“What President Trump really did was declare an end to the war on affordable energy for Americans and signal that the world’s greatest republic was no longer going to going to stoop to extra-constitutional means to join governments around the world in seeking new ways to tax their citizens.”
Loss and damage is diplomatic code for the idea that the developed countries, especially America, should pay the developing countries for the bad things that they attribute to climate change. This includes pretty much all bad weather, plus the supposed effects of sea level rise, and who knows what else.
The question is what, if anything, will Pompeo do about the Bonn semi-summit? So far the answer is nothing. The US negotiating team is still basically unchanged from the Obama era. It is led by Obama appointee Trigg Talley.
A major new study says that the cost to meet the UN Paris Agreement’s target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C is a whopping three times the cost to limit it to 2 degrees. That is a huge cost for a very small difference.
The international climate machine is about to achieve a new degree of alarmist absurdity, basically speeding up as they hit the wall. It is all about the Paris Climate Agreement targets and it is kind of fun to watch.
Major changes in UN structure take a long time but they have to start somewhere. At last week’s UN climate summit the Ukraine floated a truly radical proposal. It amounts to making parties other than countries official members of the climate club. The parties in question include corporations and political entities like US states and cities, perhaps even NGOs like Greenpeace. The goal is the get as many heavyweights onto the official green team as possible.
As usual with the green press, it is more a matter of weaving together a series of half truths, omissions and advocacy, than of outright lies.
The Greens are giving great thanks for how cooperative the Trump team of negotiators was at the Bonn climate conference. In reality there was no Trump negotiating team.
COP 23, the UN climate conference in Bonn, Germany, ended with a coal-powered whimper. Poor countries sought cash, China sought opaque emissions reporting and Polish coal miners host the next one.
The Climate Home news service puts it this way: “Climate talks in Bonn have been held hostage for more than a week over the issue, as poor countries called for a space to hold the rich to account on their promises.”
CFACT jumped in a complimentary electric car at the UN climate conference to move between the official negotiating zone and the NGO zone. Our driver told us he hates the electric car,because its limited range makes it next to useless for a professional taxi driver.
In UN-speak it is called simply “loss and damage.” This is the unfounded idea that people adversely affected by bad weather are “climate victims” and as such they should be compensated by the developed countries that supposedly caused the weather to be bad.
Global warming campaigners are spoiled. When they get together for a UN conference they don’t expect to be challenged. The last thing they expected was CFACT!
In Bonn, official America is reasserting American interests in a low key, but honest way. That’s an improvement over what we had under Obama and an example the world should follow.
Most of the climate-compliant press is dedicated to hiding the climate finance issue, because Americans would object if they knew about it.
The Trump Administrations daring decision to promote fossil fuels (including clean coal) at the Bonn climate summit may be paying off in unexpected ways.
Andrew Rakestraw is co-facilitator of the Transparency Framework, along with Xiang Gao from China. Transparency here means who is giving what money to whom under the so-called “financial mechanisms” of the Paris Agreement.
The Paris Pact COPs are all about money, not climate.
Conference-goers are united in their conviction that the UN imposes massive economic and political costs upon developed nations that cannot be justified by the benefits, of which there may be none, flowing from the pact.
The 2-day, science intensive Climate and Energy Conference sponsored by CFACT and EIKE stands in wonderful contrast to the glib, quick hit side events that surround the Bonn UN conference.