Tag Archives: Paris agreement

The Climate Wars ignited again in Australia and Labor’s best argument is just scorn and derision

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From JoNova

By Jo Nova

Here we go again. It’s another round of the climate wars in Australia. It’s the issue that never dies, because global weather control is a stupid idea levitating on righteous indignation and a hundred billion dollars. As long as it floats, it’s the Hindenburg of National Energy Policy. It will only end when there’s nothing left to burn.

This time, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has  said what all the grown ups already know — that the 82% renewables target by 2030 that Labor legislated is doomed and we should delay it. Two years after ignition, everyone knows the NetZero rocket is impossible. Renewable investment has ground to a halt, people are not buying EV’s,  farmers don’t want the transmission lines, coastal towns don’t want the wind towers, project costs are doubling and tripling, and Florence the borer is still stuck in a short hole that is meant to be a long one. Worse, we’ve already got more solar power than the grid can handle and extra solar power is so useless we’re about to start charging people who carelessly add to the glut at lunchtime.

Peter Dutton is sadly still saying we should do “Net Zero by 2050” — which will stop him mocking the whole pagan religion of weather control, but he is offering a real alternative — we can stop banging our heads on the wall for a few years.

The government meanwhile is fighting back with their best missives of scorn and damnation. Apparently this will lead to the awful affliction called “pariah status”. The world won’t want to dance with Australia, or something. Or, more likely, Sydney Harbour might drop a few spots on the Green Backpacker Holiday Guide. Like we care.

The media leapt to declare hyperbolically that “Dutton is pulling out of the Paris Agreement” because, being globalist junkies themselves, they thought this would be an insult. But instead of being a shocking misstep those headlines may have earned him fans. The EcoWorriers seemed to have forgotten that at the drop of a hat, back in 2018 48% of Australians said they’d be happy to pull out of “Paris”. That was without any discussion at all. Half the country didn’t care less. Imagine if we had a debate now with the cost-of-living-dog chewing on voters ankles?

Paris is a sacred totem for believers to dance around. But its almost all theater — China agreed to do nothing, and most nations will miss their targets. Now even the UN admits the world will crash through Paris Agreement goals by a factor of two for 2030.

The pimps for Paris can hardly threaten Australians with twice as many cyclones next year, or 20% more floods by 2025. They know, and we know, that the benefits of “Net Zero” are just social approval points on a Leftist dance card. There is no productivity growth, no cheaper electricity, no nicer weather coming our way — at least not for a hundred years (even in theory). So when someone pops the bubble, all they can fire back with are social credit costs not real ones. Dutton will make us “the Global Laughing Stock” they say, lamely. He will risk our membership of the Paris Agreement — the club which we pay for, and  which includes practically every nation on Earth —  (as if the UN would want to take its claws out of any wealthy donor).

As Graham Lloyd remarked: “Peer pressure is the only tool at the UN’s disposal. “

The non-binding compromise at the heart of the Paris Agreement that allowed US president Barack Obama to sign it without seeking the approval of congress makes the Paris Agreement a voluntary affair. .. Put bluntly, if countries were excised from the Paris Agreement for not meeting high expectations, it would be a gathering of none.

The Labor Party will find in the next election, like the last “climate election” in 2013, that they have very little material benefit to offer the voters. But no one will believe the “cheaper electricity bill” lie.

Labors target is a 43% emissions reduction of our 2005 emissions by 2030. Most of the reduction will come (in their dreams) from being 82% “renewable” for electricity (up from 32% renewable now).

Just to put that in perspective, here’s the graph of Australia’s total energy consumption which at the end of 2022 was 85% fossil fueled.

To reach this frivolous quest, Australia is supposedly going to install 22,000 solar panels every day and a new wind tower every night, somehow we’ll install 10,000 kilometers of high voltage power lines, and we will find $1.5 trillion spare dollars to pay for it all.

The actual “Paris Agreement” Australia signed was to reduce 2005 emissions by 26 to 28% by 2030. It was Labor in 2022 that raised the stakes and legislated the 43% cut, just to impress their friends at Davos or something.

So many political careers have died on “climate change” and yet few political commentators seem to realize why.

Image by Roy Snyder from Pixabay

Patrick Brown: The Social Feedback Loops Constraining Climate Science

From Watts Up With That?

Patrick Brown of the Breakthrough Institute has written an excellent article: The Social Feedback Loops That Constrain Climate Science

If researchers were perfectly dispassionate reasoners with no motivations other than truth-seeking, their published papers could be taken as a direct, objective view into reality. But as I argued not long ago in an essay in The Free Press, that idealized notion of science is a fantasy. Stemming from a frustration that I felt about not being able to take high-impact climate science at face value, I decided to call out what I see as one problem: The highest-profile research is heavily influenced by cultural forces and career incentives that are not necessarily aligned with the dispassionate pursuit of truth.https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/no-20-spring-2024/the-social-feedback-loops-that-constrain-climate-science

In the realm of climate science, the focus is often on the environmental feedback loops that intensify global warming. However, the social feedback loops influencing the creation and dissemination of climate science are equally potent and far less scrutinized. These social mechanisms significantly shape the research landscape, often prioritizing narratives that align with certain political and social agendas over a balanced and comprehensive understanding of climate issues.

The Allure of High-Impact Publications and Their Consequences

Brown discusses how research, fundamentally a social endeavor, relies on communication through publications in peer-reviewed journals. The prestige associated with journals like Nature and Science significantly influences the research they choose to publish. These journals, acting as gatekeepers, preferentially select studies that support prevailing narratives, such as the imperative of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, as outlined in the Paris Agreement.

