Saturday
Dec112010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Cancun deal
Dec 11, 2010 Climate: WG3 A number of people have asked for a dedicated thread for discussing the deal at Cancun. I'm out tonight, so behave yourselves while I'm away.
Reader Comments (171)
@Martin Brumby
I would put more basically as stupidity against common sense. Most people of either side of the political or social divide can see the benefits of providing energy for all of mankind.
It's the complexity of schemes that allow power and wealth transfer that muddy the water and allow agenda's to become part of the process.
If I were to say as an individual that I needed to raise funds for a project that installs solar and wind powerd water pumps that allow irrigation and crop growth for villages on the edge of desert regions then as long as there was backing legal documentation and evidence of projects there would probably be significant interest.
If I proposed the same project as the CEO of the company that designs the pumps and with co-operation of WWF, the World Bank and the government of Nigeria and show that funds raised will be invested in carbon credits to raise capitol to fund a new process plant located in Africa to manufacture the devices using local workers paid at £1 an hour, then not so many would be interested.
Oakwood @ 8:04 AM asks;
"Where can I download a copy of the actual agreement?? I've checked Guardian, COP16, BBC, Googled, and can't find it. All I can read is other people's interpretations of it."
My post at 8:10PM includes the URL & directions to the press release. I don't think anything other than this has yet reached the public domain but if you find anything, please let us know.
Martin Brumby
Well said on the left-right divide being less important than the libertarian-authoritarian one. But one day it may be necessary to reinvent “normal” (ie class) politics, and reclaim the left from the greens. With Ed Milliband as leader of the left in Britain, this process will undoubtedly be bloody. Good luck to you all.
Now I must get back to my Chinese lessons.
Thanks Frosty.
Will have a look
@ Eric Gisin
Ta for the link to Ronald Bailey.
That makes a very solid impressive trio of science journalists who are catastrophe sceptics: Calder, Ridley, Bailey.
I'd much rather trust the opinion of these than a politico like Rees.
Some people earlier were wondering why Salmond seems as sold on CAGW as anyone when he has more sense.
IMO opinion two reasons. First, the Greens have managed to impose the view whereby anyone who 'dissents' from the catastrophe narrative is extreme right-wing, and Salmond ca't risk the label.
Second, there is so much European money washing around for 'renewables' - why shouldn't Scotland gets its share of the money? All you need to do is nod along with the CAGW talk.
BBC`s take.
http://s446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/?action=view¤t=cancumbbc2.mp4
"why shouldn't Scotland gets its share of the money? All you need to do is nod along with the CAGW talk."
This is exactly it, we know all the island states were bribed with development money, why should it be any different for the bigger players.
BBC`s Take, link didn`t work, why.
Geoff
"slightly to the left of Delingpole"
Isn't everyone..?
I've banged on for years about the iniquity of trapping the people of the under developed world (which largely but not entirely means sub-Saharan Africa) not just in physical poverty but social and educational poverty as well.
I can't remember the figures but a fraction of what was supposedly committed by Kyoto (and which would delay the 2C figure by about five years) would provide clean water and sanitation for everyone in Africa that doesn't already have it.
Which is why I have supported (as have a very large number of Rotary Clubs, to name only one organisation) charities like WaterAid and Mary's Meals and others that get in among the people and give them the help and the werewithal for them to improve their state.
And there are other numerous small local groups "twinning" with towns/villages in Africa doing much the same thing.
Meanwhile Oxfam and Christian and CAFOD (and its Scottish equivalent SCIAF) are quite happy to "work through" local governments and equally happy to go along with the myth that the people are poor because of the evil capitalists. We know that tariff barriers can be part of the problem; we know that some multi-nationals exploit the indigenous people to provide cheap goods for western consumers. That is no excuse for the behaviour of the major "charities" who could do a lot more to provide real practical assistance (as opposed to "aid") instead of politicking around.
Sorry but this is a hobby horse of mind.
e smith and artwest -- I'm to the right of you politically, at least as far as my views on what government is for are concerned. But I have no quarrel with your assessment that the carbon trading scam is purely capitalists looking for another way of making a killing. Which makes the warmist argument that we are all in the pay of 'Big Oil' all the more laughable.
