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The Forum > Article Comments > Assessing Copenhagen: one step forward, not two steps back > Comments

Assessing Copenhagen: one step forward, not two steps back : Comments

By Stephen McGrail, published 8/1/2010

Should the inability of political leaders at Copenhagen to reach a legally-binding agreement mean it was a failure?

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What a puffy piece of spin and advertising for the author's organisation (how perceptive they were in hindsight) aren't these usually called infomercials?

More snake oil salesmen selling to the gullible eco types.

BTW - the statement, "119 world leaders seriously discussing a truly global response" a bit strong, when in fact there was a cartel of 77 countries there with their hands out for a cash handout, and nothing more. That Tuvalu has hired an eco front man to do their begging for them. Do they care at all beyond getting some moolah?

I'm encouraged to see it all ended the way it did, gives more people time to wake up to the facts of this massive money redistribution attempt.

I loved the standing ovation Chauvez got, that really opened a lot of eyes int he West didn't it - you don't mention it all all, but that made it pretty clear that the people there all were in on the big redistribution under a world government, UN led of course.

I would suggest that will make it much harder to get people on side now and in fact will give rise to more skepticism, in the so called "science" of climatology, with all its very special tweaks and unique peer review system, as well as skepticism in the goals of the whole UN led effort - is it to mitigate supposed man contributed global warming or is it in fact world socialism?
Posted by Amicus, Friday, 8 January 2010 8:40:54 AM
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"Futureye" is, apparently, blind to the implications of fossil fuel limitations on the IPCC's climate change scenarios. The entire Copenhagen process is irrelevant since it seeks to maintain growth (by carbon emission-free means) in the finite world system that is already beyond its ecological limits. Even in the almost impossibly unlikely scenario that the Copenhagen meeting (or future meetings) could come up with radical, enforceable emissions reductions it would ultimately be meaningless. Read this to see why:

"Economics and Limits to Growth: What's Sustainable?"
by Dennis Meadows
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/51127

(Cheryl - have you read the Meadows article? What did you think?)
Posted by michael_in_adelaide, Friday, 8 January 2010 8:58:03 AM
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So environmentalists are disappointed.. too bad, get used to disappointment.

The Environmental movement was infiltrated and infected by the politics of left wing years ago and has been quietly directed by them ever since.

Just because someone feels “passionately” about something does not make them right or good. It merely feeds their obsessive compulsion –

as we see with extremist loonies who try and attack Japanese whaling fleets and get hurt in the process and
with political activists, who destroy other peoples property by exercising their “expectation” for anarchistic behaviour at international summits.

The failure of Copenhagen, to inflict legally binding constraints upon previously sovereign nations, is a victory for those who believe in the sovereignty and relevance of individuals over the rabid demands of those who feel a stupid desire for strong government, everywhere.

The failure of Copenhagen is a failure for the (dead hand) forces of "collectivism" (by any name) and a success for sanity.

No good has ever come from the grand aspirations of collectivists and no good will ever come.
Posted by Col Rouge, Friday, 8 January 2010 10:01:10 AM
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No, I don’t accept the spin put on the value and outcomes of Copenhagen. Sure, it resulted in “engagement” of the major emitters – China, USA, India, Japan and Russia – who committed themselves irrevocably to precisely nothing. True, China, the USA and a few other countries agreed that they would take action to limit global warming to no more than 2C increase over pre-industrial temps by 2100 but what does that mean?

Wouldn’t you think, at the very least, that it must involve a commitment by those countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions? Not a bit of it. Indeed China and India worked together to undermine any such outcome. China, the worlds leading polluter went further by announcing its intention of continuing to increase its emissions – though more slowly than in recent years. And the USA? A grudging decision to do about the same as Australia with its unrealistic, miserable offer to reduce emissions by about 5%.

Just how does Stephen McGrail reconcile these failures with achieving the limit of 2C on global warming? How can his company (Futureye) or Flannery or de Boer bridge the gap between what climate scientists tell us needs to be done to limit global temperature increase – ensuring that emissions peak by 2015 – and the absence of any expressed intention by any of the major emitters to achieve this?

