Paris Text out — a quick discussion — More bureaucrats, more money, but there is an exit.

The December 12th Draft on UN web site.

h/t Andrew McRae and Pat in comments

Here are some rough preliminary thoughts on the latest version of the COP21 document.

The Australian ABC news made it sound like Moses was just about to come back from the Mount. “There were tears!”.

James Hansen, though called Paris talks ‘a fraud’

“It’s a fraud really, a fake,” he says, rubbing his head. “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.”

It’s a rare moment when I am on the same side as he is.

On the other hand, The Wall St Journal writes that it is watered down but will “transform” the economy:

If approved and implemented, the agreement would force businesses and citizens to sharply reduce their use of fossil fuels like oil, gas or coal and could fundamentally transform the global economy.

Both James Hansen and the Wall St Journal are right. The Paris agreement will achieve nothing for the environment, but transform the economy anyway.

As I predicted, India comes on board:

“This is a good agreement,” Prakash Javadekar, India’s environment minister, said. “This means that all together will act to mitigate the challenge presented by climate change.” India is one of the key countries in the international negotiations.

From the deal itself. The global carbon market is voluntary. The words “must”, “requisite”, ” and “enforce’  are not used in the entire document and  there is no mention of “decarbonize” either:

Article 6. 3. The use of internationally transferred mitigation outcomes to achieve nationally determined contributions under this Agreement shall be voluntary and authorized by participating Parties.

The exit clause (sing hallelujah)

Once this is signed, a country can get out four years later, perhaps a whole year before another big five-year-review pulls them back in.

Article 28
1. At any time after three years from the date on which this Agreement has entered into force for a Party, that Party may withdraw from this Agreement by giving written notification to the Depositary.

2. Any such withdrawal shall take effect upon expiry of one year from the date of receipt by the Depositary of the notification of withdrawal, or on such later date as may be specified in the notification of withdrawal.

3. Any Party that withdraws from the Convention shall be considered as also having withdrawn from this
Agreement.

There is a four month cooling off period:

Article 20:
This Agreement shall be open for signature and subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by States and regional economic integration organizations that are Parties to the Convention. It shall be open for signature at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 22 April 2016 to 21 April 2017.

They got the transparency and five year deals:

9. Each Party shall communicate a nationally determined contribution every five years in accordance with decision 1/CP.21 and any relevant decisions of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement and be informed by the outcomes of the global stocktake referred to in Article 14.

 Developing countries can’t file for compensation

There is a clause in there that says the rich countries (which care incredibly much about the poor ones)  cannot be sued by them: (I think they mean  this clause on p7 of the PDF above, but they may mean another clause entirely)

Part III,  52. (p7) — Agrees that Article 8 of the Agreement does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation;

The Business Standard says that this clause was moved out of the main document. (And at 1.45am I cannot resolve this point exactly).

With the US refusing to budge, the French presidency has been forced to retain the clause in the Paris package that would block any prospects of the vulnerable to file a claim for compensation or liability in the future for loss and damage arising out of climate change.
To make it seem as if it’s disappeared,  the clause has been removed from the core Paris agreement and added to what is called the decision text that 196 countries would also be required to accept in Paris.
Article 5 of the Paris agreement carries the decision on having a loss and damage mechanism for future.
“For all practical purposes all that’s been done is transport the clause a bit out of sight for some to claim it’s not in the Paris agreement. But a decision by the Conference of Parties of the UN climate convention carries the same legal implications in this case – all future rights have been forfeited. Period,” said a delegate from the G77 group who was unhappy with the decision to bend backwards for the US red-line.
They agree to create employment for UN bureaucrats:
49. Requests the Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism to establish a clearinghouse for risk transfer that serves as a repository for information on insurance and risk transfer, in order to facilitate the efforts of Parties to develop and implement comprehensive risk management strategies;
50. Also requests the Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism to establish, according to its procedures and mandate, a task force to complement, draw upon the work of and involve, as appropriate, existing bodies and expert groups under the Convention including the Adaptation Committee and the Least Developed Countries Expert Group, as well as relevant organizations and expert bodies outside the Convention, to develop recommendations for integrated approaches to avert, minimize and address displacement related to the adverse impacts of climate change;

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PS: We’ll be getting back to original research and the notch and solar model soon after the Paris Show and the analysis  of that settles down.

PPS: We could really use your help in the tip jar. Thanks to the people helping out. We can’t do this without you!

9.3 out of 10 based on 63 ratings

127 comments to Paris Text out — a quick discussion — More bureaucrats, more money, but there is an exit.

  • #
    James Milton

    Praise Gaia!! Now Obama has NO LEGACY when he leaves office!!

    P.S. Have none of the 40,000 jetsetting delegates heard of teleconferencing??

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    • #
      Peter Miller

      You can’t get hookers, booze and limos on teleconferencing. Also, you don’t get any carbon footprint, smug photo shoots and partying.

      220

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      Bartender

      “Praise Gaia!! Now Obama has NO LEGACY when he leaves office!!”

      But, beware his commitment could also serve as a benchmark for 2020 which could make the text (providing no country opts out between now and then) legally binding with no get out clauses. While these bureaucrats got the money, we have the science and five more years of fresh data to combat their ideology further weakening their global warming policies again. Science is our only way out. It is our only hope, our only salvation.

      90

    • #
      Tom O

      I’ve decided that the “purpose” of these spectacles have nothing to do with climate change, but to prove that “sovereign” nations can’t negotiate for the good of the planet. In other words, only a world government with no nation state sovereignty can protect Earth from the infestation known as the human race. It is the ONLY avenue that they can use to create something as overbearing as an EU world wide, where no world citizen will have a voice, only “the chosen ones” that will sit at the head table, in the big chairs looking down on the rest of us. Think about it, really think about it, and you will come to the same conclusion.

      41

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    el gordo

    ‘There is no action, just promises.’

    Yep, it was a foregone conclusion.

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    • #
      MarloweJ

      Just saw all of the hugging, clapping and elation at the end including Al Gore with pasted on grin. It reminded me of the TV evangelists shows, “You have been saved!” (now give us the money).

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      • #
        me@home

        But wasn’t it great to see that someone “thought of the children” aka the cheering juvenile journos shown on Tim Blair’s blog.

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    macha

    And the next thing I read this mornjng was snow in our capital…Canberra….its almost December. Goldesr start to Perth November in decades too.

    330

  • #

    In the headline article at the ABC,(at this link) it says that:

    The new treaty will commence in 2020.

    What!

    I mentioned (and explained the Maths) in comments here at this site (at this link) twelve days ago on December 1st, that the total emissions reduction targets for Developed Countries (the targets to be reached by ….. 2030) will be totally and utterly cancelled out by the the increase JUST FROM CHINA within four years or less.

    So, by the time this Paris deal reaches its START DATE, all emissions reduction from developed Countries will have already been wiped out.

    And this is what they call ….. VICTORY!

    The people who claim this as a win are shallow, and above all, blind, not to mention Maths challenged.

    Tony.

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    • #

      Yes, but only if the intent was to reduce CO2.

      150

    • #
      Robk

      My comment from Moran’s Catalaxy file post.
      I have a dream:

      That the “science”of climate change is reviewed from the basics as is advanced by Dr David Evans and others showing IPCC’s CO2 sensitivity is wrong and the half-life is wrong. Each by around an order of magnitude.

      That cost benefit analyses be done, by the Lomborg method/style so this CoP is religated to the bin before anyone is made to look a bigger goose than necessary.