Have they not noticed that the major oil and other energy firms are fully signed up to the scam? I once discussed with a representative of E-ON their plans for a wind farm not 10 miles from where Cameron Rose is (he probably knows the 'patch' as well as I do). He admitted that the only reason his company (and the others) were building these things was because of the government subsidies -- which are being paid for out of energy bills and which will result on the death of pensioners in fuel poverty this winter.
It is that more than anything which keeps this scam going. End the distortion of the market and the farce of "carbon credits" or "cap and trade" and the whole house of cards comes doen.
Oakwood,
I'm not sure if there is anything other than press releases, since it is an 'agreement to agree' at some future unspecified date, on unspecified details. I suppose one might call it a 'consensus'?
Areas of agreement about agreement included -
■ All countries to cut emissions
■ Forest deal to provide finance for countries who avoid emissions from deforestation
■ Finance deal to potentially provide $30bn for developing countries to adapt to climate change now, and up to $100bn later.
■ A new UN climate fund to be run largely by developing countries
■ Easier transfer of low carbon technology and expertise to poor countries
■ China, the US and all major emitters to have actions inspected
■ Scientific review of progress after five years
The status and future intent of motherhood, apple pie and fwuffy bunnies was not reported.
Thanks simpleseeker and Chuckles. I scanned some of the documents in the link. They seem pretty woolly and waffley. I suppose enough to allow the headlines to say 'A deal was made', though it seems little more than an agreement to hopefully make an agreement sometime in the future.
Sam the Sceptic
Spot on. It's all laid out it Collier's "The Bottom Billion" (yes, sub-Sharan Africa and Central Asia). Failure to devlop is due to (a) bad governance (b) civil war (c) lack of sea access to particpate in global trade.
All this CAGW cr*p is immoral in deflecting attention and money from the real problem areas.
Sam the Sceptic. Excellent point. Now we’re all agreed across the political divide, all we have to do is redesign three centuries of two-party politics as we practice it in England. I don’t see how anything less will get us out of this mess.
copied from another thread:
The UK government has already signed up to the new UN fund according to the delighfully airheaded Louise Grey in the Telegraph.
The story about the 1.6 degree warming was carried on the GWPF site and the article stated that a doubling of CO2 was now not likely to produce more than 1.6 degrees of warming, they also pointed out that with the current rise in atmospheric CO2 being less that 2ppm per year, the 1.6 degree warming is a number of centuries away.
All of this still assumes that CO2 warming is straight line whereas we all know it is logarithmic dont we?
At Cancun Huhne announced that the UK can lead the world in Wind farm energy production. Not that hard when the rest of the world realises that it is a useless idea. If Huhne looks behind him he will find that while the UK is rushing for renewables, the rest of the world is rushing for Natural Gas from Shale. We even have a site in Blackpool that will start producing next year and latest predictions say it could produce 20% of the UK energy requirements.
I do wish Huhne would show up for his Psyche evaluations now and again.
Are many people here following the gas from shale story? Shale is all over the world and new technology means we can get gas and oil from it. Countries like saudi Arabia who have large shale deposits plan to change their energy production from oil over to gas from shale. This means that both gas and oil will be avaiolable for a couple of centuries at least.
Shale Gas—Abundance or Mirage? Why The Marcellus Shale Will Disappoint Expectations
As far as I'm aware most of the US shale plays have been false promises Dung, but it is very difficult to get accurate (unbiased) numbers.
Sure, I was reading about this the other day. It's hard to extract though, isn't it?
Anyway we were having this debate last night over dinner, about how best to spend £100,000,000,000 for the benefit of the environment. We decided that buying 1,000,000,000,000 condoms would probably do more good than anything else!
Dung,
Then there is coal, another 2K years at current rates and convertable to liquid form by the Fischer-Tropsch technology and other methods.
Only the demonisation of carbon and bad governance, both clearly on display at Cancun, stand in the way of developing nations. Anthropogenic Fuel Poverty is real, let's hope we don't get CAFP..
'It's hard to extract though, isn't it?'
Robinson,
Yes it might be, but working out such things is what engineers do for a living. A couple of years ago it would have been 'impossible', in a few years probably 'routine'. As SST notes, if you have coal or gas, you can make the others e.g. petrol or diesel if they are in short supply. Companies like SASOL have years of experience, and do this routinely.
