COP25: Climate science, Politics and Big Money

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For the last two weeks there was COP25 in Madrid.

Yearly 100 billion is intended to flow from developed countries to developing countries. COP25 is based on the UN framework convention on climate change of 1992 which says that developed country Parties and other developed Parties[..] shall provide new and additional financial resources to meet the agreed full costs incurred by developing country Parties in complying with their obligations concerning the reduction of CO2 emissions.

So, we are now talking big politics and really big financial aid that will have to be coughed up by citizens of rich countries: 1 trillion dollars per decade. And now EU leaders agreed to make the EU "carbon neutral" by 2050 by means of a so-called "green deal" involving €260 billion of additional annual investment. But note that CO2 is in fact quite green!

As a reminder, climate policy is very much about redistributing wealth:

"one has to say clearly: We redistribute de facto global wealth through climate policy. [..] You have to get rid of the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. " - Ottmar Edenhofer for NZZ.

Here's a lot at stake: a possible climate catastrophe and a certain colossal financial aid to developing countries as well as enormous investments. The fact that alarming climate models have been instrumentalized for political goals was already foreseen by members of the former "Club of Rome":

In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill".

Obviously, the train is on the rails and it departed a long time ago, there is no more room left for any doubts.

According to the secretary-general of the UN, they had there represented:

the best available science through the intergovernmental panel on climate change. [..] At current trends, [..] we are looking at global heating between 3.5 and 3.9°C by the end of the century.

What ever one may think of the IPPC, according to that panel in 2014, the "likely range" is according to them 2.6 to 4.8°C - with the footnote that it does not "account for potential effects of model biases compared to observation". I wonder if they clarified that to him!

Next, Spanish prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (of the Socialist party) said in his opening speech:

We are here, meeting united against a common enemy. [..] Today we have the scientific certainty that man is behind the damage done to the fragile balance permitting life on our planet. [..] For years, various irrational versions of climate denial were circulating. Luckily today only a handful of fanatics deny the evidence. [..] Nobody can sidestep this challenge. There is no wall high enough that can protect us from the threat. [..] if it was Europe which led the industrial revolution and fossil capitalism then it must be Europe which leads decarbonization [...] marking the 2030 agenda a new social global contract for a changing world.

Certainly he meant evidence for man-made, catastrophical climate change. Does he really think that people such as Trump are "fanatics" or "irrational"?

Not by coincidence such a "handful of fanatics" happened to be meeting in Madrid at the same time in a parallel conference of their own. At that meeting, physicist and former Trump advisor William Happer of the CO₂ Coalition told the gathered scientists:

We have a climate crusade [..] This is not science, this is religion. Crusades have a bad way of ending. Typically many, many people are hurt, no good is done, a few cynical opportunists profit and most people pay the price [..].

Of course, it may well be that high concentrations of CO2 will be dangerous for our well-being in the future and the precautionary principle makes sense. But I would like to know for sure if the pretended consensus is well founded. If the evidence is really that clear then it should be possible to make a fair assessment without being bullied into believing it.

-> Your help is wanted! I'm also looking for experts who are willing to peer review neutral assessments on this site, notably for correcting errors.

Meanwhile, as follow-up of the last blog discussion, InfoCheckers first version of a Fact Check article on sea level rise is ready in the wiki: Check:_CO2_emissions_fingerprint_on_sea_rise.

Comments are welcome! :-)

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