This selection bias is not without consequence. It subtly coerces researchers into framing their studies in ways that are likely to be viewed favorably by high-impact journals, often at the expense of a more nuanced or comprehensive approach. For instance, studies might focus on how climate change negatively impacts an environmental phenomenon while neglecting other significant factors. This methodological tunnel vision can lead to a distorted portrayal of climate science in the public sphere.

The article elaborates on this issue, stating:

“Framing research in a way that at least directionally supports the predominant narrative makes the path to a high-impact publication much less treacherous… rather than ask, ‘What is the magnitude of the influence of climate change on the phenomena I am studying relative to all other influences?’ it is more prudent to ask, ‘How does climate change negatively impact the phenomena I am studying?’”https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/no-20-spring-2024/the-social-feedback-loops-that-constrain-climate-science

The Economic Costs of Climate Policies: An Overlooked Narrative

Brown notes that one of the most glaring omissions in current climate science literature is a balanced discussion on the economic impacts of climate policies. High-profile journals frequently publish papers that discuss the benefits of stringent climate policies without a corresponding analysis of the costs. For example, a paper might highlight the economic savings from adhering to the 1.5°C limit without considering the substantial costs of such rapid decarbonization.

This lack of balanced analysis could potentially mislead policymakers and the public about the true costs and benefits of climate policies. Research that does attempt to present a more balanced view often finds it difficult to gain traction in high-impact journals, likely because it challenges the prevailing narrative.

The article touches on this issue as well, explaining:

“Our study showed that when costs were considered alongside benefits, the conclusion of the benefit-only analysis was overturned: the Paris Agreement targets would impose net harm on the world economy through 2100… It was the finding of the study, rather than the topic, that was unwelcome.”https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/no-20-spring-2024/the-social-feedback-loops-that-constrain-climate-science

The Role of Political and Editorial Bias in Shaping Climate Science

Editors and journal policies significantly influence the kind of research that is published. High-profile journals not only reflect but also shape scientific discourse, pushing a narrative that aligns with certain political goals. For instance, endorsements by journal leadership of political figures and policies clearly signal an alignment with specific policy agendas, such as those encapsulated in the Paris Agreement.

This alignment raises questions about the purity of scientific inquiry within these publications. When journals overtly associate with political agendas, they risk compromising their objectivity and the trust of the scientific community and the public.

The article critically notes:

Leadership at Nature and Science have made it clear that they endorse the political goals of the Paris Agreement — to rapidly transition the world’s energy and agricultural economies so that global warming remains below 1.5°C (or at most 2°C) above preindustrial levels.https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/no-20-spring-2024/the-social-feedback-loops-that-constrain-climate-science

…

Nature as an institution officially endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, citing, among other reasons, his policies in support of the Paris Agreement. Facing some pushback on their explicit embrace of politics, Nature subsequently doubled down on their political statements. The current editor-in-chief of Science, Holden Thorpe, has defended the idea of scientific journals endorsing policies and politicians — implying that the authority of science subsumes the entirety of the climate problem all the way through to the amount of power that the government should yield in dictating a solution.https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/no-20-spring-2024/the-social-feedback-loops-that-constrain-climate-science

Breaking the Feedback Loop: Proposals for a More Equitable Scientific Discourse

Brown offers potential solutions, such as, to counteract the bias introduced by social feedback loops, several structural changes are necessary. One approach could be to alter the publication process to focus more on the research question and methodology rather than the results. This could help mitigate the publication bias where only results that fit the predominant narrative are favored.

Additionally, increasing transparency in the peer review and editorial decision-making process could help reveal any biases in the publication process. Publishing peer reviews and editorial decision letters, even for rejected manuscripts, could foster a more open and equitable scientific dialogue.

Conclusion

The social dynamics within the climate science community significantly impact the research agenda and the resulting literature. A thorough examination of all aspects of climate science can lead to a deeper understanding of the complexities and potential biases within this field. Both the scientific community and the journals that disseminate research must strive for greater neutrality in their approaches to the publication and discussion of scientific research. This is essential for fostering a more comprehensive and critical approach to climate science, enabling a more robust and informed scientific discourse that can serve the diverse needs and concerns of global society.

Dr Brown’s essay is well worth reading in its entirety.

A tale of two Johns as SPECs

From CFACT

By Duggan Flanakin

Leave it to Joe Biden. When the 80-year-old plutocrat John Forbes Kerry steps down as Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC), he chose 75-year-old John David Podesta, Jr., to finish out the year. The two climate czars could not have come from more different beginnings.

For his self-important mission to “save the planet,” Kerry has been called a “climate clown” on social media and “the Forrest Gump of Climate” by Bloomberg Media. Ever the aloof Eurocentric diplomat, Kerry never lets anyone forget how important he is. Podesta, from much more humble roots, prefers to work behind the scenes, often in a supporting role.

It was clearly past time for Kerry to go. The day before he “retired,” Kerry spoke at a press conference and raised eyebrows and temperatures when he blurted out that people might “feel better” about the Russian government if Russia would just commit to fighting climate change as hard as he has done.

Kerry’s strange remarks came in response to a question from a Russian reporter as to whether the long-running U.S. campaign against Russian influence – one that has escalated into a major war that could soon become nuclear – was interfering with climate cooperation. The Russian Federation waited until 2019 – when Paris opponent Donald Trump was President — to adopt the Paris Agreement, overcoming strong opposition from Russian industry lobbyists.

At the time, Rusian Edelgeriev, President Putin’s climate advisor, said his country would become a “full-fledged participant in this international instrument.” He boasted that Russia had cut its carbon emissions nearly in half since 1990, the year of the collapse of the old Soviet Union.

But oil and gas provide about 20 percent of the Russian economy, and Europeans who had shunned fossil fuel production themselves were still heavily dependent on Russian fossil fuels to keep their own economies afloat. Russia today is developing coal resources in the Far East and wants to open more Arctic shipping lanes.