In terms of peak whatever doom, I found the numbers here educational, particularly with much of the potential US supply 'off limits' -
http://alfin2100.blogspot.com/2010/12/is-north-america-new-energy-kingdom.html
It's not total reserve that's the issue, it's extraction rate, lower net energy, and exponential growth in demand. The harder it is to get at, the more energy used, the less net energy available to the market - whilst demand from the total available net energy pool increases.
China has bar far the worlds biggest coal reserve, yet there is a diesel shortage due to blackouts due to insufficient coal supply to the power stations, and China imports coal. Seems a big chunk of the worlds reserves won't be coming on the market for oil conversion in a timely fashion.
When the Oil boom began, it cost 1 barrel of oil to get 100 return in energy terms, the ratio is now 1:3 - it costs 1 barrel to get 3, which flattens out Hubberts bell curve to more of a cliff shape on the rhs to reflect Net energy available to the economy. Even if we could maintain current production, increased demand will still mean a supply gap.
They Warmistas got nothing . . . nada, rien.
Some vague promises about some reductions and a repeat of the repeat about $100b . . . the money promise is the meat in this con. All the rent seeking 3rd world petty dictators will sell their nations signature to a COP XX meeting because they think they will get their thieving mitts on some free cash for their secret Swiss bank account.
Talk, talk, talk . . . the real powers just let them talk/vent, make up their silly awards and publicity stunts and in reality, it is just one great big Echo Chamber of the Stupid, talking to the Believers about the Dumb.
Arthur Berman talks about Shale GasArthur Berman talks about Shale Gas
Art is a geological consultant whose specialties are subsurface petroleum geology, seismic interpretation, and database design and management. The people doing the interview are members of the "Peak Oil Review Team," abbreviated POR in the text below. This is the shale gas portion of the interview.
$100 billion a year? Well, if that is what it takes to buy out the noisy lot within the CAGW camp, then it is money well spent.
For some reason, the reported climate agreement is portrayed as a sign of success for Cancun talks, but really it is not. It is a face-saving exercise for some participants wishing to climb down the trees.
Firstly, there is no report of a binding agreement anywhere. Secondly, it is Christmas time and the Santa Effect is in full swing. Any politician will tell you that it is good politics to make lots of promises (tax cuts, new funding, etc) during Christmas family re-unions, so that the masses can have something to talk about it around the BBQ. Thirdly, the promisees are lucky to get half the amount that's been promised. And finally, rich states will find a way, as they always do, to re-label the funds already earmarked for other projects in the third world as though it is fresh funding under the Cancun agreement.
Nevertheless, if I were a tin-pot dictator of an undeveloped country I'd be delighted to have any money coming my way. That's because if there is one thing that I care more than my Mercedes Benz, it is re-forestation. :D
And salutations to my leftist comrades above. Believe it or not, I voted for the Greens 10+ years, was a member at one stage, and I still buy my Green Left Weekly from corner activists, still paying the solidarity price. Some habits are hard to change.
Frosty,
Is this one barrel of oil to get three, or an energy equivalent? In other words can this oil production requirement be met with hydroelectric, or windmills (gasp, huff, puff) or must it be petroleum?
Gee thanks, geoff. What would you like us to do after dinner?!
What an awesome thread - thanks everyone and His Grace for giving the space. It's really interesting that the end of Cancun has sparked debate about reforming politics. I think that instinct's dead right, if we want any freedoms left. (Puns becoming intentional as the sentence progressed.)
This recalled a sudden moment I had on Climate Audit nine days ago where I ended up citing the radicals of the English revolution and their potent phrase "The World Turned Upside Down". If we're not careful Tony Benn joins the right-libertarians at this point. (Extra points if you know where those radicals got the phrase.)
The other trap that Paul Collier mentions in The Bottom Billion, by the way, is the resource trap - finding oil or minerals in the poorest countries leads to corruption of politics and the wiping out of other more sustainable industries due to exchange rate pressures. It's a key insight in a book that everyone involved in Cancun should have taken in but clearly hasn't. As they should also have read Paul's protege, Dambisa Moyo, who takes an even stronger line against government-to-government aid. These are failed ideas. We desperately need something new.
So agreed: Left and Right have to go. We need to reform politics, in the deepest sense. That is the right - I'm mean correct! - response to Cancun. We've been given time. Nothing set in stone. Thank God.
