VN luidt alarmklok over implementatie klimaatovereenkomst Parijs

De klimaatovereenkomst van Parijs is door de organisatoren aanvankelijk als een grote triomf gepresenteerd en leidde tot grote euforie bij hen die vrezen voor een catastrofale opwarming van de aarde. Op dit blog is deze overeenkomst echter herhaaldelijk gekwalificeerd als politiek theater. Dit inzicht is nu ook – zij het wat laat – doorgedrongen tot de hogere echelons in de VN-hiërarchie. Eric Solheim, hoofd van het ‘U.N. Environment Program’ luidde de alarmklok.

Onder de titel, ‘The UN Admits That The Paris Climate Deal Was A Fraud’, schreef Investors’ Business Daily’

Global Hot Air: Here’s a United Nations climate report that environmentalists probably don’t want anybody to read. It says that even if every country abides by the grand promises they made last year in Paris to reduce greenhouse gases, the planet would still be “doomed.”

When President Obama hitched America to the Paris accords in 2016, he declared that it was “the moment that we finally decided to save our planet.” And when Trump pulled out of the deal this year, he was berated by legions of environmentalists for killing it.

But it turns out that the Paris accord was little more than a sham that will do nothing to “save the planet.”

According to the latest annual UN report on the “emissions gap,” the Paris agreement will provide only a third of the cuts in greenhouse gas that environmentalists claim is needed to prevent catastrophic warming. If every country involved in those accords abides by their pledges between now and 2030 — which is a dubious proposition — temperatures will still rise by 3 degrees C by 2100. The goal of the Paris agreement was to keep the global temperature increase to under 2 degrees.

Eric Solheim, head of the U.N. Environment Program, which produces the annual report, said this week that “One year after the Paris Agreement entered into force, we still find ourselves in a situation where we are not doing nearly enough to save hundreds of millions of people from a miserable future. Governments, the private sector and civil society must bridge this catastrophic climate gap.” ….

Maar zal dat gebeuren? Het ziet er niet naar uit.

But this is a fantasy. The list of what would need to be done by 2020 — a little over two years from now — includes: Boostingn renewable energy’s share to 30%. Pushing electric cars to 15% of new car sales, up from less than 1% today. Doubling mass transit use. Cutting air travel CO2 emissions by 20%. And coming up with $1 trillion for “climate action.”

Oh, and coal-fired power plants would have to be phased out worldwide, starting now.

According to the report, “phasing out coal consumption … is an indispensable condition for achieving international climate change targets.” That means putting a halt to any new coal plants while starting to phase out the ones currently in use.

Good luck with that. There are currently 273 gigawatts of coal capacity under construction around the world, and another 570 gigawatts in the pipeline, the UN says. That would represent a 42% increase in global energy production from coal. Does anyone really think developing countries who need coal as a cheap source of fuel to grow their economies will suddenly call it quits? …

Betekent dit dat we verdoemd zijn?

Hardly. As we have noted in this space many times, all those forecasts of global catastrophe are based on computer models that have been unreliable predictors of warming. And all of the horror stories assume the worst.

What the report does make clear, however, is that all the posturing by government leaders in Paris was just that. Posturing. None of these countries intended to take the drastic and economically catastrophic steps environmentalist claim are needed to prevent a climate change doomsday. As such, Trump was right to stop pretending.

Whether you believe in climate change or not, the Paris climate accord amounted to nothing, or pretty close to it. Even the UN admits that now.

Lees verder hier.

Maar gelukkig is er een klein maar dapper landje in het noordwesten van Europa, waar net een nieuwe regering aan het bewind is gekomen. Deze heeft zich ondubbelzinnig voorgenomen de planeet te redden door een ambitieus klimaatbeleid. Volgens berekeningen zou dat klimaatbeleid tot een substantiële vermindering van de opwarming van de aarde van 0,0003 graden Celsius in 2030 leiden. Helaas zijn er in dat landje boze tongen, zoals het Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving, die beweren dat deze doelstelling maar voor de helft zal worden gehaald. Maar dat is natuurlijk onzin. Waar een wil is, is een weg! Het betrokken landje is het aan zijn traditie verplicht een gidsrol in de wereld te vervullen, ook al zal de eigen samenleving daarvoor grote offers moeten brengen. ‘Vertrouwen in de toekomst’ is het devies.

Dit artikel verscheen het eerst op Climategate.nl. Maak kennis met onze auteurs, en bekijk de filmpjes van climategateTV.