Imagine the grating of teeth in the Kremlin as Kerry droned on that even with its “illegal” war against Ukraine, “they ought to be able to find the effort to be responsible on the climate issue.” Maybe Kerry was saddest that, because of the war, he has not been able to fly back and forth to Moscow (or preferably, to a Crimean dacha?) to “negotiate”.

Missing from Kerry’s diatribe was the well-known fact that Russia only contributes 5 percent of global human-caused carbon dioxide emissions, less than half that of the U.S. (12.6 percent), and only a tiny fraction of China’s whopping 33 percent. But Kerry would not dare tell China it “ought to be more responsible on the climate issue.”

Instead, after lengthy negotiations in Beijing, Kerry insisted he was not disappointed that no new agreements came from his “work,” or that President Xi reaffirmed that China would pursue its climate goals at its own pace and in its own way. Kerry was just glad he got a few free meals.

In his first year as SPEC, Kerry took a reported 48 trips on his wife’s private jet, including meetings with authoritarian heads of state. He refused to publicly criticize China for building a new coal-fired power plant every week. But he did compare the fight against climate change to the Allies’ fight to defeat Nazi Germany.

Young Americans may remember that Kerry was the (losing) Democratic Party nominee for President in 2004. They may also know that, long before became the “climate guy,” Kerry was a spokesperson for Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

The Massachusetts brahmin, after a failed Congressional campaign and a short stint as Michael Dukakis’ lieutenant governor, parlayed his fame (or infamy) into a U.S. Senate seat in 1984. He stayed in the Senate until 2013, when he became President Obama’s Secretary of State, following the inestimable Hillary Clinton. His crowning moment there was signing the Paris Agreement on climate change. No wonder Biden chose him.

As SPEC, Kerry is best known for his defense of his widespread use of private jets. Kerry famously stated, “If you offset your carbon, it is the ONLY choice for somebody like me who is traveling the world to win this battle.”

Kerry’s messianic vision continued: “I have to fly to meet with people to get things done, but what I am doing almost full time is working to win the battle for climate change. And if I offset and contribute my life to do this I am not going to be put on the defensive.”

Kerry loves flying almost as much as mirrors. He even flew on a giant military transport to Antarctica as a lame duck just days after President Trump was elected in 2016 – ostensibly to meet with scientists about the impact of climate change on the frozen continent.

Kerry has always been “special.” His grandmother sent him to elite boarding schools in Europe as his father served in the State Department’s Bureau of United Nations Affairs, then as U.S. attorney for Berlin, and later at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo.

Young John was whisked back to the States to attend more elite boarding schools before matriculating at Yale University, where he distinguished himself as a debater and soccer player but not as a student. His GPA was “lackluster” (a 76 average), but it got him into Yale.

Before marrying the billionaire heiress to John Heinz’s huge fortune, Kerry was already the wealthiest person in the U.S. Senate (other than Heinz), as the beneficiary of at least four trusts inherited from Forbes family relatives. His own 2011 financial disclosure admits to personal assets ranging from $230 to $320 million (not including any Heinz money).

By contrast, 75-year-old John Podesta grew up on the streets of Chicago, the son of a Greek-American mother and an Italian-American father, a factory worker who never finished high school. His big break in life came when he met the young Bill Clinton in 1970 when both were working on a Senate campaign.

John and his older brother Tony built their lives around politics, with John serving as an attorney for various Democratic Party leaders and Tony working as a lobbyist. Together they formed the Podesta Group, a government relations and public affairs lobbying firm with close ties to the Democratic Party. Not bad for a couple of poor kids.

Politics has been good to the Podestas. John served as chief of staff for President Clinton and counselor to President Obama before joining the Biden Administration as senior advisor for clean energy innovation and implementation. There he has overseen the disbursement of $370 to $783 billion in clean energy tax credits and incentives under the (sic) Inflation Reduction Act.

Both Podestas have left their biggest public marks through the political nonprofits they created, Tony was a founding president of Norman Lear’s People for the American Way, while John is the founder and former president of the Center for American Progress, which helped to craft the Inflation Reduction Act, a cash cow for progressive interests.

In sum, while Kerry has often been compared to a strutting peacock, Podesta has long been one of the most effective operatives in Washington and a major architect of the Progressive agenda. Kerry may have gotten a lot of headlines, but Podesta has used the power of the purse to impact the business and diplomatic communities far more effectively.

COP28: UN delegates circulate petition to shut down US natural gas production as global climate summit kicks off

‘The goal at COP should be to reduce global emissions, not energy choices,’ GOP Rep Curtis tells Fox News Digital.

By Thomas Catenacci

Global delegates heading to the annual United Nations climate change summit are circulating a letter calling for the U.S. and other Western nations to immediately ban new natural gas infrastructure projects.

According to the letter obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., is among the lead architects of the effort in addition to Lisa Badum, a member of the German Parliament who is leading her nation’s delegation at the summit, and Canadian Sen. Rosa Galvez. Markey, Badum and Galvez sent the letter to other U.S. lawmakers and global representatives ahead of the COP28 climate conference, which kicks off Thursday in Dubai.

“At COP26, the United States — along with 39 governments and institutions — signed the Glasgow Statement, pledging to prioritize the clean energy transition and end new direct public support for the international fossil fuel sector by 2022,” the letter states. “This is the very least we can do, considering that even existing production capacities already exceed the limits set by the Paris Agreement.” 

“Despite this, the United States is hurtling towards a massively harmful expansion of Liquefied Natural Gas infrastructure,” it continues. “Regrettably, there exist similar plans in many other countries — including in Germany, the U.S., and Canada.”