      That at some point, hopefully soon, this push towards centralist world government will be called out for what it is: a disaster for human endeavour, dignity and self determination. The natural competition for ideas and willing cooperation must not be replaced by autocracy.
      I have a dream.
      Apologies to ML King

      252

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    • #
      Ted O'Brien

      I do not believe that the few people driving this are maths challenged. They know exactly what they are doing. And it isn’t what they say they are doing.

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    • #

      It weren’t never about the science. It’s the same o’, same ol’
      battle betwixt open and closed societies. Plato top down’noble’
      necessary lie o the metals in men ‘n know yer place, versus
      Socrates ‘I only know that I do not ‘know.’ …Oh, ‘and even
      a serf can learn.’

      80

  • #

    And when the cold really starts to set in, everyone will praise the Paris Convention.

    160

    • #

      So then they will have to change the meme, rising CO2 causes global cooling.

      161

    • #

      …everyone will praise the Paris Convention

      I wonder if they will be holding hands while they sing!

      Kumbaya Gaia, kumbaya! Oh, Gaia kumaya!

      110

    • #
      Manfred

      The collapse of production and prosperity must eventually lead to the collapse of the Agenda and its eco-socialist dream. Unsustainable power prices and Green blob subsidised extravagance can only work in the frame of prosperity. We absolutely know that once economies falter, the whole pus filled ensemble fails. And when they run out of everyone else’s money, painful and slow as it maybe, inevitably it marks their demise. And with the increasing cold comes the preventable avalanche of cold induced premature deaths, of which we’ve already had a fore-taste. These tragically will make a fitting headstone for future generations to remember the new-age Luddites.

      If there’s development and progress, not one iota will be due them.

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      • #
        Dennis

        Twilight Of Abundance

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      • #
        PeterS

        Yes I wonder where will all the scam artists will hide once the public go crazy after the economies have collapsed and the real threats to mankind surface for all to see.

        20

      • #
        Grant (NZ)

        Don’t you realise that the reason for the protracted negotiations and the need for annually recurring events is that they are calculating just how much they can fleece from the masses and avoid killing the golden goose.

        I suspect they use more computing power on modelling the economic impacts than they do on modelling the climate.

        30

  • #

    More from little Johny (outside the Paris climate change conference).
    The crowd is waiting expectantly and suddenly there is a commotion as someone important comes by.

    “Hey Mum, the Emperor has no clothes on!”
    
Mum gags little Johny and whispers in his ear “Don’t talk too loudly dear, the boogie men might get you.”
    
“AWE WELL mum, he doesn’t have any clothes on!”
    
“Johny…… those thoughts are just a figment of your imagination, the Emperor is dressed in the finest robes! And take of your coat, the temperature is warming!”
    “AWE GEE Mum!”
    But Johny gets a shiver from the unseasonably cold wind blowing their way. Convulsed by the freezing cold, and in his exasperation, he bends over, and then, throwing his hands in the air, he yells out “OHHHHH BUMMER!” at the very top of his voice!

    Everyone cheers and Mum sighs a great sigh of relief. She pats little Johny on the back and says “Now that’s more like it dear!”

    So young and innocent. Too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense.

    140

  • #
    Ken Stewart

    A Binding Agreement not to be bound by any agreement in four years’ time by opting out?

    FLOP 21 !!

    211

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    Peter Miller

    I have to admit I was really scared that western leaders in Paris were going to enter into a binding treaty to hobble their economies for the sake of the whims of green activists and the Swiss bank accounts of dodgy Third World politicians and bureaucrats.

    Well, they are sort of committed to doing a lot of goofy stuff, but in a non-binding way, as Hansen says, “It’s just bullshit”, and for the first time in a very long time he is right.

    In climate science, there are so many stupid ideas and concepts, so how about this one?

    The year is 18,000 BC, the CO2 levels have dropped to 180ppm, just 30ppm above the level where life on Earth starts to die off. So Gaia, or Mother Earth, thinks, “Hmm, we desperately need to get the CO2 levels up to a comfortable level of circa 750ppm again, but how the heck am I going to do it? Hm, there’s a few of those funny humanoids, who might be able to help, so let’s give them some intelligence, give them a desire to be warm and eventually they will start to burn some of that coal and oil hidden beneath the surface, then the planet’s plant life will flourish and become healthy again.”

    And you know something, Gaia’s plan worked.

    Well, it’s no more ridiculous than the BS spouted by Mann, Lewandowsky and Hansen.

    191

    • #
      Manfred

      Peter M @ #8

      …as Hansen says, “It’s just bullshit”

      Indeed. It is truly amazing that the layers of bull-shit, each predicated on the last reach a point where an earlier layer calls out a later layer.

      That some contemporary individuals actually believe (or say they do for other opportunistic reasons and get away with not being laughed out of the room) that they can control the climate and thence, the weather is right up their with SETI and the Drake equation — Aliens Cause Global Warming: A Caltech Lecture by Michael Crichton. This prescient commentary by Dr Michael Crichton MD is worth a re-read.

      The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage-similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example-meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks.

      We live in an the Age of the Failed Fourth Estate.

      In a representative democracy, the role of the press is twofold: it both informs citizens and sets up a feedback loop between the government and voters. The press makes the actions of the government known to the public, and voters who disapprove of current trends in policy can take corrective action in the next election. Without the press, the feedback loop is broken and the government is no longer accountable to the people. The press is therefore of the utmost importance in a representative democracy.

      (Journalism in the digital age)

      The simplest (and by no means new) question that needs to be asked, over and over again should be…
      ‘So you think you can control the weather?’

      90

  • #
    pat

    Nitin Sethi tweet: The peace nobel of the year goes to the TYPO.

    13 Dec: BusinessStandardIndia: Nitin Sethi: 196 countries agree to the Paris agreement on climate change
    Its (the US) political heft and determination visible even in the
    last hour when the world bent backwards to let a non-negotiable concern of the US be respected by calling a substantial change in the Paris agreement as a typographical error and fixing it. As the US held up the last session of the talks, the typographical correction helped the US go home to claim to its senate that no target or action of the agreement was legally binding on it, whether on reducing emissions or on providing finance to the poor countries…
    http://wap.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/196-countries-agree-to-the-paris-agreement-on-climate-change-115121300015_1.html

    the “TYPO” as it happened:

    12 Dec: ClimateChangeNews: COP21 LIVE: Make or break time for Paris Outcome
    1923 – Another official lists technical errors to be corrected, blaming sleep deprivation. The controversial Article 4.4 “shall” is replaced by “should”. Phew, that’s that sorted.
    1919 – Well, the show seems to be back on. Laurent Fabius says there were some corrections to make, but doesn’t go into details…
    1911 – Why all this fuss over one word? Well, “shall” is binding under international law. “Should” is not.
    The US has maintained all along that it will not accept legally binding mitigation targets. That is because it would have to get Congress to ratify such a deal. Congress is dominated by Republicans hostile to the whole climate agenda.
    Now, the US is arguing “shall” was never supposed to be in there – it’s a typo. That appears to be backed up by Thursday’s draft, which only used “should”…
    (THURS DRAFT DETAILS)
    But now it is out there, some are framing it as the US trying to weaken its commitments, which in a sense is also true…
    1851 – The word “shall” appears 143 times in the COP text, notes Leo Hickman, editor of the excellent Carbon Brief blog.
    TWEET Leo Hickman: While we await the haggling over ‘should’ vs ‘shall’, worth noting that ‘shall’ (legally binding) appears 143 times in #COP21 text…
    1845 – Laurent Fabius, Christiana Figueres and other key officials are huddling on the stage. It’s unclear why there is a delay or if it is significant.
    Veteran South African negotiator Alf Wills says there may yet be a twist… “it’s been an effective adoption of a deal by the media,” he says with a grin…
    1841 – It seems the delay might not just be for the benefit of friends catching up on gossip.
    Huddles are starting to appear on the negotiating floor. US objections to Article 4.4 seem to be holding up talks. The paragraph states that developed countries “shall” make economy-wide emissions cuts. The US wants to change it to the legally weaker “should”.
    “This is not looking good,” one small island state delegate just said…
    TWEET Gary Kendall: Weird atmosphere of childlike excitement in Plenary – whoops of delight and @algore taking selfies – a COP like no other? …
    1757 – Economist Lord Stern joins Al Gore among the non-government delegates on the front row here to see history being made. Laurent Fabius walked in to rapturous applause…
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/12/12/cop21-live-make-or-break-time-for-paris-outcome/

    70

  • #
    RoHa

    Whoopee.

