A Poem For The Paris Climate Talks

Poo Carson says:

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-front for the urge to rule it.”…H.L. Mencken

And so the hypocrisy begins again. Geneva, Kyoto, The Hague, Montreal, Bali, Copenhagen, New York, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Nairobi, Marrakech, Milan, New Delhi, Cancun, Durban, Doha, Lima and Bonn, virtually every lavish destination on earth and now they meet in Paris. This conference will be attended by more than 80 world leaders and 50,000 participants, including some 25,000 official delegates. They will converge outside Paris at Europe’s largest airport reserved only for private jets. The party of canapes, champagne and 5 star accommodation will run for 12 days and generate enough GHGs to power a small country for a year. If these hypocrites actually believed their blather they would stay home and meet by videoconference rather than lustily participating in this garish display of excess and consumption.

They repeat the rhetoric each time. Isn’t repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results the true definition of insanity? Or are they banging their well coifed heads against comfy 5 star walls in anticipation of how good it will feel when they stop? But why stop when the living is so plush and easy?

A peer-reviewed study by Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus Center states clearly that if all countries achieve their Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), the impact, according to IPCC models, will be a reduction in the global temperature by 2100 of 0.05 degrees Celsius, 1/20th of 1 degree!Canada’s contribution would be somewhere in the range of .0001 degrees Celsius.

“Paris is being sold as the summit where we can help ‘heal the planet’ and ‘save the world’. It is no such thing,” said Lomborg.

The 55 page draft text of the alleged Paris agreement is your standard bureaucratic hodge-podge of eco-babble. The pre-meeting in Paris was a group hug and photo op. The biggest fight will not be over carbon and/or temperature targets but over cash transfer targets. The major objective of the heavily subsidized eco-warrior policy makers has always been the orchestration of a massive wealth transfer from rich nations to poor nations.

The UN’s global treaties to reduce GHG emissions have been an abject failure. Between 1990 (the base line year established in Kyoto) and 2011, global emissions increased 42%. The cap-and-trade system in Europe is over-run by fraud and organized crime. Carbon taxes enrich governments and companies but punish tax payers. As much as I like them, only massive subsidies allow wind and solar power to even exist. Economic recessions stand alone in slowing the increase of emissions.

Today, fossil fuels supply over 80% of the world’s energy and they are not running out soon. They are the least expensive and most convenient means of meeting growing energy demand and progress in the under developed world. Currently, all the new technologies such as nuclear fission, carbon sequestration, wind and solar power have drawbacks such as cost, land use and intermittence that hamper their full scale deployment.

The energy-supply infrastructure in the developed world of electric generating plants, transmission lines, refineries and pipelines changes slowly because of large capital costs and long facility lifetimes. Also, different parts of the energy system must work together. Cars, for example, require compatible fuel and fueling infrastructure.

Europe has portrayed itself as the global leader in reducing GHG emissions because they crafted the 1997 Kyoto accord and chose 1990 as the base year. That was the year before the Soviet Union disintegrated and its economy collapsed. Europe claimed much of the resulting emissions decrease as major parts of the former Soviet empire were absorbed by European countries. This isn’t reality. This is accounting.

Reminds me of Obama’s “trillion” dollar deficit reduction announcement of 2014. Obama, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and White House budget director Shaun Donovan neglected to mention some details when they marked this reduction from 2009. That just happens to be the year which saw the end of the not so many “shovel ready” jobs, the stimulus package and the “bailout” programs. The 2009 budget added in in excess of $1.4 trillion to the deficit. Not hard to reduce what you no longer spend. The choice of a favorable date to measure yourself by is not new to any party. But the date is not the only twist here. Obama and crew, skilled sophists that they are, know just how few Americans know the difference between a deficit and a debt thereby making the announcement sound so much better than it actually was. In fact, the White House called the momentary $483 billion federal budget deficit “fiscal normalcy.” Please.

Lew insisted that Obama is “committed” to bringing down the nation’s debt which now tops $18.7 trillion. By the end of his Presidency, the debt accumulated on his watch more than doubles the debt of ALL previous Presidents combined. The CBO projects deficits for each of his final years.

All figures are from public records (Congressional Budget Office (CBO), White House Budget Office, World Bank, IMF and the Fed) among others, not press release spins. Though I read left and right, facts are better.

“The trend in our projected net resources has continued to be negative,” Lew said.
He should know. Keep in mind that the US fiscal years begin Oct. 1, so there is some over-lap when a new President arrives. Don’t get me started on the U.S. debt to GDP ratio now over 100% for the first time since WW II (1946 actually). Italy is 132% and Greece is 177%. Impressive company.

Deficits are budgetary. They feed debts and debts are cumulative. New President be warned. The new Climate economy will be costly and needlessly so.