The letter further argues that while liquefied natural gas (LNG) — natural gas that has been cooled to enable easier transport — was originally looked to as a means to “tackle the consequences of the global energy crisis,” additional LNG capacity is “not needed.” Climate advocates have long opposed LNG and natural gas production since, when burned for power production, it produces greenhouse gas emissions.

However, natural gas has widely been looked to as a replacement for coal production since it is a source of reliable power and produces roughly 40% less carbon dioxide. U.S. carbon emissions have declined nearly 20% since 2005, driven in large part by a transition from coal to natural gas generation in the power sector.

“The U.S. has led in the production of affordable, reliable, clean energy, in large part due to our vast fossil fuel resources,” Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, who chairs the Conservative Climate Caucus and is attending COP28, told Fox News Digital.

“Republicans need a presence at COP to push back on bad ideas and show how innovation can leave our world more prosperous and better than we found it,” he said. “The goal at COP should be to reduce global emissions, not energy choices.”

Curtis is among the U.S. lawmakers attending COP28 who received the letter from Markey, Badum and Galvez.

The letter has received the support of additional lawmakers from the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and the European Union. It will be published during COP28 as part of the ongoing “Global Parliamentary Inquiry on the Progress of the Fossil Fuel Phase-out.”

And, on Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee hosted a hearing about America’s energy and environmental leadership on the world stage. The hearing focused on emissions reductions made possible by greater natural gas production and reliance.

“This Shale Revolution and the affordable and reliable natural gas that American workers are now producing has also enabled America to reduce emissions more than any other nation, and we have the capacity to continue helping countries reduce their emissions even further,” Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., remarked during the hearing.

“We should instead be working to build on our remarkable legacy, which has transformed the human condition, helped lift people out of poverty, and raised the standard of living,” she added. “The best way to do that is with a strong energy mix that takes advantage of the resources we have here at home, lowers costs for Americans, and prevents us from becoming reliant on China for our energy needs.”

According to federal data, in 2005, coal generated 50% of total U.S. power across the power, industrial, commercial and residential sectors, while natural gas generated just 19%. In 2022, by comparison, coal generated less than 20% of the nation’s power and natural gas generated 40%, making it by far the largest power source in the country.

Markey and Badum didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Originally published by Fox News.

UN admits World will crash through Paris Agreement goals by a factor of two for 2030

Major fossil fuel-producing countries still plan to extract more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than is consistent with the Paris climate accord’s goal for limiting global temperature rise, according to a United Nations-backed study released Wednesday.

From JoNova

By Jo Nova

Top 20 Energy mining nations are planning to increase production, not decrease it.

Despite 151 nations signing the Paris Agreement, the UNEP has all but admitted that most of the world is not even pretending to meet their emissions promises. As is obvious in the graph below, governments of the top 20 producers of the evil coal, oil and gas are planning to dig up even more of it by 2030 than they do now. These 20 nations produce 80% of the world’s fossil fuels and somewhere out there are lots of customers.

The report appears to be a scorecard to guilt-trip the 20 naughty nations into giving up warmth, food or billions of dollars in exports, but it reads like the Paris Agreement is pure charade.

Governments plan to produce double the fossil fuels in 2030 than the 1.5°C warming limit allows

Stockholm, 8 November 2023 – A major new report published today finds that governments plan to produce around 110% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, and 69% more than would be consistent with 2°C.

Who are we kidding?

The Production Gap really means “The Overshoot”.

The fossil fuel production gap — the difference between governments’ plans and projections and levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C and 2°C, as expressed in units of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel extraction and burning — remains large and expands over time. (See details in Chapter 2 and Figure 2.1.) https://www.unep.org/resources/production-gap-report-2023

Speaking of which China just opened the new 1,800 kilometer Haoji  Railway in 2019* — specifically to carry coal

It has 770 bridges spanning a total of 381 kilometers and 468 kilometers of tunnels. They started it in 2015.

No one is holding back on fossil fuels here: Wow, that is some bridge.

https://twitter.com/ElanderNews/status/1722174594386120816?s=20

REFERENCE

The 2023 Production Gap Report: “Phasing down or phasing up? Top fossil fuel producers plan even more extraction despite climate promises” is produced by Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Climate Analytics, E3G, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

*Corrected: The Haoji Railway was not opened this year but just before the Covid pandemic broke out,  years after “The Paris Agreement” was signed. Thanks Ross.

Follow the Climate Money Updated

“The bilateral and multilateral inflows are a more accurate indication of contributor country budgetary effort, whereas the outflows are a more accurate indication of actual progress towards the $100bn goal.”

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

Why climate-finance ‘flows’ are falling short of $100bn pledge  is an informative article from CarbonBrief.  Excerpts below in italics followed by a comment from Bjorn Lomborg.

One of the biggest and most contentious issues in climate politics is the provision of money to help poorer countries cut emissions and protect themselves from climate impacts.  In 2009, wealthy nations pledged to “mobilise” $100bn in “climate finance” annually by 2020 to help vulnerable nations deal with climate change.  As the title notes, even now the target has not been met.

Politicians and observers have warned that this failure could undermine trust between nations as they head into negotiations in Dubai. What is more, there are widespread concerns about the quality of finance being offered, with questions surrounding the use of loans instead of grants, different definitions of “climate finance” and insufficient funding for adaptation efforts.

In this article, which updates and builds on a previous analysis published in 2018, Carbon Brief assesses the state of international climate finance as nations prepare for the next COP.  It uses the latest numbers collated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a club of mostly wealthy nations, many of which are responsible for contributing climate finance.