    We’re saved.

    Hooray.

    140

  • #
    jeff in Canada

    What a waste of time and money in Paris! Nothing concrete accomplished other than another junket for the AGW believers of the world who live on a different plane than the rest of us.. literally and figuratively!

    140

  • #
    Neville

    Lomborg told us recently that the agreement would reduce temp by about 0.05 C by 2100. So we’ll spend trillions of $ over the next 85 years for SFA change to the temp or climate? Or perhaps they’ll collectively grow a brain and opt out ASAP?

    http://www.lomborg.com/press-release-research-reveals-negligible-impact-of-paris-climate-promises

    141

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    scaper...

    I wonder how many countries will indeed sign up?

    Will Australia? Over four months is a very long time in politics these days.

    70

    • #
      MarloweJ

      Turnbull, Bishop and Hunt have pens poised. Now I know why Tony Abbott had to go, they’re saving the planet.

      200

      • #
        Dennis

        No, they are part of the movement to control and manage new world order, a new economy, as the UN has admitted is the real agenda.

        150

      • #
        Peter Miller

        Save the Planet syndrome is a well documented disorder. It makes sufferers smug and intolerant to reason, spawns expensive pointless bureaucracies and empties the wallets of the general public.

        STP sufferers cluster once a year, this time in Paris, in an orgy of self-congratulation.

        60

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      redress

      Scaper….Turnbull has in the last few days…

      a]..committed to following NZ and agreed to lift Tony Abbott’s ban on buying “international carbon permits”
      b]..lifted Tony Abbott’s wind power investment ban.

      When are the dissident liberals and the Nationals going to enforce the coup agreement….. You know, the one that says no changes to the existing climate change policy’s as they were BEFORE the coup???

      200

  • #
    Steve McDonald

    Now that the people in Paris have stopped the climate from changing I will never have to use my aircon again.
    It’s a cool 23 degrees in Brisbane in mid December.

    101

  • #
    handjive

    Wait. What?

    Obama? (ABC)

    3.26: “The problem’s not … ‘solved’ because of this accord.”

    6.10:” I imagine takin’ my grandkids, and that’s if I’m lucky enough to have some, to the park some day, and holding their hands, and hearing their laughter, and watching the quiet sunset, all the while knowing …”

    Wait. What?

    Who’s kids are we saving the planet for, and who gets to decide?

    How family planning could be part of the answer to climate change (theconversation)

    “You’ve changed your lightbulbs, you recycle, you’ve retrofitted your house, cycle when you can, and drive an electric car when you can’t.
    You’re doing your bit to reduce your carbon emissions and prevent dangerous climate change.

    But if you have two children, your legacy of carbon emissions could be 40-times higher than those you saved through lifestyle changes.”

    Don’t forget if you have a dog called Bo:
    A medium-sized dog has the same impact as a Toyota Land Cruiser driven 6,000 miles a year, while a cat is equivalent to a Volkswagen Golf.

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  • #
    tom0mason

    Progress has been made … left leaning representatives have made alliances; blame apportioning protocols have been amended and re-rendered to include China and India; all throughout the proceedings, the UN-parasites repeat then hastily changed the targets for temperature and sea-level rise, amplifying their sense of self-importance through guile, as the new flimflam consensus figures are agreed on — and is this with the full backing of the ‘settled science’?

    ‘Climate science™” has done it’s shady work. Now, as we knew, this meeting was all about politics, power and money.
    $Billion to be miss-allocated, $billions misspent — $billions of tax-payers money misappropriated and misused. So realize everyone that your tax dollars has and will continue to fund this bureaucratic flimflam founded on a faux science bluff.

    Slowly, slowly, peoples’ rights and wealth are being bled away by the ever hungry growing plague of bureaucratic UN parasites. The same UN that knows that as a flock humans are easily to lead, as an unruly pack humans are easily distracted, and easily fooled.

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    Ursus Augustus

    A fitting, fraudulent end to the relentless propaganda campaign of the past 6 months in particular. An exercise in fabricated mass hysteria by the Great Green Blob and its signed up global partners that the world has never seen the like of before.

    Now maybe the ‘other side’ can get some clear air to start its cross examination of the farrago of frog shite presented as ‘evidence’.

    My first target would be a clinical demonstration that the ‘global temperature record’ has little veracity with regards tracking the ‘temerature anomoly’ because of the inherent and virtually impossible to remove biases in both the land and ocean data sets.

    On land there is the global increase in urbanisation in the vicinity of many of the instruments with the consequent heat island effect creating an upward bias.

    In the oceans there is the sheer uncertainty as to the distribution of recording sites and an incentive to understate temperatures recorde. Temperarure readings were (and still are) used to regulate ship’s engine power on the basis of the temperature of cooling water passing through the heat exchangers. The power able to be responsibly generated, i.e. iaw engine manufacturer’s specifications and warranty conditions etc or just prudent practice) being linked to cooling effectiveness of the heat exchangers in turn related to temperature differential.

    These biases are plain to understand qualitatively but very difficult to quantify objectively although a series of what ifs would start to reveal their impact on the ‘global temperature’ record and in particular the ternd of the ‘anomaly’ over time.

    This is the sort of fineagling done to remove the ‘hiatus’ in the klead up to Paris so I suspect the ‘anomaly’ is quite sensitive to such ‘adjustments’.

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  • #
    ROM

    There was and still is a colossal amount of a self inflating egotism and self gratification involved by the various self righteous politicals, the arrogant UN climate bureacracy and the self serving branch of incompetent climate catastrophe science with the Paris FLOP, the twenty first such FLOP in the UN’s Climate Consultative Conference series.

    Plus huge amounts of personal political capital invested by numerous rabid, radical greens, climate activists of various extremist ideologies, washed up European and American politicians and a whole trash skip full of barely competent climate bureaucrats plus sundry climate catastrophe believers, some 40,000 ‘s worth or more, take your pick, in ensuring that the Paris FLOP 21 was seen as a success or to be seen as an apparent success at least at some level in the global public’s perceptions.

    For those reasons alone no politician who was stupid enough to invest his political capital in attending what was likely to be seen months before the event as a significant political FLOP, nor a climate bureacrat or climate alarmist scientist or climate alarmist science organisation who had his / her’s / their future tied up entirely in keeping the climate catastrophe on the boil could afford in any way to walk away from the Paris FLOP 21 without destroying all of their credibility and most of their now rapidly diminishing political capital.

