German ‘Die Zeit’ Describes COP21 Climate Of Discord, Watered-Down Drafts…”Almost Every Country Has Objections Against Draft Treaty”

Before COP21 assembled in Paris last month, there was a sense of optimism that a new climate treaty to replace the long-expired 1997 Kyoto Protocol for reducing “greenhouse gas” emissions would be hammered out.

But now that COP 21 is approaching its scheduled end, we are finding out from the media that representatives are a long way from any effective CO2 reduction agreement. No one believes the COP21 summit is going to end tomorrow – rather expect it to drag out possibly into early next week, or even beyond. After all, when it’s about “saving the planet”, there’s no going home early.

The online German center-left DIE ZEIT here today describes a climate of growing chaos and diminishing order: “Almost every country has expressed reservations against the draft treaty at the climate summit.”

Among other countries DIE ZEIT blames Saudi Arabia, which threatens “to pull their support for the core goals of the treaty“, and India and Malaysia which are holding out for “greater commitments from rich countries“. According to DIE ZEIT there is neither agreement on financing for the poorest countries nor agreement on a limit in how much more the world should be permitted to warm.  DIE ZEIT writes:

The Saudi Arabian representatives have indicated that they do not want to accept any long-term target of limiting the warming to a maximum of 1.5°C.”

Another sticking point brought up by DIE ZEIT is the issue of whether to stop the burning of coal completely, or to just reduce it. On this point agreement seems unlikely given the number of coal-fired power plants now under construction and the hundreds more in planning. Developing countries may express their intention to some day stop coal in a new treaty, but they will certainly push the task off to future generations. It’s hard to imagine a number of struggling countries agreeing to forego the use of cheap and plentiful coal.

According to DIE ZEIT, environmental groups observing the negotiations and examining the latest draft are saying that the text in the treaty would lead “only to a weak reduction in greenhouse gases”.

So what is shaping up? Overall expect to see a treaty that will be very painful for rich industrial countries ($100bn per annum), but one that will be completely toothless against rising global CO2 emissions.

 

23 responses to “German ‘Die Zeit’ Describes COP21 Climate Of Discord, Watered-Down Drafts…”Almost Every Country Has Objections Against Draft Treaty””

  1. DirkH

    While we’re at it, why stop at coal. Wood is perfectly sequestered
    carbon. Nature does the sequestering for us. All we have to do is harvest the wood and prevent it from being eaten by mould; i.e. spray it with enough fungicides, and stack it in warehouses.

    By outlawing the use of wood of which we consume 2 cubic kilometers a year we can sequester a gazillion tons of carbon. Harvesting and moving the trunks to the government wood storage facilities for a better future will create millions of jobs especially if done manually.

  2. sod

    Here is the latest draft paper, read for yourself:

    http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/da01.pdf

    The 1.5°C target is next to impossible to reach. It is rather promising, that this is even discussed.

    1. Graeme No.3

      OMG. I agree with sod, although for much different reasons.

      “The 1.5°C target is next to impossible to reach.”

      Quite true, if the “earth” (or that portion actually measured by the alarmist temperature charts) continues to warm at the the same rate as the last 20 years (0.12℃ per decade) then the “earth” will only warm by 1℃.
      If you should be one of those eccentric enough, or perhaps having learned by experience in the real world, to doubt the value of linear projection in a multi-variate chaotic system then you might place some value on the observation that the sun is cooling. That it has done so 5 times in the last 1,000 years (as measured by the Be10 values) and that this was accompanied by such minor evidence as historical accounts of extreme cold, rivers and coastal seas freezing, failure of crops & mass starvation, advance of glaciers, desertion of up-land villages etc.) might just indicate that 1.5℃ is a very optimistic hope for 2100AD.

    2. AndyG55

      “The 1.5°C target is next to impossible to reach.”

      Darn it.. 🙁

      An extra 1.5°C would be totally beneficial…..

      Would take us back a small amount to the abundance of the Holocene optimum.

  3. Bjorn Ramstad

    “..nor agreement on a limit in how much more the world should be permitted to warm. DIE ZEIT writes: –
    Impressing.
    So “Mother Nature” is out. Right??

  4. Gerard

    How is it possible to limit temperature increase to 1.5 or 2 degrees when natural cycles have taken it higher in the past? They are delusional!

    1. DirkH

      Thruogh the magic of Gavin Schmidt.

    2. GP Alexander

      Astonishing isn’t it? We get these discussions all the time on our local thetyee.ca rag and the Warming Cultists on there pontificate to great lengths on all the micromanaging that government can do to keep the (allegedly man-made) temperature increase within a 1.5 to 2.0 deg C bracket.