Copenhagen was not a failure but sure as hell, it aint no success. No one seriously expected the 20 major emitters who are responsible for over 80% of greenhouse gas emissions to put up their hands and commit to a reduction target. But they did expect a solid framework to be agreed on for the negotiation of those reductions at a specified future date. Has Copenhagen given us that? A lot of good work has been done leading up to and during that meeting and it is the task of Ivo de Boer and others to build on that.

Two steps forward and two steps back maybe. In other words, we haven’t got far but we have made a start.
Posted by JonJay, Friday, 8 January 2010 1:22:06 PM
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Perhaps half a step forward.

There was never a chance of a binding legal agreement between the 143 nations present being negotiated this time around. The required result was to achieve a sense of accord at the end of the process, with some goodwill to carry the process further. Copenhagen almost got there.
In the end, the result was not quite enough to build the required momentum for anything to come out of even the next round of negotiations. I guess Mr Flannery's view is that the whole process could have been completely shut down. At least the door is still open, and there is a process ongoing. The rate of progress is not ideal, but there was a real chance of regression, and some progress is better than none at all.
Posted by lilsam, Friday, 8 January 2010 3:50:17 PM
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Coldest winters in the Northern hemisphere in 30 yrs and it's far from over. "You have to hide the decline." "We cannot account for the fall in temps and it is a travesty."
Posted by Arjay, Friday, 8 January 2010 10:21:55 PM
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Arjay

<< Coldest winters in the Northern hemisphere in 30 yrs and it's far from over. >>

All over the world, Arjay ... regions are experiencing more extreme weather events.

<< "You have to hide the decline" >>

I'm interested, what do you think "hide the decline" means?

<< "We cannot account for the fall in temps and it is a travesty." >>

Arjay, if you are going to quote, using quotation marks, can you please cite your source or where you are 'lifting' the quote from.

You may be referring to that attributed to Kevin Trenberth:

"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't."

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Understanding-Trenberths-travesty.html

Read the link to see the context of:

"Global warming is still happening - our planet is still accumulating heat. But our observation systems aren't able to comprehensively keep track of where all the energy is going. Consequently, we can't definitively explain why surface temperatures have gone down in the last few years. That's a travesty!"
Posted by Q&A, Friday, 8 January 2010 11:03:36 PM
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Q&A

Correct me if I’m wrong but you seem to be calling for intellectual honesty in the debate on global warming (or is it cooling?) by those like Arjay who simply do not believe it is happening. Perlease! You really must understand that they can hardly show either rigor or honesty when they have so little to support their position. But it is nice to see you shoot them down with such elegance.
Posted by JonJay, Saturday, 9 January 2010 6:53:38 AM
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Q&A We cannot explain where the energy has gone? Perhaps it went back out into space. China and India are producing expodential quantities of CO2 yet the temps continue to fall.The science is not settled.That whore,Al Gore, who said that he invented the internet should be charged with fraud and gaoled. http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/
Monckton lists 35 flaws and exaggerations in his movie "Inconvienient Truth"

I've searched on the web for practical experiments with CO2 ie we have a series of enclosed environments with a control being equal to the ambient atmosphere.The CO2 levels are then varied with temps constant.Perhaps you being the expert Q&A could find such and experiment.The computer models are useless,they cannot possibly represent the reality.CO2 according to the AGW exponents is almost 11,500 times better at holding heat than the other gases.

So if we have a million molecules of present atmosphere and add man's 87 molecules of additional CO2 the temps are supposed increase by up to 5%? Since 2000 man has increased CO2 in the atmosphere by 26% [369ppm to 387ppm] This huge increase since 2000 should have increased temps immensely if AGW theory was correct.Through their "trick' they excluded the Medieval warm period by manipulation of data, to make present day temps look higher.

At my request, OLO contacted Christopher Monckton and there should be an article by him this Monday on OLO.

This eventually will be revealed as the biggest scam ever perpetrated on human kind and there needs to be an open independant investigation by all scientists into so called AGW.The IPCC ,Hadley Centre and the UN should be shut down.
Posted by Arjay, Saturday, 9 January 2010 9:19:34 AM
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Arjay assures us we are going to get a real treat on Monday, from no less a person than Chris Monckton. Well you know the saying – There are lies, damn lies and statistics - and then of course there is Lord Monckton!

