Over the next three weeks we will convince you of the absurdity of the meetings to discuss destroying the world’s economy to address allegedly human-caused climate change fraud. To begin, it remains important for our readers to understand the reality behind the pronouncements from the media for the months before and after these pompous, self- important congregations of the deluded.
The 26th Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 26) concluded in Glasgow, Scotland on November 12 2021. The conclusion was accompanied by a virtual avalanche of announcements and claims by the United Nations, various other international organizations and environmentalist groups about how much “progress” had been made. It is important to have a more accurate assessment of exactly what was agreed by whom and what was merely part of an extremely elaborate political and bureaucratic dance which is the history of this Theater of The Absurd.
The Theater of the Absurd is a term first coined by critic Martin Esslin in a 1960 essay but drawn from a 1942 essay by the prominent philosopher writer Albert Camus. Camus described the human situation as meaningless and absurd comparing it to the “Myth of Sisyphus” who perpetually rolled a stone up a hill only to have it roll back down again.
The term Theater of The Absurd is commonly now used to describe plays where human existence lacks meaning and purpose and communication breaks down. The structure of these plays is usually repetitive if not redundant, with the final premise being the same as that expressed at the beginning, so nothing is ever accomplished . Sound familiar? It is indeed an accurate description of UN climate meetings held between 1992 and 2021.
Observers of past climate conferences recognize them to be multilateral negotiations producing agreements with apparent legal impact. That was the case with the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, but it became less so with the passage of time until COP15 was held in Paris in 2015. Then, the world took notice as hundreds of countries appeared to achieve an actual agreement on a few planned undertakings.
The undertakings were fairly modest. Countries agreed to submit plans every five years as to how and to what extent they would voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. They agreed to submit progress reports to the United Nations secretariat. A sub-group of the wealthier countries (referred to as “Annex II countries) recommitted in principle to provide financing of no less than $100 billion per year to help the less developed countries increase climate mitigation and adaptation measures. Incredibly there were no details as to how much each country would pay or how much each country would receive.
The first question to answer about the outcome of COP 26, therefore, is which new legally-binding commitments did the member countries make. The answer is none. They agreed to “revisit” their plans to reduce GHG emissions as necessary, by the end of 2022 and to put the world more “on track” to meet the goal of avoiding more than 1.5 degrees C. in average warming by 2100. With such modest achievements, how can anyone who is wasting time following these meetings take them seriously?
Within this fantasy, the Annex II countries agreed to double the collective share of adaptation finance in the mythical $100 billion annual funding target, and to reach that target level of annual funding “as soon as possible”. They might as well be playing a game of Monopoly with play money and play housing projects. Keep in mind that 25,000 bureaucrats on 400 private jets came to play this Board game, and expect a check for real money will one day come in the mail (or maybe they are all in on the Monopoly game).
In spite of all this silliness the conference leadership, ostentatiously but inaccurately titled a closing document the “Glasgow Climate Pact”. The Pact included a series of statements about the need for and urgency of reducing GHG emissions. They are all apparently intent on producing more Theater of The Absurd Plays with elaborate bureaucratic processes initiated to continue meeting at other plush resorts as often as possible. As ridiculous as one should realize it all to be , they manage to engage the news media in telling the public there was something real there.
As an international treaty-making occasion, COP 26 was a non-event. However, that does not mean that it was without significance. That significance lay in the opportunity that it presented for the large multilateral UN process to set in motion new series of meetings and discussions on a wide range of climate-related topics. They made various announcements and political commitments for sub-groups to pursue. Before cataloguing those things in future articles, however, we should “revisit” (to use a UN word) what this was all supposed to be about.
The UN’s incessantly repeated goal is to reduce global GHG emissions by significant amounts, specifically by 45 % below 2010 levels by 2030, and to achieve “net zero” emissions around midcentury. As acknowledged in the Pact however, on the basis of the plans submitted by countries to date, global GHG emissions will not decrease but instead will increase by 13.7% above the 2010 level by 2030. In other words, the actual energy consumption choices made by the people of the world are proceeding in the opposite direction to that politically endorsed by the UN and its members. If this is not an Alice and Wonderland scenario where Up is down and Down is up, how else would you describe it?
Coincidentally, the Pact included no references to the extraordinarily rapid rises occurring in global consumption of oil, natural gas and coal, to the higher energy costs facing consumers, or to the danger of fuel shortages facing many of the people living in the UN member states. The UN’s focus is on the GHG emissions reduction target, not on the world population’s wants and needs. It is amazing that 25,000 attendees in Scotland could all simultaneously have a role in this fantasy but that appears to be the case.
Click on to CFACT next week when we will add to your knowledge of the Theater of The Absurd being played out before you by the world’s Marxist hoping to pick up where Marx Lenin and Stalin left off in their efforts to enslave the world.