    So like the 1938 British PM Neville Chamberlain who after negotiating with Hitler announced on his arrival back from Munich and Hitler on 30 sept 1938 whilst waving the Munich agreement around announced ;

    My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.

    Today we have the equivalent of the Munich Agreement from the Paris FLOP 21 .
    The waving of a piece of paper, an agreement announcing that the World has been “saved” through the efforts and good graces and the super human efforts of the Good and the Great of this Planet whose one desire was to ensure the saving of the planet from mankind’s disgraceful use of fossil fuels and his temperature raising emmissions of a catastrophic atmospheric “carbon” gas.

    And it has the same prospects of a long term impact on the future of the climate let alone the future of mankind as that of the Neville Chamberlain-Herr Hitler Munich agreement.

    It isn’t worth the paper it is written on as far as holding any nation to what is written on that piece of paper.
    Its only useful use will be as a not very satisfactory back up in the smallest room in the house if the toilet roll runs out .

    But the Great and the Good and the Green now depart Paris luxuriating in the thoughts of their successful hard fought final efforts to Save the Planet from that climate model predicted and supposed impending climate catastrophe by preventing humanity from burning any more of those fossil fuels that they are permitted to burn to generate civilisations energy and to keep warm and cool and drive the machinery of a complex civilisation.

    The Great and Good and Green can now step into their gas guzzling private jets and their luxurious gas guzzling limousines and wend their way back home over those hundreds and thousands of kilometres emitting copious amounts of the climate destroying gas as they travel as is their god given right, with a clear and satisfied conscience that they have just Saved the Planet, at least until next year’s conference.

    Do I need a [ sarc/] ?

    161

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      Sceptical Sam

      ROM, there is a very real difference between the Chamberlain piece of paper and the FLOP21 piece.

      Hitler and Nazism were a very real threat to the world, whereas global warming running at 0.8 C° per century will have very positive impacts.

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      • #
        Howie from Indiana

        The threat is not from climate change or global warming but from those who would impose a New World Order on all of us.

        “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution”. – Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary

        30

  • #
    Drapetomania

    Neville
    December 13, 2015 at 10:15 am · Reply
    Lomborg told us recently that the agreement would reduce temp by about 0.05 C by 2100. So we’ll spend trillions of $ over the next 85 years for SFA change to the temp or climate? Or perhaps they’ll collectively grow a brain and opt out ASAP?

    I have not read a response from the $CAGW$ fans..about this….
    Screeching “denier”..is not really proving his calculations are wrong..:)
    Or do they know Lomborg, who is on their “side” is correct..but their induction/trance like state regarding this “cool meme” is so entrenched..that they dont care.??
    I have never found one $CAGW$ advocate who actually knew the science ..and was off the grid and did not own a car…has anyone found even one. ??

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      Howie from Indiana

      The warmista sheeples will say Lomborg doesn’t know what he is talking about. But AGW was never about the science. Statements like “the science are settled” betray that fact because anyone who knows anything about science knows that science is never truly settled.

      30

  • #

    My take is slightly different.
    It is worth reading the agreement, particularly paragraphs 17 and 21
    P17 states that the INDCs are nowhere close to being on track for the 2C limit. That would require emissions in 2030 to be 40 gigatonnes or less, whereas the forecast (with policy) is for 55 gigatonnes.
    In P21 the UNFCCC asks the UNIPCC for some more scary stories and some more modelled emissions forecasts. There is a lot of hot air, but no global plans at all to reach any 2C target.
    This is better understood by comparing the two paragraphs, and the context here.

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    Not just because I am a supporter, but I seriously wonder just how much lobbying was done here by the coal fired power industry, and not out in the open but behind the scenes.

    Everything I have done leads me to believe that coal fired power has not just a future, but quite a huge future.

    Nowhere in the Industry, and let me repeat that, ….. nowhere ….. are there any signs of it easing back, let alone disappearing into oblivion as an awful lot of people think.

    All across the World, and not just in China, the BIG industry players are working on the new technologies. China is forging ahead with USC plants, (also referred to as HELE) and they are now being constructed in many other Countries. Virtually every new coal fired plant, anywhere now, is USC.

    This proposed start date for this new, umm, UNFCCC treaty is 2020, and that seems odd to me, having an understanding of what I do sometimes rave on about.

    While USC plant construction is quite literally on an exponential curve, many of those big industry player in coal fired power development, across many Countries are working flat out on the next step. Advanced USC, which will see even further reductions in the amounts of coal being burned, hence lowering emissions of CO2 even further.

    Now, the forward plan shows that this Advanced USC will have a demonstration plant ready by 2018, with the roll out of construction of operational plants beginning in, umm, ….. 2020.

    Does that date sound familiar?

    If, (stress that word if) there was no future for coal fired power, then why are so many of the big Industry players, (Siemens, Babcock and Brown, etcetera) and so may Countries, (the U.S. and EU as well as China) investing literally billions of dollars in going forward with this?

    I might suggest that the coal fired lobby might have been doing just as much work in Paris as those entities the media have concentrated on here.

    Incidentally, look closely at this image. It shows two currently operational USC units, one in the foreground, and the second in the background, and this plant has been operational and delivering power now for more than seven years. Just those two 1000MW units you see there deliver more power to the grid than 2,550 (average sized at 2.5MW) wind towers, or on an Australian basis, 175% greater power than every wind plant in Australia.

    USC and Advanced USC even have a forward plan based specifically around the UN’s 2 dgrees Celsius target, as shown at this link (pdf document of 2 pages) and scroll to the bottom to see the plans going forward, not just for China, but for the PLANET.

    This start date of 2020 for this UN, um, agreement, looks suspiciously to me like the coal fired power lobby looking for time to make their new advances acceptable to the public. Now all this green cr@p from Paris is out of the way, the task for coal fired power of explaining it all to the public begins.

    We could indeed be entering a new World, just not the ones that the greens can see yet.

    Tony.

    USC – UltraSuperCritical

    HELE – High Efficiency Low Emissions

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      AndyG55

      I have to say, Tony, that pic you linked to is one seriously yummy piece of engineering !! 🙂

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        ROM

        In contrast to Tony’s post, I gather from the direction the South Australian government is taking South Australia in electrical energy production that by about 2020 on, there will be a steady market in South Australia for used Asian origin rickshaws and many small backyard producers of the efficient wood burning African cooking stoves will spring into being to supply the cooking stove needs of South Australians.

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        PeterPetrum

        And not a speck of carbon anywhere to be seen!

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    • #
      Grahame

      You are dead right, speaking as a geologist I don’t think the coal industry has any problem for a long time yet. Despite the current down turn, which is a pretty normal process of boom and bust in the industry, the coal output is still rising, the Port of Newcastle recently announced record shipments. Their are a lot of deposits sitting waiting for the right time to start development.
      The whole “green” movement and it’s followers are absolutely full of it.

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        AndyG55

        ” don’t think the coal industry has any problem for a long time yet”

        I do.. I think they are going to struggle with the infrastructure to keep up with demand.

        Did you know that according to BP figures, Indonesia overtook Australia as a coal producing country in 2013.

        ps.. Has anyone heard anything about this http://www.eastwestlineparks.com.au/

        Interesting idea for sure, but it seems to have died a quiet death.

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        • #
          ROM

          I remember that proposal from about 30 or more years back soon after the Pilbara Iron ore province became a reality and Queensland was just starting to realise the incredible scale of its coal fields and its production potential.