      It is almost laughable to watch the choir sing to each other with such affected erudition and deep understanding of the complexities, with a fair measure of righteousness and moral superiority thrown in. It would be like Oppenheimer telling me everything I did not know about atomic processes like he does (did).

      Meanwhile, the so-called scientist that produce the micro-managing schemes that these Cultist are so much a fan of, are the same ones who have been making total-failure predictions for the past 30 years. I point out this observation to the folks there but am met with the usual amount of (laughable) derision.

      Unlike their models, their responses are 100% predictable, right down to whatever epithet or name-call each cultist commentator will use.

  5. Ric Werme

    Oh good, the Saudis had a lot of influence in Copenhagen too. Nice to they’re standing up to things again.

    What gives with this 1.5°C thing? Have people realized that Karl et al trashing of the the pause has left them with a low enough rate of temperature rise that it will take a lifetime to reach the magic 2C° mark?

    1. DirkH

      As the government cooks the temperature books via GISS et al, they will achieve, or miss, any target they set themselves as they desire.
      When inventing a hoax to drive the masses into a panic, it is important to control the development of the scare. (like, for instance, with nuclear war, or nuclear winter, or swine flu)

  6. DirkH

    Power-hungry warmunists stage cangaroo Gaia court for COP21, find developed nations guilty of crimes against Gaia, verdict is total submission under their every whim.
    http://www.alternet.org/environment/cop21-international-rights-nature-tribunal-finds-corporations-governments-guilty-crimes
    Don’t you just love these useless spoiled brats with their adolescent power trip.

  7. DirkH

    Warmunists are crying (their words!) because ICEBERGS ARE MELTING. Record sounds of it, put them on website, want leftist Musicians to use sounds in music.
    http://www.icebergsongs.com/

    The horrors. Global Warming is so bad now that ICEBERGS ARE MELTING.

    Hey warmunists. Stop it with the Vegan diet, your brains are dying.

  8. Frederick Colbourne

    “…treaty that will be very painful for rich industrial countries ($100bn per annum).”

    This is just pie in the sky.

    It will never happen because too many legislators in too many developed countries know that much, if not most, of such funds will simply disappear and then reappear as Olympic-size swimming pools and regulation tennis courts on the estates of ministers and senior civil servants of the receiving countries.

  9. John F. Hultquist

    Insofar as the USA is concerned this will not be a treaty. Obama may declare an agreement or some fancier name, but soon he won’t be able to do much more than pardon folks in federal prisons. The agreement will have negligible impact on emissions and none on climate.
    As for that $100bn per annum, those countries demanding to be paid an indulgence might just as well demand payment in pink and yellow Unicorns.

  10. finzi

    The smart money knew going in that COP21 was a hopeless endeavor— the world is a better place for this. The idea that newly emerging major economies in China, India, Malaysia would allow surrender national sovereignty to a gaggle of fanatic Green Malthusians typified by the Prince of Wales was fatuous in the extreme.

    As far as $100 B/ yr reparations/ ransom… COP21 can commit to $100 centillions a year… no matter..very few legislatures will allocate such funding, starting with the US Congress…

  11. Edward.

    I really do hope that, it [Paris COP21] all ends in a fiasco of argument and accusation, and enmity – YES a real hostility.

    This, UN inspired farce has gone on for far too bloody long.

    All it has ever been is lies based on cr*p science, the converted [green blob] yakking on to the converted [the other half of the green blob]….. It is and has been, merely, the excuse for a lot of greenwash civil servants and ill educated pen pushers to meet up somewhere hot, hot, hot……… in always some exotic location to spend time with themselves in a luxury hotel all exes paid, limousines and whores on tap.

    The emoting, anguished banshee south sea island lunatics with their annual howling at the moon competition – UN COP process needs to be finished off, put in a coffin and buried deep. Maybe then, the clouds will disappear and the Sun can start shining again; because the death of the man made global warming myth – will bring about and be for the benefit of all mankind.

  12. DennisA

    http://www.ticotimes.net/2015/12/08/mexico-to-spend-23-billion-to-cut-greenhouse-gases

    Mexico’s government announced $23 billion in investments on Tuesday to modernize its refineries while sharply slashing greenhouse gas emissions produced by oil-processing facilities and gasoline.

    While world governments held climate talks in Paris, President Enrique Peña Nieto unveiled $3 billion plans to cut sulfur content in gasoline produced at six refineries of state-run firm Pemex, reducing emissions by 90 percent. The project is to be completed in early 2016.

    Another $3 billion will be spent at three refineries and a gas processing plant so that they can produce their own electricity, cutting 3,000 tons of greenhouse gases per megawatts generated each year.

