GWPF | 23 April 2015
India: No Climate Deal Without Western Climate Finance
Contrary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent observation that India was under “no pressure” for climate commitments, a US envoy said on Monday that India is being “closely watched” for its contribution to climate change. US envoy Richard Verma said the country was being “closely watched” for its intended contribution towards the global response to climate change. “I don’t think it’s an understatement to say the world is watching very closely what India will do,” he said. —The Times of India, 20 April 2015
The developed world would have to “walk the talk” on climate change and provide a green climate fund to the developing world, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar has said, ahead of a crucial UN meet on the issue in Paris later this year.
“Prime Minster (Narendra Modi) has put up an ambitious target of generating 175,000 megawatts of renewable energy. That is a huge contribution of India, because it will save 350 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year and would require 150 billion of investment. So the developed world would also have to put their best foot forward,” he said. —Press Trust of India, 20 April 2015
1) Obama Puts Heat On India Over Climate Commitments – The Times of India, 20 April 2015
2) India: No Climate Deal Without Western Climate Finance – Press Trust of India, 20 April 2015
3) Ed Rogers: Obama’s Global Warming Distraction – The Washington Post, 20 April 2015
4) On Earth Day Say A Big ‘Thank You’ To Gaia For Fossil Fuels – Breitbart News, 22 April 2015
5) David Whitehouse: 2015 – Warmest Start Ever? – Global Warming Policy Forum, 21 April 2015
6) 2015 Hurricane Season Could Be The Quietest For 30 Years – The Weather Network, 20 April 2015
7) Nigel Lawson: Debating Climate Change Seen As ‘Blasphemy’ – The Wall Street Journal, 23 April 2015
Ahead of the UN climate talks in Paris later this year, the US today said there is no divide between developed and developing nations on the issue of climate change and emphasised the need to work together to confront challenges of global warming. US Ambassador to India Richard R Verma said: “I think we are moving out and we need to move out of early 1990s world, which was divided into two camps. We are not in two camps anymore.” —The Indian Tribune, 21 April 2015
This is Earth Day’s 45th anniversary and it’s also – according to Earth Day Network’s somewhat optimistic website – “the year in which world leaders finally pass a binding climate treaty” and “the year in which citizens and organizations divest from fossil fuels and put their money into renewable energy solutions.” To which there is only one sensible answer and it consists of three words: Ain’t. Gonna. Happen. There will be no “binding climate treaty” at the UN climate summit in Paris this year because there has been no ‘global warming’ for 220 months. As the Global Warming Policy Forum’s Benny Peiser notes, this “temperature pause” will lead to a “policy pause.” –James Delingpole, Breitbart News, 22 April 2015
Anyone interested in climate change will have noticed the numerous headlines proclaiming March 2015 to be the warmest month ever and the first three months of 2015 to have broken the record for the warmest start to any year on record.
This year has undoubtedly started off warm, but the claim that it is unprecedented and an obvious example of global warming can only be justified by ignoring contradictory evidence, as many journalists and scientists did. –David Whitehouse, Global Warming Policy Forum, 21 April 2015
Preliminary forecasts from universities in the UK and the US all point to the Atlantic having below average storm activity this year, with some forecasts suggesting there could be near-record breaking low activity. These early forecasts suggest tropical storm and hurricane activity will be around half of the long-term average and if they are true, 2015 could be the quietest hurricane season for over 30 years. –Chris Burton, The Weather Network, 20 April 2015
Former U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson tells the Wall Street Journals’s Simon Constable that climate change has become something of a “new religion” to such an extent that debating it is seen as blasphemy. He also sees an international treaty on carbon emissions as a “stupid thing. —The Wall Street Journal, 23 April 2015
1) Obama Puts Heat On India Over Climate Commitments
The Times of India, 20 April 2015
NEW DELHI: Contrary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent observation that India was under “no pressure” for climate commitments, a US envoy said on Monday that India is being “closely watched” for its contribution to climate change.
US envoy Richard Verma said the country was being “closely watched” for its intended contribution towards the global response to climate change.
In January, at a bilateral engagement with US President Barack Obama during his state visit to India, Modi had said that India was under “no pressure” to announce a peak year for cutting its own emission like the US and China.