          Austrralia was still quite gung ho in those days and a lot of Australians were ready to try anything if it made money.

          The bureacrat created environmental Green Tape hadn’t yet reached the scale of today of totally strangling anything and everything that was somewhere away from the energy guzzling A/C and heated central city offices of the green bureaucrats.

          So the idea / proposal was for a rail line to be constructed from the coast adjacent to the Queensland coal fields right across central Australia to the Western Australian Iron ore provinces.

          Iron ore smelters and Steel mills and metallurgical processing plants would be constructed on both the Queensland coast and on the Western Australian coasts.
          The few kilometres long ore trains would transport iron ore from the WA iron ore provinces across Central Australia to the Queensland iron ore smelters.

          And then when on the return run would haul trainloads of Queensland smelting quality coal back to the WA iron ore and metallurgical smelters on the West Coast.

          Another great Australian dream that had lots of potential but died a slow death.

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          • #
            ROM

            Of course WA has a seriously large coal field, potentially one of the largest in the world a couple of thousand kilometres closer to its iron ore provinces than Queensland.

            It is located in the Simpson Desert about three hundred kilometres east of Alice Springs and is claimed to extend for over 400 kilometres in extent.

            World’s biggest coal field

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            • #
              Andrew McRae

              WA has a seriously large coal field

              Central Petroleum Limited says it recently discovered the field in the south-east of the Northern Territory

              Got some wires crossed there ROM. It’s not WA, it’s NT. Closer to Qld than WA.

              Maybe you’re thinking of some other coal seam in the Great Sandy Desert?

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              • #
                ROM

                Blog posts unfortunately are usually written at some speed and suffer from the simple fact that they lack that direct vocal and visual person to person contact that is a major factor in promoting what the other person is trying to convey in any conversation.

                1 / The coal field is located some 300 kms east of Alice Springs
                2 / It is located in the Simpson Desert
                3 / The Simpson Desert is located South East and east of Alice Springs near and overlapping the junction of the boundaries between the NT, Queensland and NSW.
                4 / The coal field is seriously large, potentially one of the world’s largest.

                5 / Consequently WA has a seriously large coalfield, potentially one of the largest in the world, a couple of thousand kilometres closer to its iron ore provinces than Queensland‘s coal fields

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          Aaron M

          Hehe…..looks like a job for Rearden Metal.

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      ScotsmaninUtah

      Tony,
      thank you for answering a question I have been wanting to ask.
      I could not reconcile all the protestations and declarations that there was to be “no more coal ” with the actual evidence of yet more development in coal based energy production systems.

      It would seem there is disappointment ahead for those who believe coal will be a thing of the past.

      btw , and you may have seen this aleady here is s link to real time energy ptoduction for France and the UK.
      Interesting the Solar and Wind contributions during hourly, daily , weekly “load” gor these two countries.

      http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

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    Obama signing this climate treaty is entertaining. Even Jimbo Hansen knows it is BS!

    Signing the climate treaty is analogous to urinating in your pants while wearing a dark suit…it gives you a warm feeling but nobody really notices.

    This is not a binding treaty and, assuming the republicans win the white house, will be discarded into the recycle bin of green history. The only chance the Dems have of winning is if Hillary is indicted and they can find a viable replacement.

    I am not sure what is the bigger joke, Obama or the worthless agreement he signed. I am referring to the climate agreement, not the other worthless one he signed with Iran!

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      Wow! My comment wasn’t held in moderation! Either I am going soft or it is time to buy a lottery ticket! 😉

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        Yonniestone

        Mentioning Iran is Ok Eddy, after all when President Carter banned them from entering he USA in 1980 it was seen as common sense but now when Trump suggests to apply that same common sense with a broader brush it’s Waaaccciiiissstttttt!

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    pat

    ABC & Fairfax gloating today:

    13 Dec: ABC: Federal Government lifts Tony Abbott’s wind farm investment ban
    by Francis Keany, staff
    Under the new mandate, signed by Mr Hunt and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann on December 3, the $10 billion fund will be allowed to invest in wind projects, as long as they incorporate “emerging and innovative” methods.
    “The Government has also directed the Corporation to include, as part of its investment activities in clean energy technologies, a focus on offshore wind technologies,” the directive issued to the CEFC said…
    In July, former treasurer Joe Hockey ordered the CEFC to stop funding wind power projects, as well as small-scale solar projects, a move condemned by the industry, as well as environmental groups and the federal opposition.
    Five months later, the CEFC quietly announced $67 million in financing for Australia’s third largest wind farm at Ararat in Western Victoria.
    It follows consultations with new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who has promised more certainty for the renewable energy sector.
    Victoria’s Environment Minister Lisa Neville said the decision to overturn the ban was good news for local jobs and dealing with climate change…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-13/abbots-wind-farm-investment-ban-lifted/7024164

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    Ivor Surveyor

    How is the 2° target or is it 1.5° Celsius, which is claimed will save the planet from dangerous warming to be measured? If the target refers to satellite measurements, then my understanding is that there has been no significant warming for 18 years. If on the other hand it refers to earth surface temperature using Stephenson screens, has a universal protocol been agreed and faithfully implemented by all National Meteorological Institutions?
    By surfacing the web, I found a paper entitled “Recent Changes in Thermometer Screen Design and Their Impact.” Barnet A, DB Hatton, DW Jones. [WMO/TD – 871. 1998].
    The variation in design and use of the screens over decades is discussed and as an example of variation which may or may not be important I quote the following.
    “It is worth noting that the WMO standards still indicate that a height 1.25 -2 m is acceptable for thermometer exposure, and the UK many former British locations still use 1.25 m as opposed to 1.5-2 m for most other countries.”
    I am aware of Dr Jennifer Marohasy work on the difference between raw temperature data and homogenised data. The point I wish to make is that it appears the different national bodies have their own idiosyncratic methods for homogenisation.
    I wonder too, if the averaging of this mishmash of heterogenic data has any statistical validity? Especially as confidence intervals are never quoted in the popular media.
    Lastly, in the Paris protocol there appears to be no reference to acceptable error limits attached to their 2° Celsius target.

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    • #
      Robk

      Ivor, it’s worse than you think. There’s the issues you mentioned, then it all gets averaged over a world grid. It’s hopeless. A good article covered by Jo is “the French mathematical Calculations Society”a few months ago. It covers you queries quite well.

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      Andrew McRae

      How is the 2° target or is it 1.5° Celsius, which is claimed will save the planet from dangerous warming to be measured?

      It’s the amount above the “pre-industrial average” at the surface measured behind Stevenson screens. So it theoretically has 0.8°C to go before it hits 1.5.

      That temperature will not happen. It certainly won’t happen this century due to the natural solar activity cooling that will happen over the next 30 years starting 3 years ago. The main variable in actual temperatures is solar activity and is difficult to predict that 80 years in advance. Nonetheless the experts forecast a solar cooling that will more than offset the smaller CO2 warming. So the COP21 target can be achieved by making no economic change at all.

      But that is just the vague prediction of an ad-hoc spreadsheet formula that has so far proven more accurate in making 24 year projections than all the 1990 IPCC climate models, so it probably should be ignored. 🙂

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      • #
        Ross

        Andrew

        I hear the time target to meet the 2C is 2100 ( but they’ll try hard for 1.5C in the same time frame !).
        How can anyone with a brain can call that aspirational ? Of course none of us will around to check whether it is met and besides the global climate will go through a couple of natural warming/cooling cycles in that time period.
        It is an insult that they think the average citizen will accept this level of thinking.