    “They are green investments, which will take care of the environment and care for the health of Mexicans,” Peña Nieto said in a speech in Tula. “We will have cleaner gasoline, with less sulfur content, which will allow us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contaminate the environment and affect the health of Mexicans,” he said.

    The government will also spend $13 billion to increase Pemex’s capacity to process crude oil and another $3.9 billion to reduce the need to import diesel with low sulfur content.

    Mexico was the first developing country this year to submit targets for the United Nations climate conference, pledging that its greenhouse gas emissions will peak in 2026 before falling.

    The plan envisions greenhouse gases falling 22 percent and black carbon dropping 51 percent by 2030.

    So reducing sulphur in fuel will reduce greenhouse emissions, crude oil processing will increase, they will produce more diesel at home and their emissions will keep rising to a peak by 2026 and it comes with a headline: Mexico to spend $23 billion to cut greenhouse gases.

    Right……….

    They certainly don’t intend to “leave it in the ground”:
    http://www.ticotimes.net/2014/08/11/mexico-opens-new-era-as-pena-nieto-signs-energy-legislation

    Peña Nieto signed legislation Monday that completes steps to end the monopoly on energy production held by state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos since 1938.

    Pemex in March asked to retain fields that hold Mexico’s 13.44 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.

    “The energy reform opens a great opportunity for Mexico, and we need to seize it with complete and fast implementation,” Peña Nieto said in a speech Monday at the National Palace in Mexico City. “I’ve told different areas of the government to accelerate all of the measures necessary to put this reform into action for the good of Mexico.”

    The legislation, which gained final approval from Congress last week, guides the implementation of last year’s constitutional changes opening the energy industry to private investment. It’s designed to reverse nine years of declining oil output and boost economic growth that missed analysts’ forecasts in seven of the past eight quarters.

    The entrance of foreign producers such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron will bring $50 billion of annual private investment by 2020, Gabriel Casillas, chief economist at Grupo Financiero Banorte, said in a July 16 research note.

    And then there’s coal: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/01/201313144952293200.html

    Mexican drug gangs dig into mining industry

    The Zetas cartel, one of Mexico’s most violent groups, has moved into coal mining as it’s “more lucrative than drugs”.

    The State of Coahuila presents a tempting target for any organised crime group looking to diversify from drug smuggling, kidnapping and extortion. It produces 95 percent of Mexico’s coal, churning out 15 million tons a year.

    1. sod

      Mexico city has made a huge number of pledges and is actually improving the situation by a lot.

      http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/nov/12/cities-must-take-lead-role-in-tackling-climate-change-says-mexico-city-mayor

      Do not be all negative. Look at the facts. The world is changing.

      1. DirkH

        We are not negative – we expect warmunism to totally collapse as the global warfare switches to more serious means. And the little warmunists like you will suddenly realize that they had been hoodwinked all their lifes and that there are indeed real problems – like, your city burning.

    2. John F. Hultquist

      DennisA @ 11:38
      Here is a bit on the problems with Mexico City’s air:
      Geography conspires with human activity to produce a poisonous scenario. Located in the crater of an extinct volcano, Mexico City is about 2,240 metres above sea level. The lower atmospheric oxygen levels at this altitude cause incomplete fuel combustion in engines and higher emissions of carbon monoxide and other compounds. Intense sunlight turns these into higher than normal smog levels. In turn, the smog prevents the sun from heating the atmosphere enough to penetrate the inversion layer blanketing the city.
      http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Resources/Publications/Pages/ArticleDetails.aspx?PublicationID=740

      idrc = [Canada] International Development Research Centre

  13. Mindert Eiting

    Should we pay centillions a year for a fake-treatment of the fake-complaints of a group of climate hypochondriacs? How much we pay, it will not help. Here is a suggestion for a cheaper solution:
    http://btci.edina.clockss.org/cgi/reprint/3/3/353.pdf

  14. Loodt Pretorius

    Hi Pierre, it is so sad that all these good intentions and hard work is going to be waste. Wait a minute. I said good intentions yet I keep on hearing the mantra ‘legally binding’, so there are a whip and cat o’nine tails buried in the back of the minds of some of memorandum draftees.

    Now, an honest question. What does legally binding mean? Is that Merkel or the president behind bars with Mugabe acting as jailer? Who will enforce the payment of the fine? The Argentinian air force backed by the Ukrainian army? Or is there a role for the Swiss admirals? I would like to know who is going to enforce this law.

    1. DirkH

      Will be arbitrarily enforced by your friendly Coalition Of The Willing, led by the usual hegemon. Using carbon neutral organic explosives and biofuel.

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