The OECD, a Paris-based intergovernmental economic organisation, asks its 36 member countries to report on their foreign aid, including climate finance. The data captures climate finance that is both bilateral (country to country) and multilateral (via international institutions) It also gives detailed information about funded projects. (The OECD calls this database “climate-related development finance” rather than strictly climate finance).

Key takeaways from 2015-2016 Report
  • Donor governments gave climate finance totalling $34bn in 2015 and $37bn in 2016, according to OECD estimates (note that this is not a full estimate of money counting towards the $100bn pledge – see below for more).
  • Japan was the largest donor, giving $10.3bn per year (bn/yr) on average over the two years. It was followed, in order, by Germany, France, the UK and the US.
  • India was the largest recipient on average, receiving $2.6bn/yr. It was followed, in order, by Bangladesh, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand
  • The single largest “country-to-country” flow was an average yearly $1.6bn from Japan to India.
  • The US was the top contributor to the multilateral Green Climate Fund (GCF) in 2016. (However, the US has now ended its support for the GCF).
  • Around $16bn/yr went to mitigation-only projects, compared to $9bn for adaptation-only projects.
    Around 42% of the finance consisted of “debt instruments”, such as loans.
Key takeaways from 2018-2019 Report
  • In 2019, the OECD found that climate finance had reached $79.6bn, up just 2% from 2018, and while official figures for 2020 are not yet available, Bloomberg reported that rich countries reckon they had raised $88-90bn, as of October 2021.
  • The shares attributed to countries are based on analysis by the World Resources Institute (WRI) of bilateral and multilateral development funds that can be traced to Annex II nations. These roughly align with the OECD’s figures, which are not broken down by country but, like the WRI’s, are partly derived from Annex II nations’ reports to the UNFCCC.
  • The remaining finance, indicated by the grey bars in the chart above, is made up of export credits, additional outflows from multilateral institutions and, most of all, private contributions by businesses and philanthropic groups (this is an approximation based on the OECD’s total values with the WRI estimates removed).
  • Private funds count towards the $100bn target, but the WRI did not include them in its analysis as the data is less complete and difficult to attribute to individual nations. The OECD estimates that annual private finance has been stable at around $14bn since 2017.
  • The top five finance providers – Japan, Germany, France, the UK and the US – have remained the same since Carbon Brief’s last analysis for 2015/16. These five nations contributed more than 60% of the 2018/19 finance.  While Japan, Germany and France appear to be by far the biggest contributors, the WRI warns that the lack of clarity around climate finance reporting means the numbers should be approached with caution.
  • As in Carbon Brief’s previous analysis, India was by far the biggest recipient of climate finance, with more than double the funds received by the next largest, Bangladesh. Japan and Germany provided about 94% of the funds to India, almost all in the form of loans.
Implications

Climate finance figures are widely contested, with many global-south nations questioning how much funding is new and not simply diverted from other development funds. Criticism has also been levelled at the overreliance on loans and the inclusion of support for “high-efficiency” coal plants by Japan and Australia.

A recent assessment prepared by the UNFCCC’s Standing Committee on Finance concluded that developing countries require $5.8-5.9tn up to 2030 in order to fund less than half of the actions outlined in their official climate plans – although some of this would be funded domestically.

This year’s negotiations are likely to spark calls for a significant scaling up of finance, although the slow pace of proceedings means that, for the time being, the focus of new goal discussions will primarily be on agreeing a framework for future talks.

Nevertheless, there are various issues that could be on the table during this next phase, including ensuring that more money is spent on adaptation.

The Paris Agreement specifies that climate finance should aim for an even split between these two categories, but funding has long been skewed towards mitigation. According to Jan Kowalzig, a senior policy adviser at Oxfam, governments often tend to view such projects as more attractive investments:

“Since [mitigation projects] often have to do with energy, they seem to be more directly linked to a country‘s development, even though, of course, this is a huge misconception given the central (but, for politicians, often less visible) role of adaptation.”

Of the roughly $40bn average for the 2018/19 period, 39% of money went on mitigation, while just 25% went on adaptation – a slightly more even split than was recorded in Carbon Brief’s previous analysis for 2015/16.

However, other estimates, including the OECD’s own climate finance report, suggest a more pronounced split, with around three times as much finance going to mitigation than adaptation in 2018 and 2019.

This imbalance is a major concern amid rapidly escalating climate costs. The UN Environment Programme places current annual adaptation costs for “developing countries” at $70bn, but says they will reach $140-300bn by 2030.

Ensuring adequate adaptation finance in the coming years is, therefore, seen by many vulnerable nations as a key priority for post-2025 climate finance plans as they are developed.

Climate Money Could Be Better Spent

Bjorn Lomborg When it comes to climate change, let’s get our priorities straight

We must also bear in mind that global warming is not the planet’s only challenge. We often hear that it is the defining issue of our time, but it is no such thing. By the 2070s, the IPCC — the U.N. climate change panel — estimates that warming will cost between 0.2 and 2 percent of global GDP. This is certainly a problem, but not the end of world.

Speaking of climate change in catastrophic terms easily makes us ignore bigger problems, including malnutrition, tuberculosis, malaria and corruption. The World Health Organization estimates that climate change since the 1970s causes about 140,000 additional deaths each year, and toward the middle of the century will kill 250,000 people annually, mostly in poor countries. This pales in comparison with much deadlier environmental problems such as indoor air pollution, claiming 4.3 million lives annually, outdoor air pollution killing 3.7 million and lack of water and sanitation killing 760,000. Outside of environment, the problems are even bigger: Poverty arguably kills 18 million each year.

Every dollar spent on climate change could instead help save many more people from these more tractable problems. The current approach to subsidize solar and wind arguably saves one life across the century for every $4 million spent — the same expenditure on vaccinations could save 4,000 lives. Each person — and the next president — needs to decide his or her legacy.