But I digress. With all the political heavyweights in attendance in Paris, the UN will declare whatever deal that comes out of it to be a great success that will save the planet, for sure this time. After, when the world leaders return home, they will go through the motions to implement whatever it is they agreed to, if they actually know, without lowering GHG emissions.

Oh yes, we have a new Prime Minister, known here as the Ascension of the Dauphin. He is the embodiment of the politically correct and glibly represents all the traditional causes of the left, I mean progressves. He is a throw-back to the 60s, his Father’s era. He likes China “because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime….” He is a competent actor being an ex-part time drama teacher. He has his Father’s money and Mother’s looks. Sadly, he did not get his Father’s brains. He got 39% of the vote for the Natural Ruling Party of Canada, the Liberals. He will be very popular and once he changes the electoral system, an election promise, he could rule forever at worst in a coalition. We have only 1 conservative party and 4 that tilt left.

All decisions will be “evidence based” so he has already decided an issue still under study (Toronto Island Airport) and allowed 2 Cabinet Ministers, Bennett and Wilson-Raybould, to announce the answer to another study not yet begun (the murders of First Nations females). It’s “colonialism” apparently. Oh yes, he also approved the dumping of 8 billion litres of raw sewage into the Saint Lawrence River by the city of Montreal. The Conservatives would have, but the Dauphin?

If Prime Minister Selfie implemented Canada’s GHG reduction plan as submitted to the UN, he’d have to shut down our oil and gas sector in its entirety by 2030. This does not mention our manufacturing sector which will, for the most part, need to close as well. Don’t hold your breath. Besides, Trudeau cannot tell the Provinces what to do and they are all busy doing their own thing leaving a mish-mash of regulations. The result makes it more and more difficult to do business Canada wide. Can you spell unemployment? Canada is responsible for just 1.59% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Selfies aside, who would notice our participation or lack thereof? Congress wouldn’t pass Kyoto. They won’t pass Paris. We signed Kyoto and then did nothing. And those were Liberals too!

Hopefully, when they can tear themselves away from the festivities, the eco-revellers will discuss the economic impact of their world saving deal. The new climate policy dogma, created by eco-fiscal specialists, adds ‘regulate and supervise’ (read more bureaucracy) to tax and spend. The buzz phrase is “revenue neutral.” In other words, what is actually being determined in the climate change debate is our cost of living and quality of life. For sure, costs will go up and standards down for no reason save the enrichment of governments and selected industries. We’ve seen it all before and it didn’t work then. These old ideas, the source of past fiscal crises, are getting new life under the guise of saving the world. Now they are called carbon taxes, cap and trade taxes, tax credits, tax benefits, revenue neutral taxes, taxes on the rich, taxes on corporations. None will have a meaningful impact on carbon emissions simply because the climate is so big. Even Keynes did not believe in stimulus and taxation as a permanent policy. For what it is worth, he also believed in the repayment of debt, a non-issue for the eco-warriors. Climate is the UN’s last gasp at world leadership, if not dominance.

Countries to watch in Paris: China, the world’s largest emitter at 24% of the total, plans to double emissions by 2030 and also plans to build 363 more coal-fired power stations. They have also been caught under reporting their coal usage by 17%. India, 3rd largest emitter, plans to triple emissions by 2030. Russia, 4th largest emitter, plans to increase emissions by up to 38% from 2012 levels. Japan, the 5th largest emitter plans to build more coal-fired power plants. South Korea, the world’s 7th largest emitter, will cut emissions by 23% by buying “carbon credits,” its emission reduction target will still be 100% higher than it was 25 years ago. Saudi Arabia and Iran (8th and 9th largest emitters) have not submitted any proposals. The United Arab Emirates have more than doubled their emissions since 2002 and show no sign of slowing that increase. Brazil, the 11th largest emitter, has been rapidly increasing its dependence on fossil fuels. They do, however, “promise” to slow the felling and burning of the Amazon rainforest. Right. Poland is refusing to sign the treaty as it builds more fossil-fuel power stations. Germany, the 6th largest emitter, is also building more.

Watch for what happens when the developed world feels even a pinch via increased taxes and reduced employment. Public protests will result in a quick change of policy regardless of signatures on napkins signed at conferences.
Note to those facing new taxes. Also watch for ‘contingency for risk funds’ in any new budget. In deficit scenarios there are no surpluses to cover increased costs. Debt rises, job creation drops, economic growth slows and prosperity suffers.

2% won’t happen. Look for 3.7% by 2030. The sky won’t fall either.

Paris is a vanity project. It is all about perception. But what happens in Paris will stay in Paris.

Poo Carson says:

Or Piketty.

Poo Carson says:

Too far passed silly for comment but I’ll try. Not sure what my side is but most probably not Saudi, God or Piketty. For the record, I don’t embarrass. If I did, it would not be by the actions of others.