I couldn't bear to watch Making Scotland's Landscape: The Climate last night. The Radio Times summary led me to think that it may be somewhat simplistic (hard to believe for the BBC I know):
Wow, thanks for the explanation BBC!
As polls have shown recently, the belief in AGW is running below 50%. Commentors on this thread can rightly claim they are in that majority while demonstrating the ability to critically examine the substance of the minority position. If you are an elected politician reading this, you will have noticed the spectrum of political colour in this majority and may be minded to look deeper than the Louise Gray type of analysis. There may even be votes in it.
oakwood
Why am I not surprised? Of course, I have the advantage of having spent 30 years working in Silly Con Valley and had so much smoke blown up my butt that I had kippered hemorrhoids. The "BS" alarms bells went off the instant I saw that "agreement" which is clearly an agreement to agree about something, sometime, somewhere, but not here and now. I want to thank you all for double checking my conclusion that it is all a smoke screen to save face.
Shub
The state itself only 'co-ordinates' the 'collaboration'.
You are absolutely right, but just what does that actually mean? ¡NADA!
They are just nice words spoken to make somebody feel good. I have too much experience with people trying to kipper my hemorrhoids to fall for that any more.
COP 16 is a failure, pure and simple; and given that China is not going to renew Kyoto, and with that everybody else will do the same, it is no wonder that Bolivia went ballistic. Their little left wing dream of getting free money from the dirty capitalist countries is going down big time.
An emissions-trading system which involves granting credits for emissions-not-made, does not in fact limit the total emissions. I believe that any such system is either just asking for groups to "game" the system to reap unearned income, or is in fact designed to do so.
A case in point is the credit for HFC-23 destruction, which was (is?) so large as to become a positive encouragement to build new factories in China. HFC-23 is a by-product of the production of refrigerant HCFC-22; the by-product is then destroyed, claiming carbon emissions credits for its destruction rather than emission. The value of the credits were actually greater than the value of the product. [Source: http://www.eia-global.org/PDF/Report--EBBriefing26August2010.pdf . Yes, I know it's a "grey" source--perhaps you can locate something better? But the objective evidence present in the report is fairly clear in its implication that the plants are manipulated to generate the maximum credits allowable.]
Aside - in trying to locate details of the HFC-23 story, I found that it was described in Feb.2007 New Scientist, which stated that "The loophole will now be closed, say officials." But here we are, almost four year later at the end of 2010, with the current practice apparently unchanged and still being abused. Cue sad head shake.
REDD is another mechanism for creating an unearned income stream to groups and governments who control rain-forest area. I believe there was a story a year or two ago about WWF(?) investing a large sum to do precisely that, with the implication that they would later be able to profit greatly from carbon credits.
Robinson says:
.. we were having this debate last night over dinner, about how best to spend £100,000,000,000 ... We decided that buying 1,000,000,000,000 condoms would probably do more good than anything else!`
Sam the Septic says:
Gee thanks, geoff. What would you like us to do after dinner?!
Er, thanks Sam, but I’m busy this evening.
Richard Drake, yes, it’s a song of the Diggers, sort of 17th century Friends of the Earth, though I see Melanie Philips has a book of that title.
Huffpost reports that Cancun in contrast to Copenhagen wasn't getting the "full court press" (maybe an Americanism).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/democracy-now/where-is-the-press-amy-go_b_793955.html
This may really be a symptom of the beginning of the end.
Richard Drake
The pub of the same name in the Old Kent Road (or posssibly Acts 17:6).
at the current rate of money printing in the impoverishng Europe and the US, 100 billion dollars will be much less in 2020 in real terms than now.
where shall the money come from ?
I would like to see a global Philantropist tax installed.
Self declared Philantropists, of course, would be happy to pay this, to save the world !
@Dec 12, 2010 at 3:36 PM | Frosty
"Arthur Berman talks about Shale GasArthur Berman talks about Shale Gas"
The link is to The Oil Drum http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6785
Very interesting.
As indeed are many energy posts on The Oil Drum.
But is anyone else highly suspicious about The Oil Drum's agenda? Check out the links - lots of greenie / alarmist nonsense sites there, even Real Climate!
And if you've ever looked at "ZeroCarbonBritain2030" on their site and downloaded their second report 2010, you will see The Oil Drum as one of their "partner organisations" along with the Met Office, UEA, amongst others. And a forward by Sir John Houghton, no less. In other words, these people are absolutely weapons-grade arseholes.