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    James Murphy

    I could be wrong about this, but the agreement seems to put the onus of financial transparency on contributions from Developed Countries, whereas Less Developed Countries do not seem to have to meet the same requirements in order to justify how they spend their share of the spoils, and nor do they have to prove that they have done anything, really…

    91:
    Also decides that all Parties, except for the least developed country Parties and small island developing States, shall submit the information referred to in Article 13, paragraphs 7, 8, 9 and 10, as appropriate, no less frequently than on a biennial basis, and that the least developed country Parties and small island developing States may submit this information at their discretion

    Article 13:
    7. Each Party shall regularly provide the following information:
    (a) A national inventory report of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases, prepared using good practice methodologies accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and agreed upon by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement;
    (b) Information necessary to track progress made in implementing and achieving its nationally determined contribution under Article 4.

    8. Each Party should also provide information related to climate change impacts and adaptation under Article 7, as appropriate.

    9. Developed country Parties shall, and other Parties that provide support should, provide information on financial, technology transfer and capacity-building support provided to developing country Parties under Article 9, 10 and 11.

    10. Developing country Parties should provide information on financial, technology transfer and capacity-building support needed and received under Articles 9, 10 and 11.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Luckily, New Zealand is often classed as one of the “Small Islands Developing State”, by our Australian neighbours, and Australia itself, can be classed as one of “the least developed country Parties”, because of all that desert it has (and also because of Tasmania, which is always in “a state”, over something or other).

      So, after all the hype, it has all turned into a bit of a non-event, in our “low carbon dioxide emissions” corner of the world. It is a nice day. I think I will burn my rubbish …

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    pat

    12 Dec: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: At the Paris climate summit, panic over global warming finally collided with reality
    Face the facts: there is no way the world as a whole is going to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions
    The aim was to get a treaty committing 196 nations to stop global temperatures rising more than 2 degrees C or even less above their pre-industrial level, by wholesale “decarbonising” of the world’s economy. We must all stop using those “polluting” fossil fuels which still provide 86 per cent of global energy.
    To this end, the world’s richer “developed nations” would also donate $100 billion a year to all those countries still “developing”, to enable them to rely only on “clean” energy, and to adapt to the problems created by climate change.
    As explained by the conference’s chief organiser, Christiana Figueres, this would amount to a total revolution in the way we all live: nothing less than to abandon the entire “economic development model” that has been shaping the world since the Industrial Revolution…
    There are currently plans across the world to build 2,500 more coal plants, because coal is easily the cheapest source of energy.
    It is this which has been the scarcely noticed elephant in the room in Paris. Whatever clever words are devised to hide the reality of what emerges from this conference, there is no way the world as a whole is going to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions…
    As many now also recognise – however fiercely it is denied – the late 20th century rise in temperatures, which set off the warming scare in the first place, has simply not continued. The pressure to keep the panic going dies away a little further with each passing year…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/paris-climate-change-conference/12047626/At-the-Paris-climate-summit-panic-over-global-warming-finally-collided-with-reality.html

    12 Dec: BBC: COP21 climate change summit reaches deal in Paris
    However, the targets set by nations will not be binding under the deal struck in Paris…
    Nick Mabey, CEO E3G: “The transition to a low carbon economy is now unstoppable, ensuring the end of the fossil fuel age.”
    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35084374

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    Where have all the trolls gone? Seeing how they think the science is “settled” maybe they are moving into retirement?

    Sigh! I really could use some target practice…and another beer!

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      Peter C

      Trolls too busy celebrating the success of human folly at this time.

      They will be back when everything has calmed down a bit and no one has read their entries on their own blog sites.

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    King Geo

    Quoting Jo

    “From the deal itself. The global carbon market is voluntary. The words “must”, “requisite”, ” and “enforce’ are not used in the entire document and there is no mention of “decarbonize” either”.

    Well clearly that means that the likes of China, India & Russia will focus on the cheapest source of “base load energy generation”, ie fossil fuels, which at todays prices render RE’s as a recipe for economic ruin. But the likes of the EU will push ahead with RE’s (lucky France has its nuclear power) and totally decimate their economies in the process and overwhelm their “feel good saving the Earth doctrine”. No doubt the poor & destitute in the EU will multiply exponentially and result in many member nations facing anarchy.

    Hallelujah!!!

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      James Murphy

      Despite already having a virtually “carbon free” electricity generation system, France wants to reduce its reliance on nuclear power, and build reliance on renewables.

      ooh la la…

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    Rod Stuart

    At least the Irish get the straight goods on the weather. No BOM smoothing and homogenizing there. No sugar coating either.

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    pat

    jo, my comment chronicling the TYPO story is in moderation.

    12 Dec: UK Spectator Blog: Benny Peiser, GWPF: Don’t worry: the Paris climate deal is non-binding – and, ergo, toothless
    The Paris agreement is another acknowledgement of international reality. Further proof, if any was needed, that the developing world will not agree to any legally binding caps, never mind reductions of their CO2 emissions. As seasoned observers predicted, the Paris deal is based on a voluntary basis which allows nations to set their own voluntary CO2 targets and policies without any legally binding caps or international oversight…
    This voluntary agreement also removes the mad rush into unrealistic decarbonisation policies that are both economically and politically unsustainable…
    http://blogs.new.spectator.co.uk/2015/12/dont-worry-the-paris-climate-treaty-is-non-binding-and-ergo-toothless/

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    mmxx

    This was the last roll of the dice for climate catastrophists. They had to come out of Paris with a piece of paper to wave about or their chances of future agreement were increasingly bleak.

    It is ironic now that, in future, climate model projections that fail to be borne out by empirical measurement of climate data will allow CAGW spin-merchants to claim success due to this agreement of 2015.

    No wonder they are partying like there is no tomorrow!

    Natural climate variability can now emerge to regain its rightful place as the major factor in climate change.

    After all, it can be the AGW catastrophists fall-back excuse if global surface temperatures do rise despite implementation of this Paris agreement.

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    John F. Hultquist

    Your statement about the Wall Street Journal could be more – Well, I started to write and then looked. I don’t see what you see at that link. There are links there in – are the words there?
    Anyway, …
    The co-authors (economics, politics, general europe; who do sometimes write on climate issues) are reporters for the WSJ in Europe and not from the editorial/opinion part of the paper. The WSJ does try to keep the distinction.
    Here is a link to the opinion page about The Politics of Pope Francis

    The WSJ is a subscription web site, so here is a quote:

    Like many Argentines of the left, Pope Francis seems given to suspicion about American wealth. But liberty and not coercion is the source of our strength and of the wealth that has lifted millions out of poverty.

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    pat

    says it all:

    VIDEO 13secs: 13 Dec: Tim Blair Blog: YAY
    Journalists in Paris react following the announcement of a climate agreement.
    (Via Tadpole.)
    http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/yay3/

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    Gary in Erko

    We need revised lyrics by Tom Lehrer for the overheated world –

    Oh we will all fry together when we fry.
    We’ll be french fried potatoes by and by.
    There will be no more misery
    When the world is our rotisserie,
    Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.

    Quote – “I don’t think this kind of thing has an impact on the unconverted, frankly. It’s not even preaching to the converted; it’s titillating the converted… I’m fond of quoting Peter Cook, who talked about the satirical Berlin kabarets of the 1930s, which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the Second World War.”

    Try to laugh to hide your disgust of the idiots.

