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climate-debate

COP26–The Stage Show

by P. Homewood, Nov 9, 2021 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

Maybe it’s just me, but I get the impression that COP26 is little more than a stage managed exercise in virtue signalling, allowing world leaders and the great and the good to pat themselves on the back and pretend they are saving the planet.

Today’s discussions will mainly focus, believe it or not, on gender issues! Yesterday’s big event was a speech by yesterday’s man, Obama, calling on “young people to remain angry”.

If you think back to Paris and earlier COPs, they were acted out as some sort of drama. Arguments between countries, late night sessions, all miraculously resolved at the 11th hour with an “Agreement” to save the planet.

Maybe the scene for COP26 was set months ago, when it became clear that China, India and the rest of the developing world would not commit to any emission reductions by 2030, or for that matter 2035.

And if any doubts about this lingered, the refusal of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin to turn up soon cleared those up.

To recap, the main purpose of COP26 was to get countries to set new emission targets, as mandated every five years under the Paris Agreement. Given that the pledges made at Paris, the NDCs, or Nationally Determined Contributions, only set targets for 2030, the logic was that this year would see pledges for 2035.

But this has not been the case. Instead some countries have made small adjustments to their 2030 targets, which in overall terms won’t make the blindest of difference:

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See also:  BBC’s COP26 Propaganda

better to know...?, energy and fields

China’s Climate Goals Hinge on a $440 Billion Nuclear Buildout

by D. Murtaugh & K. Chia, Nov 2, 2021 in BloombergGreen

China is planning at least 150 new reactors in the next 15 years, more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35.

Nuclear power once seemed like the world’s best hope for a carbon-neutral future. After decades of cost-overruns, public protests and disasters elsewhere, China has emerged as the world’s last great believer, with plans to generate an eye-popping amount of nuclear energy, quickly and at relatively low cost.

China has over the course of the year revealed the extensive scope of its plans for nuclear, an ambition with new resonance given the global energy crisis and the calls for action coming out of the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow. The world’s biggest emitter, China’s planning at least 150 new reactors in the next 15 years, more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35. The effort could cost as much as $440 billion; as early as the middle of this decade, the country will surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest generator of nuclear power.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Presidents Xi and Putin (and the Hedge Funds!) are laughing at us

by P. Homewood, Nov 8, 2021 in NotaLotofPeople KnowThat

The gap between rhetoric and fact is a perennial feature of politics. But seldom can the chasm between claim and reality have been as wide as that displayed by Alok Sharma at the Cop26 conference in Glasgow. The British president of the latest intergovernmental climate change gathering told the delegates (and the world’s media) that “the end of coal is in sight”, as a result of the agreement he had negotiated.


That was the rhetoric. Now the fact. Not only was the declaration to phase out coal by the 2040s not signed by the world’s top three consumers (China, India and America, which account for more than 70 per cent of the global CO2 emissions from burning the stuff); the pledge itself was neutered by the addition of the get-out “or as soon as possible thereafter”.

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climate-debate

CO2 and Temperature

by A. May, Nov 9, 2021 in WUWT

I had a very interesting online discussion about CO2 and temperature with Tinus Pulles, a retired Dutch environmental scientist. To read the whole discussion, go to the comments at the end of this post. He presented me with a graphic from Dr. Robert Rohde from twitter that you can find here. It is also plotted below, as Figure 1.

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Conclusion

I’m not impressed with Rohde’s display. The coefficient of correlation is decent, but it does not show that warming is controlled by changes in CO2, the temperature reversals are not explained. The reversals strongly suggest that natural forces are playing a significant role in the warming and can reverse the influence of CO2. The plots show that, at most, CO2 explains about 50% of the warming, something else, like solar changes, must be causing the reversals. If they can reverse the CO2-based warming and overwhelm the influence of CO2 they are just as strong.