India is the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Speaking at a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) event here Verma, however, noted that “India’s size, economic growth projections and already significant greenhouse gas emissions means there is tremendous interest around the world” on its proposed contribution to mitigating climate change.
“I don’t think it’s an understatement to say the world is watching very closely what India will do,” he said.
Ahead of the crucial climate change negotiations at Paris 2015 in December, global emitters will submit their “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions” (INDCs).
The INDCs will be the announcement of their commitment to adopt measures for clean energy and produce green house gas emissions.
Dismissing the perception that the world is divided in two camps “the countries with historical responsibility as early industrialisers and the ones that are now embarking on the path of development”, Verma said: “We (India and the US) are not in two camps anymore. We are in the same camp.
“We have to move forward (to address the scourge of climate change) taking into account our national circumstance.”
Impressing on Obama’s interest in being India’s “best partner”, Verma said the US would like to extend cooperation not just in the field of defence and trade but also strengthen understanding in the global response to the “toughest issue on the planet … climate change”. […]
The US envoy to India was speaking at the launch of a global engagement initiated by the US to highlight the economic opportunities associated with climate action.
“Green – the colour of growth: The business case for climate action” kicked off in India at the CII here.
Full story
2) India: No Climate Deal Without Western Climate Finance
Press Trust of India, 20 April 2015
Washington: The developed world would have to “walk the talk” on climate change and provide a green climate fund to the developing world, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar has said, ahead of a crucial UN meet on the issue in Paris later this year.
“Developed world would now have to walk the talk and will have to provide green climate fund to the developing world,” Javadekar said yesterday.
He said India is pro-actively engaging with the world to arrive at a fair and equitable climate agreement in Paris.
Javadekar, who is leading an Indian delegation to the US for a two-day meeting of Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate being hosted here on April 19-20, said India is taking action to mitigate the effects of climate change.
“Prime Minster (Narendra Modi) has put up an ambitious target of generating 175,000 megawatts of renewable energy. That is a huge contribution of India, because it will save 350 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year and would require 150 billion of investment. This is a huge contribution of India, essentially pre-2020,” he said.
“So the developed world would also have to put their best foot forward. This pre-2020 actions would pave the way for more actions from 2020 onwards,” he said.
Javadekar said India is a growing economy but climate change is a cumulative effect of hundreds of years of carbon emission by the developed world.
“So historic responsibility is important,” he said.
Referring to the Kyoto Protocol, the world’s first climate agreement adopted in 1997, Javadekar said “the protocol is getting over. But the basic mandate and the principles of UNFCCC remains.”
“So under the same principles and that was the consensus arrived at Lima, we hope to build upon that theme and the whole world is taking action on its own. It’s a great move forward,” he said.
In Kyoto, some countries were mandated to take action and others were not, but now every country is taking action and that is a great movement forward, Javadekar said.
He said the developed world must understand “the way developing world is ready to take action and actually respect.”
“Because Paris is continuation of Kyoto, not negation of Kyoto and the principle of common and differentiated responsibility, the historic responsibility remains embedded and would ever remain embedded in Paris agreement also,” he said.
3) Ed Rogers: Obama’s Global Warming Distraction
The Washington Post, 20 April 2015
No less than Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, and Dimitri K. Simes, president of the Center for the National Interest, wrote a piece published this week that asks “Could a U.S. response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine provoke a confrontation that leads to a U.S.-Russian war?” And not just any war, but one with “catastrophic consequences.” Russia is a nuclear power “capable of literally erasing the United States from the map.” Anything Graham Allison says has to be taken seriously.
If that’s not enough to worry you, after world economic leaders gathered in Washington last week for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings, even the New York Times wrote that, “concern is rising in many quarters that the United States is retreating from global leadership just when it is needed most.” The chief economic adviser to the government of India called that concern “the single most important issue of these spring meetings.”
That New York Times piece echoed what Larry Summers, former economic adviser to President Obama, wrote earlier this month. In an op-ed in The Post (in which he didn’t mention President Obama), Summers asked if it was time for “A global wake-up call for the U.S.?” Summers implies that our allies are not only ignoring us, but wholesale abandoning the American point of view by siding with China and joining the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). He wrote that America’s “failure of strategy and tactics” in persuading allied countries to eschew the AIIB “should lead to a comprehensive review of the U.S. approach to global economics.”