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    MJD

    There is an article by Bjorn Lomborg here:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3357887/The-trillion-pound-bill-s-respected-expert-says-climate-summit-cost-world-year-argues-hardly-change-thing.html

    I do like this quote: “… Because current green technology is inefficient. If it were economically advantageous to dump fossil fuels, why would we need to sign a treaty? Every right-thinking nation on the planet would stampede to cut CO2.”

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    I agree with James Hansen’s view that the toothless Paris treaty is a failure for his side of the argument. It simply says we should all separately do something sometime later but if you don’t want to you don’t have to. it gives participating countries the freedom to withdraw as evidence mounts in coming years that the world is either warming or cooling, and there are sure to be plenty of people in the Hansen camp who’re miffed that such freedom is allowed.

    The Conversation has a weekend Paris special featuring the treaty reaction of 10 “experts” trying to celebrate the symbolism of it all (here). Without saying so, most say the treaty is a failure in practical terms. It’s true that the treaty ensures plenty of academics and bureaucrats remain employed to write doomsday reports in the coming decade (e.g. a special IPCC report outlining how to achieve 1.5C or 2.0C warming, and public servants in 196 countries writing “transparency” reports to prove they’ve subsidised some windmills). About the most accurate opinion I could find was the opening sentence of one of those experts …

    “For a climate scientist who’s spent over a decade on the front lines, the Paris Agreement it is like finding out the biggest and most ambitious grant proposal of your career has been funded.”

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    Ruairi

    In Paris no skeptic was free,
    To interrupt or disagree,
    With the climate-change camp,
    Who will all rubber-stamp,
    Their prearranged fait accompli.

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    Geoff Sherrington

    Clause 49 quoted above ends with “the damage caused by climate change”.
    Ina legalistic sense, should push come to shove, define climate change and then define how any damage can be shown to be from climate change.
    So far, nobody has been able to separate natural from anthropogenic change. So, if someone hands you a bill for damage, simply ask them to prove it was not natural.

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      ianl8888

      So far, nobody has been able to separate natural from anthropogenic change. So, if someone hands you a bill for damage, simply ask them to prove it was not natural

      Geoff, that works fine if we can rely on the old “complainant has to prove their case” concept

      But there have been very determined attempts to reverse the null hypothesis by heavily influential people – that translates to “You’ve done environmental damage by burning coal; now you prove you haven’t”. The Precautionary Principle at work

      I have no trust in our activist judges, none at all. Just look at the disgrace of the current Steyn case in the US – three (3) activist judges (females too, I read your earlier quashed comment) have just sat on their hands for 18 months and refused to make a decision in order, it would appear, to protect the AGW narrative from cross-examination under oath

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    Andrew McRae

    Thanks for the h/t attribution.

    That’s an important point for legal interpretation which I had not understood before:

    all that’s been done is transport the clause a bit out of sight for some to claim it’s not in the Paris agreement. But a decision by the Conference of Parties of the UN climate convention carries the same legal implications in this case

    I’d assumed only the Annex was the binding agreement, but this comment above says the whole document is binding.
    There is much more to search through and interpret than just the Annex.

    49. Requests the Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism to
    establish a clearinghouse for risk transfer that serves as a repository for information on
    insurance and risk transfer,

    Without reading the Warsaw Mechanism it is not obvious that any risk transfer must take place, this para only says they are building a database to record any risk transfers. Still, people don’t build bridges without intending to cross them. Does this mean that when sea level rises in the Maldives, some other schmuck is supposed to pay for relocation of the residents and businesses? How can the Maldives transfer risk to anyone else?
    Is that going to be the sneaky alternative to suing for compensation? Legally different, but same end result?

    “Capacity-building” is mentioned a lot and seems to be defined here:

    Capacity-building under this Agreement should enhance the capacity and ability of developing country Parties […] to take effective climate change action, including, inter alia, to implement adaptation and mitigation actions,

    The Global Environment Facility is supposed to channel more money to improve transparency in capacity building, but is not specifically given any money by this Agreement because it is already the trusted bank of UNFCCC. The question then is how the GEF gets the money from member countries initially.

    Adaptation also gets a lot of verbiage, and in fact is mentioned twice as often as mitigation:

    125. Decides to launch, in the period 2016-2020, a technical examination process on adaptation;
    126. Also decides that the technical examination process on adaptation referred to in paragraph 125 above will endeavour to identify concrete opportunities for strengthening resilience, reducing vulnerabilities and increasing the understanding and implementation of adaptation actions;

    Annex Article 7
    1. Parties hereby establish the global goal on adaptation of enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience
    and reducing vulnerability to climate change, with a view to contributing to sustainable development and ensuring an adequate adaptation response in the context of the temperature goal referred to in Article 2.

    That actually seems sensible. Bob Carter was saying years ago that adaptation is a better way of spending money on climate change than trying to mitigate the amount of climate change. I dare say that this is the beginning of cooler heads prevailing in the climate issue.

    Annex
    Article 6
    4. A mechanism to contribute to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and support sustainable development is hereby established … for use by Parties on a voluntary basis. [It] shall aim:

    (c) To contribute to the reduction of emission levels in the host Party, which will benefit from mitigation activities resulting in emission reductions that can also be used by another Party to fulfil its nationally
    determined contribution; and …

    A question which should be answered is how there is room for GS/JPM/Deustche et al to make money off carbon emissions trading when GEF and GCF are to “serve this Agreement” which implies all the matching of emissions reductions in 4c is done by those two institutions and no others. Does the GEF track the gigatonnes while GS performs the subsequent trading? That seems to be compatible with the text.
    Therefore, worldwide brokerage fees for Goldman Sachs in carbon emissions trading are getting a green light here. That’s why this Agreement will be signed.

    (d) To deliver an overall mitigation in global emissions.

    They can aim to create a worldwide ETS, and they can aim to deliver an overall mitigation in global emissions, but only one of those two aims will actually be done. Just ask Chairman Mal.

    6. The Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement shall ensure that a share of the proceeds from activities under the mechanism referred to in paragraph 4 of this Article is used to cover administrative expenses as well as to assist developing country Parties that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change to meet the costs of adaptation.

    Call this communism, or call it mandatory charitable donations, call it whatever you like but the end result is the same. If we sign this Agreement we don’t have to participate in an ETS, but if we do run an ETS then a portion of the money paid for emissions permits must be sent to developing countries. Since Chairman Mal’s puppetmasters are mad keen on ETS profiteering, it’s very likely we’re going to pay the climate dole to the developing countries, notionally for their adaptation effort. With the required “transparency, including in governance” perhaps it may actually be spent that way.

    Still looking for the sting in the fine print of this thing. Aside from the cronyism it could have been worse.

    I’d still rather see Australia not sign this and instead negotiate better foreign investment conditions for African and developing nations so that Australian capital and companies can help kick start the economy of those countries, which would within 20 years allow them to afford their own adaptation projects and climate change resilience.
    Affordable electricity and clean water have to be the number one priority. Worrying about climate is surely way down the list of their priorities when building “capacity”.

    The word “population” does not appear anywhere, even though the number of humans in the world is an obvious factor in how much CO2 is emitted by human activity. Even without assuming the IPCC’s false claims of strong ECS2xCO2, an inverse correlation between baby-making and climate resilience exists. The effect of affluence in reducing fertility is well documented, and is yet another reason that education and economic growth are the main mechanisms that will reduce future CO2 emissions and improve climate change resilience, despite there being weak causality between CO2 emissions and recent climate change.