Postscript: Financing for Climate Aid is a Fraction of the Full Cost of Climate Crisis Inc.

A fuller accounting of the climate crisis industry more likely exceeds 2,000,000,000,000 US$ per year (2 Trillion)

UN Stocktake: Admits the Paris Agreement is Off Course

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Before the stocktake process has even begun.

The following is transcribed from the visually annoying United Nations website.

About the Global Stocktake

Why the Global Stocktake is a Critical Moment for Climate Action

The global stocktake is a critical turning point in our battle against the escalating climate crisis – a moment to take a long, hard look at the state of our planet and chart a better course for the future.

“The global stocktake is an ambition exercise. It’s an accountability exercise. It’s an acceleration exercise,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell. “It’s an exercise that is intended to make sure every Party is holding up their end of the bargain, knows where they need to go next and how rapidly they need to move to fulfill the goals of the Paris Agreement.”

What is the Global Stocktake?

The global stocktake is a process for countries and stakeholders to see where they’re collectively making progress towards meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement – and where they’re not.

It’s like taking inventory. It means looking at everything related to where the world stands on climate action and support, identifying the gaps, and working together to chart a better course forward to accelerate climate action.

The stocktake takes place every five years, with the first-ever stocktake scheduled to conclude at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) at the end of this year.

But this is not just a routine check-up. Stiell calls the stocktake a “moment for course correction,” an opportunity to ramp up ambition to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. The stocktake itself isn’t the gamechanger – it’s the global response to it that will make all the difference.

Stiell’s ideal outcome from the stocktake? A roadmap with ‘solutions pathways’ that drive immediate action. Pathways that guide us sector by sector, region by region, actor by actor, to get to where we need to go during the next seven years.

The global stocktake will end up being just another report unless governments and those that they represent can look at it and ultimately understand what it means for them and what they can and must do next. It’s the same for businesses, communities and other key stakeholders. – Simon Stiell, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary

Why is this so urgent?

The global stocktake is unfolding in a critical decade for climate action.

Global emissions need to be nearly halved by 2030 for the world to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. In addition, transformational adaptation is also needed to help communities and ecosystems cope with the climate impacts that are already occurring and are expected to intensify.

Every day, we see the devastating impacts of climate change, from raging wildfires to catastrophic floods to more frequent and intense heatwaves, as well as food and water scarcity, sea level rise, and biodiversity loss.

In March this year, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its latest Synthesis Report, which summarizes all the scientific reports it has published during its sixth assessment cycle. This marked the first comprehensive IPCC report in nine years.

It highlighted just how far off-track the world is, reinforcing last year’s UN Climate Change report, which stated the combined climate pledges of 194 Parties under the Paris Agreement could put the world on track for around 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century.

The science is unequivocal: a course correction is needed. And it needs to happen now.

In order to keep 1.5 within reach we need deep and immediate emission cuts across all sectors and regions. We know what we have to do. Now we must boost political will to make that course correction through action and support possible. – Simon Stiell, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary

The IPCC Synthesis Report clearly demonstrates that it is possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius with feasible, effective and low-cost mitigation and adaptation options to scale up across sectors and countries. This report underscores the urgency of taking more ambitious action and shows that, if we act now, we can still secure a liveable, sustainable future for all.

The next few years will be critical in determining whether we can make the necessary changes in time to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

The success of the global stocktake will ultimately determine the success of COP28. It is the defining moment of this year, this COP and — as one of the only two stocktaking moments in this decisive decade of climate action — ultimately pivotal to whether or not we meet our 2030 goals. – Simon Stiell, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary

How does the stocktake tie into other key deliverables?

The global stocktake is not the only key deliverable of COP28. The conference also needs to make progress in several other workstreams: hammering out the details of the loss and damage finance facility, driving towards a global goal on finance, accelerating both an energy and a just transition, closing the massive emissions gap, just to name a few.

This will be no small feat.

According to Stiell, we already know we face enormous gaps in achieving the objectives and goals of the Paris Agreement: particularly in cutting emissions, adapting to the worsening effects of climate change, and providing finance and support to developing countries.

This is where the global stocktake comes in. Delivering a stocktake outcome at COP28 with specific pathways, as well as concrete milestones and targets, for each workstream can help narrow those gaps.

The stocktake will also lay the foundation for countries to update and enhance their national climate action plans (known as Nationally Determined Contributions), which they are required to do in 2025.

What happens next?

There are three components to the global stocktake process:

  • Information collection and preparation
  • Technical assessment
  • Consideration of outputs

The technical assessment and information collection and preparation components of the stocktake are currently running concurrently.

This is where the stocktake’s ‘technical dialogues’ come in. The dialogues are a forum for sharing the best-available science and assessments of mitigation, including response measures; adaptation, including loss and damage; and means of implementation (climate finance, technology transfer, and capacity building). They also showcase climate solutions and identify barriers that stand in the way of taking action.

The first dialogue took place at the Bonn Climate Change Conference last June, with the second dialogue taking place at COP27 in Egypt last November. The third and final technical dialogue will take place at the Bonn Climate Change Conference this June.

Although the dialogues centre on taking stock of past actions, they are also about forward momentum to unlock more ambitious climate action and support.

The last phase, consideration of outputs, will start following the June session and conclude at COP28 in 2023. That’s when the findings of the technical assessment will be presented, and their implications discussed and considered.

In addition, throughout the year, countries and stakeholders will gather at different times to begin shaping the outcome of the stocktake. This collaborative effort helps ensure that everyone’s voices are heard and that the resulting solutions pathways (to 2030 and beyond) reflect the needs and concerns of all involved.Source (public domain): https://unfccc.int/topics/global-stocktake/about-the-global-stocktake/why-the-global-stocktake-is-a-critical-moment-for-climate-action

Of course, when the United Nations claim they are ensuring everyone’s voices are heard, they are not exactly being truthful.