Here at home, economic growth is anemic and job creation has stalled. In the Obama era, more people are on the dole, business start-ups are at an all-time low as entrepreneurs throw in the towel and the world is in more turmoil and danger than at any time since the end of the Cold War. Doug Holtz-Eakin of the American Action Forum wrote a paper, “The Growth Imperative: How Slow Growth Threatens Our Future and the American Dream,” which was published by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In it, Holtz-Eakin states that, “since 2007, trend growth in per capita income in the United States has been 0.7 percent – only one-third of the postwar average of 2.1 percent prior to 2007.”
We have a lot of problems. So why would our president say global warming is our biggest threat? Probably because it suits his ideology and his management style. The truth is, if you accept at face value everything he says about climate change, there is nothing he can do in the 20 months he has left in office that will appreciably affect the climate. This is especially true given what the president defines as “success.” He champions his agreement with China on cutting carbon pollution, but all it really means is the United States begins to raise energy costs immediately and China agrees to have a meeting in 2030 to discuss what actions they may or may not take.
President Obama is living in a world of denial. He uses global warming as a distraction to dodge the real problems we face and avoid critiques of his performance. If he did face reality, there is a lot he could do to try and juice economic growth. There is also a lot he could do to take the reins and provide American leadership around the world.
4) On Earth Day Say A Big ‘Thank You’ To Gaia For Fossil Fuels
Breitbart News, 22 April 2015
James Delingpole
This is Earth Day’s 45th anniversary and it’s also – according to Earth Day Network’s somewhat optimistic website – “the year in which world leaders finally pass a binding climate treaty” and “the year in which citizens and organizations divest from fossil fuels and put their money into renewable energy solutions.”
To which there is only one sensible answer and it consists of three words:
Ain’t. Gonna. Happen.
There will be no “binding climate treaty” at the UN climate summit in Paris this year because there has been no ‘global warming’ for 220 months.
As the Global Warming Policy Forum’s Benny Peiser notes, this “temperature pause” will lead inevitably to a “policy pause.”
“I think the pause will allow the governments around the world to come to a very toothless agreement that essentially kicks the hard decisions into the long grass.”
Nor are we likely to give up fossil fuels any time soon.
Just look at this chart to see why:
Renewable energy consumption, as a percentage of total energy use, has actually decreased in the US since the 1950s.
As Mark Perry explains in this piece for the AEI:
The chart above illustrates the importance of the Earth’s hydrocarbon energy treasures to the American economy — in the past, today, and in the future. Over almost a one-hundred year period from 1949 to 2040, fossil fuels have provided, and will continue to provide, the vast majority of our energy by far according to Obama’s Department of Energy. Last year, fossil fuels provided more than 83% of America’s energy consumption, which was nearly unchanged from the 85% fossil fuel share twenty years ago in the early 1990s.
Even more than a quarter of a century from now in 2040, the Department of Energy forecasts that fossil fuels will still be the dominant energy source, providing more than 81% of our energy needs. So, despite President Obama’s dismissal of oil and fossil fuels as “energy sources of the past,” the forecasts from his own Department of Energy tell a much different story of a hydrocarbon-based energy future where fossil fuels serve as the dominant energy source to power our vehicles, heat and light our homes, and fuel the US economy.
Happy Earth Day, everyone. And remember to thank Mother Gaia for her amazing bounty: the coal, the oil and the gas which keep our power stations running on all those myriad occasions when the wind isn’t blowing the bat-chomping, bird-slicing eco-crucifixes and when the sun – eg at night – isn’t providing a great deal of solar power.
5) David Whitehouse: 2015 – Warmest Start Ever?
Global Warming Policy Forum, 21 April 2015
Anyone interested in climate change will have noticed the numerous headlines proclaiming March 2015 to be the warmest month ever and the first three months of 2015 to have broken the record for the warmest start to any year on record.
This year has undoubtedly started off warm, but the claim that it is unprecedented and an obvious example of global warming can only be justified by ignoring contradictory evidence, as many journalists and scientists did.