    Article 12
    Parties shall cooperate in taking measures, as appropriate, to enhance climate change education, training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information, recognizing the importance of these steps with respect to enhancing actions under this Agreement.

    So that’s more UN funding for climate sceptics then? 🙂
    What Jo does here is technically “recognizing the importance of” “public awareness, public participation and public access to information” “with respect to enhancing actions under this Agreement.”
    Clearly Jo is owed a cheque from Big Government to assist with raising “public awareness” about how unwise it is for governments to be “enhancing actions under this Agreement”.

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    This is me commenting on this Paris agreement, and shamelessly linking to that most recent Post of mine.

    Paris Agreement – CO2 Emissions Reduction Pledges – Even John Kerry Says It’s Not Enough

    I still can’t understand why the start date is 2020 for this Paris agreement.

    Tony.

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      Dennis

      Smokescreens and mirrors deployed again: The last warming period ended around 1998 and the man-made global warming fraudsters know it did.

      In the long march to collapsing the capitalist system as we know it the truth is ignored.

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    Salome

    Did anyone hear the Bishop Woman’s speech? I heard it early this morning on the ABC. After addressing herself to the Impo’tant People, she then addressed ‘and OUR President, Laurent Fabius’. Now, this may just have been a way of distinguishing the president of the instant assembly from the other dignitaries, but it sounded to me as if she was acknowledging the gathering as the new World Government–in which the Foreign Minister equivalents are supreme over everyone else from their countries. Very disappointing, the Bishop Woman. To think that I once thought she had substance.

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    Ted O'Brien

    OT, but where is Weekend Unthreaded?

    See this: http://fortune.com/2015/12/12/dow-dupont-corporate-research-america/

    Now who funded the Hole in the Ozone Layer campaign?

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    David Maddison

    I just heard “our” Julie Bishop speaking at Paris. Do you think she has a triple digit IQ?

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      llew jones

      Very doubtful but that’s what happens when brighter secondary school students enter the legal profession. Same query is relevant to Turnbull, Hunt, Shorten and a host of other lawyers in our State and Federal Parliaments. Josh Frydenberg seems to be an exception. Perhaps lawyers are not usually equipped, as most of us non lawyers are, to understand basic science or simple maths e.g. what does a logarithmic curve look like.

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    thingadonta

    The legal wrangling equivalent of how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.

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    “PPS: We could really use your help in the tip jar. Thanks to the people helping out. We can’t do this without you!”

    Did that! Perhaps more next year. BTW Buying chocolate the US-IRS considers not a valid expense. However if challenged will allow! The only competent US agency! Will not spend a buck to collect a dime! 😉

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    John

    “The Australian ABC news made it sound like Moses was just about to come back from the Mount. “There were tears!”.

    Half of them might have been Jo.

    The other half are already on leave having driven their SUVs down to the coast to their holiday homes before Moses raises the sea level.

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    Denver

    “Generally speaking, I’m much more of a conformist, but it happens I have strong views about climate because I think the majority is badly wrong, and you have to make sure if the majority is saying something that they’re not talking nonsense.” – Freeman Dyson.

    When Freeman Dyson says your science is rubbish, it probably is.

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    cedarhill

    One might want to pass laws to ban ALL international conferences on climate except via teleconferencing over the internet. I.E., no more million ton carbon emitting climate meetings.

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    cedarhill

    Oh, and end all climate research and funding since the science is settled AND the agreements have been reached thus there no longer is a need to have public monies directed to this dead end science area. Actually shift all the funding over to thorium reactor research and development.

    One must change the nature of the debate so why not accept the verdict but to the best advantage.

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    Richard Ilfeld

    When the world finally realizes this bunch of climate Millerites is as fraudulent as any other apocalyptic religion and moves on…..We need not cry for them. “They’ll always have Paris”

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    pyromancer76

    Tomason and AnotherIan understand how the U.S. will buckle under to the global fascists anyway, even if they cannot use a Global Warming agreement at present. The horrendous TPP that not only Obama, but the Republican establishment want (they are global uniparty, too). A supposed U.S. savior-conservative, Ted Cruz, enabled the TPP by voting for TPA, which gives the monstrosity an up-or-down vote, not the percentage that a treaty is supposed to have. The globalists are very, very crafty.

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    ScotsmaninUtah

    Both James Hansen and the Wall St Journal are right. The Paris agreement will achieve nothing for the environment.

    As Jo has said “It is a PR stunt, a Circus…”. I cannot imagine anything more unsatisfactory than 22,000 delegates meeting to discuss something so important and yet coming away with nothing of substance or legally binding.
    There are a lot of unhappy “green activists” out there… 😮

    contuining on with the real battle..
    Roll on 2016 U.S. elections 😀

    In Iowa Ted Cruz is now 10 points ahead of Trump and as everyone knows, Iowa is one of those very important States for the Presidential race.

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    richard

    Nothing will change.

    the world is about to go through the biggest expansion of fossil fuels.

    IN the US 12000 miles of oil pipeline has been laid in 5 years, the equivalent of 10 Keystone pipelines .

    The U.S. midstream infrastructure is responding to a near-doubling of U.S. production over the past six years. The U.S. saw an 11.6 per cent increase in crude oil transport via pipelines in 2014, according to AOPL data.

    Canadian crude oil exports to the U.S. soared to 3.4 million barrels per day in August – a new record.

    Armed with shipping commitments despite low crude prices, key pipeline operators are proceeding with many projects to alleviate the bottlenecks, which could add as much as 8.7 million barrels per day by 2018.

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    AndyG55

    Roy Spencer gives a nice “round-up” of the climate conference.

    http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/12/paris-pow-wow-heap-good/#comments

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    Roy Hogue

    James Hansen, though called Paris talks ‘a fraud’

    Funny, the thing is his baby from the beginning but he can’t control it either.

    Hey James, follow the money, not the science, not the CO2 reduction, not anything but the money $$$$$$$$.

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    Egor TheOne

    CON 21 = BSers Bonanza .

    A Grand Conglomeration of Marxists , Totalitarians , Multinational Thieves , and True B’lver Ratbags ……..What a crowd !…..The visionaries of the next century ?

    What a bad joke !

    We really have got problems with these lunatics in charge .

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    […] Paris Text out — a quick discussion — More bureaucrats, more money, but there is an exit. « JoN… […]

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    Rocky

    LSU paleoclimatologist Kristine DeLong contributed to an international research breakthrough that sheds new light on how the tilt of the Earth affects the world’s heaviest rainbelt. DeLong analyzed data from the past 282,000 years that shows, for the first time, a connection between the Earth’s tilt called obliquity that shifts every 41,000 years, and the movement of a low pressure band of clouds that is the Earth’s largest source of heat and moisture — the Intertropical Convergence Zone, or ITCZ.

    It Wobbles

    and has done forever

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    Bill

    It would be nice to know how many more bureaucrats and how much extra money can be expected from this deal.The ideas might be rubbish but the power of these people has not been reduced one iota. More and more people are on the payroll so there is little chance of any change in the politics.
    Vital more than ever that these people are collared for fraud in the courts.There is no stopping them otherwise.

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    ScotsmaninUtah

    COP21 – Nouvelle cuisine by any other name

    So after all the fanfare from CNN the BBC and ABC, COP21 finished up and all the delegates went home.

    But like the “golf ball” sized meal one often sees when eating at expensive nouvelle cuisine restaurants, there was no substance , no real satisfaction gained, just empty promises and pledges, and an agreement to meet again in the future for another course of propaganda.

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