The one significant group not adequately represented at the assessment and conferences are climate skeptics, anyone who argues against the need for any action. You know, the “vested interests” whom the UN blames for their complete lack of progress.

But we’ve seen this kind of liberal “inclusivity” many times over the years – inclusive, but only if you agree with them.

The funniest part, liberals and UN apparatchiks can’t even see why lack of inclusivity is the main reason they fail. Getting agreement is difficult, if you refuse to talk to the people whose actions you believe are blocking progress, and if you are not powerful enough to force them to stop.

Or maybe they do see, but don’t actually care if the process succeeds.

One thing for sure, the emissions reductions promoted by the United Nations cannot possibly succeed. As our Willis pointed out in Bright Green Impossibilities, simple math dictates that hundreds of square miles of new wind turbines or solar panels would have to be built every single day, to hit Net Zero by 2050 – along with a colossal build out of nuclear, battery backup, or whatever else was required to make intermittent wind and solar dispatchable. This simply isn’t going to happen.

How Warmists Turn the Public Off

From Science Matters

 By Ron Clutz

A firefighting helicopter flies through smoke as people look on in Mandra west of Athens, on Tuesday, July 18, 2023. In Greece, where a second heatwave is expected to hit Thursday, three large wildfires burned outside Athens for a second day. Thousands of people evacuated from coastal areas south of the capital returned to their homes Tuesday when a fire finally receded after they spent the night on beaches, hotels and public facilities. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Kevin D. Williamson explains at NY Post Why climate change activists have failed to score public support.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

We are hearing even more than usual about climate change this summer and that is not surprising — not with dog-days news cycles driven by record-setting heat waves, torrential rains and widespread Canadian wildfires.

Some climate activists think we are not hearing enough about the issue: Writing in The Guardian, columnist Jonathan Freedland insists that the problem is one of marketing. “The climate movement has devoted relatively few resources to reaching or persuading the public,” he writes, preposterously.

He quotes progressive p.r. man David Fenton — “We’re in a propaganda war, but only one side is on the battlefield” — and cites former United Nations climate grandee Christiana Figueres, who claims “the climate community has recoiled from marketing.” Why? Because, Figueres says, it is “sort of tainted. It’s icky. You know, ‘We’re too good for marketing. We’re too righteous’. . . Hopefully we’re getting over it.”

Of all the dumb and dishonest things that have been written and said in the climate debate, the notion that climate-change activists just can’t get their message out — that they won’t stoop to marketing — may be the very dumbest and most dishonest.

Billions of dollars have been spent on climate-change advocacy,
to say nothing of money devoted to actual climate policies.

Raging wildfires in Eastern Canada have sent vast plumes of smoke across North America this summer. Environmentalists loudly suggest the smoke is proof of a changing planet, even as progressives insist their agenda is being silenced. via REUTERS

The government leaders of practically every democratic country speak about the issue constantly.

In the intergovernmental sector, you have everybody from the United Nations to the International Monetary Fund ringing the climate alarm bells, while in the private sector you can count on the likes of BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and other corporate titans to do the same.

ESG rules have pushed the climate issue onto the corporate agenda in a big way—companies are spending billions in total (as much as $1.4 million per company) on climate-reporting costs alone.

Even the supposed villains in the story — big energy companies such as ExxonMobil — spend billions of dollars a year advertising the green agenda. “In the past ten years we have reduced greenhouse gas emissions in our operations by more than 7 million metric tons,” ExxonMobil boasts, “which is the equivalent of taking about 1.4 million cars off the road.” You may not think they are sincere, but they are far from silent about the issue.

Companies such as private equity biggie BlackRock are spending billions on ESG programs, which link their investment strategies with left-wing social goals. REUTERS

Climate activists have the commanding heights. What do the so-called deniers have?
A few of my cranky libertarian friends.  .  . And voters.

The real issue with climate policy isn’t that voters don’t know about the issue — it is that they disagree. Climate policy touches everything from big tech to farming to economic growth, everything from the homes we live in to the cars we drive, and, as such, an ambitious climate program will necessarily impose big costs.

The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes of the world can pretend that green policies will pay for themselves, but no serious person believes that.

One of the clearest ways to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels is to expand access to nuclear energy, which requires major investment in new infrastructure. Getty Images

Sure, Guardian headline writers can straight-up declare “The beauty of a Green New Deal is that it would pay for itself” — this is nothing more than that “marketing” to which our green friends supposedly are so averse.

American voters do care about climate issues, but not as intensely as activists would like. Climate routinely polls in the single digits when it comes to voters’ top concerns, far behind (surprise!) the economy and health care.  Independents rate immigration a more pressing issue than climate change.

Maybe you think the US government is under the heel of the oil barons, but no democratic country has undertaken the kind of economic transformation climate activists advocate.

The signatories of the Paris Agreement are far from meeting their climate obligations; the $100 billion a year in climate-finance commitments promised at the UN climate summit in Glasgow have not been fully funded; even in the European Union, the leaders of which take a much stronger climate line than their US counterparts, there has been no radical change.

A coal excavator in Germany, which boosted coal mining in the wake of gas shortages caused by the Ukraine crisis. AP

Germany responded to Russia’s recent energy blackmail by reopening coal plants.

European voters rank climate a higher priority than Americans do, but it typically polls behind economic growth and immediate issues such as the invasion of Ukraine.

That is not oil-drenched propaganda at work— that is, for better and for worse,
democratic politics at work.

