Frozen Globalism: The Global Warming Fiasco in Paris
The ghost of Jean Monnet was in the background in Paris. It is now exorcised. Globalism's biggest PR stunt ended with a whimper.
The global warmers have long bet the farm on getting this agreement. They rolled the dice. Snake eyes!
Let's start with the grand guru of global warming, James Hansen. Here is his assessment.
A leading climate scientist has denounced the Paris climate change agreement as a "fraud" - saying there is "no action, just promises".Professor James Hansen - credited as being the "father of climate change awareness" - told the Guardian the talks that culminated in a deal on Saturday were just "worthless words".
Speaking as the final draft of the deal was published on Saturday afternoon, he said: "It's just b******t 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."
What did the agreement amount to? A PR stunt. John Kerry pulled the plug.
LE BOURGET, France -- After years of preparation and two weeks of tireless negotiations, after all the speeches and backroom compromising, one misplaced word brought the momentum toward a historic global deal on climate change to a halt Saturday -- for at least a few hours.Obama administration lawyers discovered early in the day that the latest draft text had a potentially deal-killing tweak: Deep into the document, in Article 4, was a line declaring that wealthier countries "shall" set economy-wide targets for cutting their greenhouse gas pollution.
That may not sound like such a headache-inducing roadblock, but in the world of international climate negotiations, every word counts. In previous drafts, the word "shall" had been "should" -- and in the lingo of U.N. climate agreements, "shall" implies legal obligation and "should" does not. That means the word change could have obliged the Obama administration to submit the final deal to the Senate for its approval. And inevitably, the GOP-led chamber would kill it on sight.
"When I looked at that, I said, 'We cannot do this and we will not do this,'" Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters afterward. "'And either it changes or President Obama and the United States will not be able to support this agreement.'"
And so the scrambling began. With the clock ticking and the start of the talks' final meeting already delayed by several hours, top U.S. negotiators huddled in a cavernous plenary hall in this suburb of Paris trying to get the language changed. At the same time, supporters of the deal feared that re-opening the text would lead to a flood of revisions from other countries, possibly swamping the entire effort.
In the end, the U.S. persuaded the summit's French hosts to change the wording, and the tweak was read aloud by a delegate in the plenary hall, lost in a package of other technical revisions. Minutes later, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius banged his gavel and the most significant international climate change deal in history won the resounding approval of 196 governments, representing nearly every country on the planet.
Having pulled the teeth of the agreement, Kerry then made the rounds of the Sunday morning TV news shows, beloved by liberals, but no one else. Here is what he said on the ABC show:
". . . I understand the criticisms of the agreement because it doesn't have a mandatory scheme and it doesn't have a compliance enforcement mechanism. That's true.But we have 186 countries, for the first time in history, all submitting independent plans that they have laid down, which are real, for reducing emissions.
And what it does, in my judgment, more than anything else, there is a uniform standard of transparency. And therefore, we will know what everybody is doing.
The result will be a very clear signal to the marketplace of the world that people are moving into low carbon, no carbon, alternative renewable energy. And I think it's going to create millions of jobs, enormous new investment in R&D, and that R&D is going to produce the solutions, not government.
It will do nothing of the kind. The promised money will never be spent. If there is transparency -- doubtful -- it will reveal this for all to see.
Nothing is binding. If nothing is binding, nothing will happen. In any case, there is no agency that can impose negative sanctions for not adhering to the non-binding agreement.
Then what is the big deal? This: there is no deal.
What are these dreamers proposing? That rich nations' taxpayers spend $16 trillion on clean energy boondoggles. Bloomberg announced this with one of the most preposterous headlines I have ever read: Why $16.5 Trillion to Save the Planet Isn't as Much as You Think.
Making the energy industry safer for the climate may not cost as much as you think, even if the price tag is $16.5 trillion.That's the sum the International Energy Agency estimates it will cost the 187 governments to clean up pollution under the pledges made for the United Nations climate talks in Paris, which concluded on Saturday. In all, governments will spend $13.5 trillion meeting their goals. If they spent $3 trillion more, it would hold temperature increases to the ceiling they adopted of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
It's an eye-popping figure. Yet the world is already set to invest about $68 trillion on its energy needs by 2040, even without a climate plan, the IEA projects. That will go for everything from renewable energy to coal-fired plants and building efficiency upgrades. The Paris deal is intended to fundamentally tilt the spending toward the greener side of the business.
Does anyone in his right mind think that Congress will allocate this kind of money to help third-world nations fight global warming?
Western nations are all running massive deficits. The politicians have to find the money to pay for government-funded medicine and retirement programs. That's what voters want. They don't care about global warming.
Here is the kicker. The New York Times reports this with a straight face: this agreement is necessary to save the world from near-extinction. Paris agreement is earth-shaking:
LE BOURGET, France -- With the sudden bang of a gavel Saturday night, representatives of 195 nations reached a landmark accord that will, for the first time, commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change.The deal, which was met with an eruption of cheers and ovations from thousands of delegates gathered from around the world, represents a historic breakthrough on an issue that has foiled decades of international efforts to address climate change.
Traditionally, such pacts have required developed economies like the United States to take action to lower greenhouse gas emissions, but they have exempted developing countries like China and India from such obligations.
The accord, which United Nations diplomats have been working toward for nine years, changes that dynamic by requiring action in some form from every country, rich or poor.
"This is truly a historic moment," the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said in an interview. "For the first time, we have a truly universal agreement on climate change, one of the most crucial problems on earth."
President Obama, who regards tackling climate change as a central element of his legacy, spoke of the deal in a televised address from the White House. "This agreement sends a powerful signal that the world is fully committed to a low-carbon future," he said. "We've shown that the world has both the will and the ability to take on this challenge."
Scientists and leaders said the talks here represented the world's last, best hope of striking a deal that would begin to avert the most devastating effects of a warming planet.
Mr. Ban said there was "no Plan B" if the deal fell apart. The Eiffel Tower was illuminated with that phrase Friday night.
No plan B. I see.
So, when this agreement is not funded or enforced, what will happen? Nothing.
What will the Senate do in 2016? Nothing. It will not have to. Obama will not submit this agreement to a vote. The White House says it will be implemented by executive order.
That is unlikely. The Congress must fund everything. Will it fund this? Mitch McConnell issued this statement:
The President is making promises he can't keep, writing checks he can't cash, and stepping over the middle class to take credit for an 'agreement' that is subject to being shredded in 13 months. His commitments to help leaders abroad are based on proposals at home that would hurt jobs and raise utility rates for American families.
Why 13 months? That is when a new President will be sworn into office.
It is all hype. That is all it has been since the Kyoto Protocols in 1992. Nothing is binding. Nothing ever changes. Temperatures have been flat for 17 years.
The international Left has bet the farm on this aging nag. The Left has used messianic language. This agreement will save the world. From what? Temperatures are flat.
When a movement says that its program is needed to save the world, yet nothing happens when the program is not implemented, what does the movement have as its Plan B? Nothing.
This is the biggest claim of globalism today: the world is heading for total disaster. But it clearly isn't.
This agreement is a dead letter. Governments will not breathe life into it by spending $16 trillion. It will buy no votes in election years.
The globalists are out of gas. This was their biggest deal. It will prove to be their last hurrah.
They have no agreement to enforce. Nothing will change. The world will not end.
The supposed threat is a fraud. Plan A is a fraud. There is no Plan B.
How will they generate any interest from now on? If the solution is not a solution, why will the globalists get any traction from another meeting? This is being heralded as a landmark. Why will there ever have to be another landmark?
This is seen as the solution to a problem. But there is no problem. And there is no Plan B.
They have shot their wad.