Monckton’s reputation is for distortion of fact, production of fiction and misrepresentation. The closest he (or for that matter Arjay) would have come to getting his refutation of global warming published in a reputable journal and peer reviewed, would be if he had found a fellow noble to make a flattering comment.

We should of course keep an open mind until we see what OLO has to offer us from the noble Monckton. But not on past form.
Posted by JonJay, Saturday, 9 January 2010 1:33:30 PM
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“Should the inability of political leaders at Copenhagen to reach a legally-binding agreement mean it was a failure?”

Reality says : Oh yea!

Pseudo-reality says; “a significant step forward”. “impressive” and “politically incredibly significant”.

Take you pick really.
Posted by spindoc, Sunday, 10 January 2010 8:38:03 AM
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Q&A I guess what is confusing here is that you are saying the record low temperatures in the UK are to be expected, trivial really to even question it.

But the UK Met office predicted a mild winter, (after a BBQ summer, which was wet), in fact some years ago the CRU predicted white winters would be a thing of the past and a curiosity for children, it would be so rare.

It's lovely to watch your work, given a huge range of predictions of the future, it must be comforting to be always able to find something that fits.

What most of us see though, without the justification goggles on, is alarming contradictions.

Gullible fools always self justify a situation, a bit like watching one of those shows on Nostradamus, to fit what they want to see, such is the supposed science of climate, which is turning out to be more the science of gambling with other people's lives for profit, through twisted statistics.

Mankind has always been trying to predict the future, and today it is no different, that pesky climate though just won't co-operate, and continues to make fools of "climate scientology".

The "shamans" of CRU certainly are trying to get the climate to fit their narrative aren't they, even skewing the peer review process to suit their fiddling with the numbers.

I'll wait for the investigations on the CRU rather that some poster on this forum who is known to be a slippery type, for my information on what's real in all this.
Posted by rpg, Sunday, 10 January 2010 9:13:02 AM
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Copenhagen 'failed' because so many wanted to do more about climate change, not less. One thing that didn't make any serious impact was denying the existence of the problem. When it comes to vested interests in promoting false beliefs, look no further than entrenched fossil fuel interests; their cash flow makes all the world's science funding look like pocket change, but they still can't make a serious impact on the credibility of climate science. Except amongst non-scientist.

Doubters obsess over a single series of proxies being omitted whilst ignoring all the other direct measures as well as proxies, obsess over the "missing" or "hidden" data whilst ignoring the overwhelming weight of evidence in the rest of the data, obsess over some short-term cold weather and ignore long term warming trends, insist a hot spike in a warming trend somehow proves it's cooling and deliberately ignore natural variations like El Nino (in that hot spike) to enhance their argument that it's all natural variation.

The noise level may be rising but the scientific case that shows AGW to be true strengthens with every serious study project, whilst the case for it being false are so weak they can't even get published in serious scientific journals. The PR and political debates may be ongoing but the scientific one over fundamentals of climate change is settled.
Posted by Ken Fabos, Sunday, 10 January 2010 2:50:08 PM
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Ken Fabos ,open your eyes.The carbon energy producers want the taxes and their ponzy scamming derivatives.It will be us the consumer who will pay more for less energy while the producers make even more profits.

Kevin Rudd was willing to sign away our sovereignty to a World Govt run by the banks at Copenhagen and hardly a word of outrage or protest is heard? Are you insane or do you believe that we can save the planet by enslaving the masses?
Posted by Arjay, Sunday, 10 January 2010 9:50:43 PM
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Arjay, from the content of your posts to OLO lately, I don't think that it's Ken Fabos whose sanity is in question.
Posted by CJ Morgan, Sunday, 10 January 2010 10:18:03 PM
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So CJ Morgan since you have entered the fray have the guts to debate.Should Kevin Rudd have signed the Copenhagen agreement that would have ended our sovereignty?

We would have been under the power of a World Govt financed by our carbon taxes and controlled by the international banks.
Posted by Arjay, Monday, 11 January 2010 7:26:43 AM
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