While there has been piecemeal progress, countries across the globe are moving at a glacial pace when it comes to the one policy that can reliably reduce greenhouse-gas emissions at a reasonable cost: rapidly expanding nuclear power, which has an operational carbon footprint of approximately zero.

The state government in Pennsylvania got that collapsed interstate overpass reopened in record time by waiving all sorts of planning and permitting rules, but no such urgency exists in the case of nuclear power or other needful energy infrastructure.

Christiana Figueres, who leads the UN’s climate change campaign, contends that environmental issues suffer from a lack of proper marketing. Many would certainly disagree. LightRocket via Getty Images

That, unfortunately, is democracy, too.  What is needed is not more marketing — more propaganda, more hysteria.   What is needed is a more attractive set of trade-offs.

But finding better trade-offs means admitting that there are trade-offs, which climate activists — hostage to their marketing departments — have too often refused to do.

Promises made at major multi-national climate conferences such as the Paris Accords remain unmet as liberal democracies appear unable to overhaul their energy strategies. Getty Images

It isn’t that climate activists aren’t selling their agenda — it is that
voters in democratic countries around the world are not buying it.

Bye Bye Paris: Chinese CO2 Emissions are Skyrocketing

From Watts Up With That?

Xi Jinping: Official website of Ali Khamenei, Supreme leader of Iran, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Globe from NASA (Public Domain). Match: Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Streichholz — 2021 — 6120” / CC BY-SA 4.0

As industries in green nations like Germany struggle with unaffordable green energy, China is boosting coal use.

China is pumping out carbon emissions as if COVID never happened. That’s bad news for the climate crisis

Published: July 10, 2023 6.05am AEST

 David Stern, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Khalid Ahmed, Australian National University

Carbon emissions from China are growing faster now than before COVID-19 struck, data show, dashing hopes the pandemic may have put the world’s most polluting nation on a new emissions trajectory.

We compared emissions in China over the first four months of 2019 – before the pandemic – and 2023. Emissions rose 10% between the two periods, despite the pandemic and China’s faltering economic recovery. Power generation and industry are driving the increase

Under the Paris Agreement, China has pledged to ensure carbon emissions peak by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2060. Our analysis suggests China may struggle to reach these ambitious goals.
 
Many believed the economic recovery from COVID would steer global development towards a less carbon-intensive footing. But China’s new path seems to be less sustainable than before. That’s bad news for global efforts to tackle climate change.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/china-is-pumping-out-carbon-emissions-as-if-covid-never-happened-thats-bad-news-for-the-climate-crisis-207933

I admit I didn’t foresee this, I thought China’s economy is in so much trouble emissions would be stagnant.

But in retrospect the reason for this growth in emissions is obvious.

Last Summer China experienced a drought so severe one of their largest waterways, the Yangtze River, completely dried up. They also experienced severe power shortages because they had to shut down much of their hydroelectric capacity.

Given China has experienced multiple severe droughts and floods in recent years, it makes complete sense for China to amp up coal burning, to reduce their reliance on hydroelectricity.

The funniest part of this, a renaissance of coal worldwide is exactly what would happen if all the alarmist predicted climate weather disasters actually occurred.

If a superstorm smashes your solar array, or tears up your wind turbines, or if torrential floods or severe droughts wreck your hydro capacity, weather resistant coal and gas would be your only option.

Renewables are a total waste of effort, even if we accept all the absurd global warming disaster predictions we’ve seen over the years.

If China saw extreme conditions, and extreme conditions are predicted, is China actually seeing climate change? Alarmists would certainly like you to believe this, but there is a problem with this hypothesis. Every time the Yangtze dries up, it reveals countless inscriptions written by people who endured previous severe droughts, like the inscription below which was written in the year 1086.

Yangtze River Drought Incription from 1086. (left) “River water reaches 5 chi below the fish on 7 February 1086 (Chinese lunar calendar)” and (right) “River water goes 4 chi below the fish on 24 January 1074 (Chinese lunar calendar), and this is the sign of auspiciousness.”. Source AMS

Claim: Australia is Opposing an International Shipping Carbon Tax Proposal

Carbon tax rubber stamp over tree icon isolated on white background

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

The Sydney Morning Herald has accused Australia of siding with Russia, China, Brazil and Saudi Arabia to sink a Pacific Islands proposal for a $100 / ton of carbon levy on marine shipping emissions.

Australia sides with China, Russia in bid to sink Pacific nations’ climate plan

By Nick O’Malley
July 3, 2023 — 5.00am

London: Australia has been criticised for siding with China and Russia to oppose a popular plan from a group of Pacific Island nations to tackle carbon emissions from the shipping industry.

…

An ambitious proposal conceived and championed by Pacific Island nations including Solomon Islands and Marshall Islands — which has one of the world’s largest shipping fleets registered to its flag — would introduce a $100 per tonne levy on maritime emissions in order to make cleaner fuels cost-competitive with the dirtier heavy fuel oil that is the industry standard.

But The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald spoke to three sources present in closed preliminary discussions who said opposition to the proposal has hardened among a group of about 20 nations including China, Russia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Australia. This masthead has seen documentation that confirms their accounts.

…

Though Australia has voiced support for aligning the industry with Paris Agreement climate targets of holding warming to 1.5 degrees, the sources said it remained opposed to the shipping levy as proposed by the Pacific nations. Alternative proposals could also be debated and it is not clear which, if any, Australia might support.

…Read more: https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australia-sides-with-china-russia-in-bid-to-sink-pacific-nations-climate-plan-20230630-p5dky1.html

What a surprise, nations which depend on long distance international shipping have opposed a measure which would shut down international shipping.

All this would be a non-issue if greens relaxed their opposition to nuclear energy. If shipping companies were allowed to install nuclear power plants on cargo ships, there would be no maritime emissions to tax.