” revenue streaming into the country, despotic leaders will feed on the bounty like never before while their people remain hungry, unhealthy and uneducated. What incentives will there be seriously to improve their society?

By all means send money, but don’t connect it with climate change and tie it firmly to schemes the people know about and join with. But the most important thing is to FIRST discover the cause of the nation’s poverty.

Poverty is caused by something like land ownership, political structure or the restrictive hand of religion. It’s almost never because of lack of natural resources and is absolutely never due to lack of intelligence or skill. Change the knowledge, change the behaviour. Our aim should be to introduce right knowledge then STOP sending money and LEAVE. Let commerce and trade do the job thereafter, just as it has with us.

This international climate treaty lacks knowledge of basic human nature. It will drain the coffers of the rich but almost guarantees that poor nations never become wealthy. Read more… »

Situation ‘worse than we thought’?

Only weeks to go before Copenhagen is due to reshape the political world as we know it, and now more signals that it will fail.

Although heads of government met in New York recently, we have been getting mixed signals on the likelihood of them reaching a meaningful agreement. As early as June this year, the UN’s top climate official, Mr Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said global emissions reduction targets are unlikely to be reached in Copenhagen. That was quite a pessimistic outlook from the man who’s supposed to be organising it.

In early September UN Development Chief, Miss Helen Clark (remember her?), was toning down expectations for Copenhagen, even suggesting there might be no deal at all. “I think the conference will be positive but it won’t dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’.”

Less than six weeks ago, the UK Foreign Secretary, Mr David Miliband, said that the Copenhagen conference would fail to produce an effective treaty on cutting greenhouse gases. We were daring to hope we could forget about Copenhagen committing us to any serious reduction in our energy use. Read more… »

This is wild. The story is still developing, because the draft treaty seems to have been discovered by sceptics only a few weeks ago. The draft is difficult to read, as it contains alternative clauses and long sentences and is even ungrammatical in places. Clearly, it’s a work in progress. But it harbours such concepts as offend any freedom-loving thinker, so let’s get the word out and demand explanations of our government. I hope to have more analyses available over the next few days. Janet has kindly allowed us to re-post her article.

Guest post by Janet Albrechtsen (bio here)

SHAME on us all: on us in the media and on our politicians. Despite thousands of news reports, interviews, analyses, critiques and commentaries from journalists, what has the inquiring, intellectually sceptical media told us about the potential details of a Copenhagen treaty? And despite countless speeches, addresses, interviews, doorstops, moralising sermons from government ministers, pleas from Canberra for an outcome at Copenhagen, opposition criticism of government policy, what have our elected representatives told us about the potential details of a Copenhagen treaty?

With just over 40 days until more than 15,000 officials, advisers, diplomats, activists and journalists from more than 190 countries attend the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, we know nothing. Nothing about a climate change treaty that the Rudd government is keen to sign and one that will bind this country for years to come. Read more… »

Chris de Freitas takes aim at decision-makers who should know, but apparently don’t know, what they’re doing. If they don’t squirm on reading this stinging criticism, then surely they possess no conscience. Let us hope they’re strong enough to honestly re-evaluate their position. I’m posting his article in toto; crafted with the best possible reasoning, it deserves the widest possible circulation.

Published in Energy New Zealand, Sept 2009.
by Chris de Freitas

Bias or blindness… emission targets

THE KYOTO PROTOCOL, an icon of the global environmental movement, is soon to be replaced by a more radical international treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

What it will involve depends on the outcome of negotiations that begin this December in Copenhagen. In preparation, the Government has committed New Zealand to cut up to a third of current emissions by 2020.

The economic, social and moral implications are immense, since carbon taxes and tradable emissions alone cannot make such a massive reduction. Sweeping legislation restricting the use of oil, coal and natural gas would be required, along with far-reaching reforms in pastoral farming to cut methane release. Read more… »

Christopher Monckton, at the Science and Public Policy Institute, is despondent about the uses being made of the global warming “crisis”. He fumes about the supranational aspirations of the United Nations and speaks darkly of a “fledgling World Government”. I recommend you download the pdf and read him directly; it’s not only a demonstration of excellent writing but also illuminates the situation.

Does he exaggerate in referring to international arrangements, through treaties, which aim to control our emissions of greenhouse gases, as “this constitutional monstrosity, [this] abnegation of life, this repudiation of liberty, this cancellation of the pursuit of happiness”? Read more… »

So, it’s official: the possibility of a replacement being hammered out for the Kyoto Treaty now appears remote.

It will be “physically impossible” to have a detailed deal to tackle climate change by this December’s summit in Copenhagen, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said on Wednesday in Bonn.

The “four tough nuts”, as he termed them, were proving extremely difficult to crack because, he said, the “delivery on four political essentials”, on which success in Copenhagen would depend, was turning out to be “impossible”. Read more… »

I just emailed Barry Coates, Executive Director of Oxfam New Zealand, thus:

Dear Barry,

Your article in the Herald today attracted my attention, since I am interested in the general topic of global warming, but I also experienced a certain (perhaps naive) surprise at Oxfam’s connection with global warming. Clearly you believe in the hypothesis of dangerous man-made global warming; I hope you don’t mind if I ask some questions about it.

First, some facts seem to have come unstuck from reality. Read more… »

So CO₂ is now a polluting gas. Does nobody have any elementary science knowledge? Dr Muriel Newman lambasts the Commissioner for the Environment for stupidly declaring CO₂ a pollutant. But the campaign against carbon dioxide originates with the IPCC, who breaches its own rules, ignores accepted scientific procedure and whose objective when set up was to find evidence of human interference in the climate. With all those bureaucrats employed for that single purpose, there was never much chance of not finding evidence, was there? more…