The origin of the story was information released by NOAA saying that March and the first quarter of 2015 were the warmest on record. This is indeed what their database shows, though neither the land nor the ocean individually set any records. The record amounted to 0.05°C above previous values although the error +/- 0.08°C was not mentioned in the initial claims about the record.
Looking at the other temperature databases it is clear that 2015 is warm so far. Nasa Giss, however, does not place March as the warmest month. It places it third warmest, although February was the warmest February in its records. Giss does place the first quarter of 2015 as its warmest. This is due to the warm March as indicated by December-January-February not being the warmest such period on record.
Some commentators are already suggesting that 2015 could be a record-breaking year – presumably a thousandth of a degree would be significant to them as was the case for 2014′s “record”.
In Giss this would mean that the remaining nine months would have to average a temperature anomaly of 63 (warmer than 1988, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008,2009, 2011, 2012 and 2013). 2002 had a warm start similar to this year but after the first three months did not have a single month with an anomaly of 63 or higher. Last year did manage an average of 66 or more in its last nine months, so if 2015 continues like 2014 then a record is possible – by a few thousandths of a degree with error of a tenth of a degree.
Commentators should also have taken a look at the Met Office HadCrut4 dataset. The fact that nobody did was due to a habit of not questioning NOAA’s statement or ignoring inconvenient data.
HadCrut4 shows Jan – March 2015 to be warm but not as warm as Jan – March 2002. Indeed 2002 shows a similar pattern as 2015 in December of the previous year being warm as well.
“Records Just Got Crushed”
The reason for the slightly elevated global temperature is an El Nino event as well as a persistent “blob” of warm water in the North East of the Pacific that has been there for over a year. The warmth is not the result of an overall elevation of global temperatures but short-term natural events, i.e. internal climate variability, as it is often called.
Not a single media outlet that covered this story raised any of the points outlined above, and neither did any of the commentators they called upon to pass judgment. Quartz said the data from “all three” agencies said it was a record year so far; one expert said we are seeing variations against a “baseline of slowly warming temperature almost everywhere.” He is obviously ignoring the 18-year “pause” in global surface temperatures. Bloomberg said, “Global Temperature Records Just Got Crushed Again.”
Michael Mann was interviewed and essentially said … trust me, I am a scientist, it is all going exactly as predicted.
Exactly perhaps, but only if you dismiss the warming “pause”, which is exactly what he does – and in so doing is out of step with the broader scientific community.
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6) 2015 Hurricane Season Could Be The Quietest For 30 Years
The Weather Network, 20 April 2015
Chris Burton
Preliminary forecasts from universities in the UK and the US all point to the Atlantic having below average storm activity this year, with some forecasts suggesting there could be near-record breaking low activity.
North Carolina State University (NCSU) released their early forecast on 13 April, suggesting that between 4-6 names storms are expected to form with only 1-3 of these storms forming into hurricanes.
Meanwhile, Colorado State University (CSU) expects around 7 named storms and 3 hurricanes this year.
These early forecasts suggest tropical storm and hurricane activity will be around half of the long-term average and if they are true, 2015 could be the quietest hurricane season for over 30 years.
In a typical hurricane season, 12 named storms develop, with around 6 of these forming into hurricanes.
Another hurricane forecast from Tropical Storm Risk at University College London, has activity closer to average, although they still expect a quiet season.
The low hurricane activity forecasts this year in the North Atlantic are down to the expected continuation of El Nino conditions in the central Pacific.
The warming of the surface of the central Pacific during an El Nino event has knock-on effects in the atmosphere across the tropical Atlantic, leading to unfavourable conditions for tropical storm development.
Also, sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Atlantic (off the west coast of Africa where many Atlantic hurricanes are born) are cooler than normal, reducing the amount of energy available for storms to develop.
1983 was the least active year in modern times, when only 4 named storms and 3 hurricanes developed in the Atlantic and coincided with a strong El Nino event.
7) Nigel Lawson: Debating Climate Change Seen As ‘Blasphemy’
The Wall Street Journal, 23 April 2015
Former U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson tells the Wall Street Journals’s Simon Constable that climate change has become something of a “new religion” to such an extent that debating it is seen as blasphemy. He also sees an international treaty on carbon emissions as a “stupid thing.