And it is supposed to be those nasty deniers in bed with Big Oil......
Of course, you may be right and oil shale has been over-played. Me, I'm reserving judgement. There is certainly enough easily available gas until we have more nuclear up and running. Providing we don't let the greenies (and all three major UK political parties + Plaid Cymru + SNP) rule the roost.
Dec 12, 2010 at 6:10 PM | Manfred
At first I misread that as:-
"at the current rate of money printing in the impoverishng Europe and the US, 100 billion dollars will be much less than $ 2020 in real terms now."
Could be, Manfred, could be.....
@Matthu
“Compel them to do so?”
Is the good Secretary General going to send in “UN forces” to compel China, the USA, etc. to “pay or die”?
Face it. No matter what misguided small-time political elites like Huhne negotiate, it will be meaningless unless he can get all the “big boys” to agree to it (which looks unlikely).
Max
An interesting thread... Left? Right? I am afraid though we all seem to be Realists... and that is not a requirement in the job description of these people. Perhaps that is what we should call the new political party?
So here is a question to assess whether you are suitable for the Realist Party:
Spot the contradictions in this...
FIA commits to greener future with new engines
According to the FIA, the new engines will deliver a 35 per cent reduction in fuel consumption
If you cannot come up with about 10 in under a minute your are not for Realist Party.
Looking on the bright side ... from The Independent (on Sunday) ...
At last, the climate changes
Environment Editor Michael McCarthy witnesses the successful conclusion of the UN talks on global warming – and explains why the deal is good news
Thanks artwest, excellent analysis.
A couple of points
1) Previously the proposal was that countries would have to prove AGW was an actual threat to them before funds would be handed over. It was discussed here. I suspect when the small print is studied that very little money will be paid out. The science is tenuous speculation, so no damage is likely
2) The reason for the fake Cancun enthusiasm in the British corporate media is to sucker British (and European) consumers into believing they should suffer substantially greater fuel prices because one day the Americans, Chinese, Indians, Canadians and Japanese will reach an agreement and help us to save the planet*. They won't. Meanwhile British children are being told that they will drown if they don't unplug their chargers from the wall as British banks are funding an environmental disaster in the third world.
* Britain contributes 1.84% of the world's CO2.
DougieJ @ Dec 11, 2010 at 10:28 PM
"He also represents a constituency in the NE of Scotland - a part of the world where oil is the major economic driver. Any thoughts on the motivation behind his stance on energy?"
I rate Salmond as a very sharp knife, however that doesn't mean that the positions he takes on things are logically coherent or other than calculated to catch votes. With the momentum behind CAGW in political circles, he'd find it damned hard to produce a sensible energy strategy for Scotland, ignoring the nonsense. The Lib Dems are an electoral force in Scotland.
For instance, what exactly is an independent Scotland within the EU? I think it's Salmond selling something which he knows is nonsense, but is a cozy fiction.
I see him as a regional politician out to get the most for his region within existing frameworks and the threat of independence is gun which he hopes he'll never have to fire, or if he does, he thinks he's got a safety net in the EU.
cosmic
The biggest names that have promoted political AGW.
Margaret Thatcher ( her husband was a director of Burmah Oil), Kenneth Lay (Enron), Lord Browne (BP), Al Gore (100% owned and operated by Occidental Oil - his father was a director) , Rajendra K Pachauri (director of Indian Oil Corp.even during his time as head of the IPCC ).
The reason - free carbon credits thanks to Enron.
I can't remember the figures but a fraction of what was supposedly committed by Kyoto (and which would delay the 2C figure by about five years) would provide clean water and sanitation for everyone in Africa that doesn't already have it.
According to WaterAid there are 2.6bn people in the world without proper sanitation and they claim to be able to provide fresh water and sanitation at £15 ($24) per head which would work out at £39bn ($62bn) in total. And the UK Climate Change Committee's latest report, for example, is talking about spending "only" around 1% of GDP (around £20bn ($32bn)) annually on decarbonising the UK economy, around half of which would be investment in green energy generation. So a few years (possibly as few as two) of just the UK's proposed decarbonisation spending could pay for fresh water and sanitation across the whole world. The health benefits would be phenomenal.
I'm wondering how the the US congress wil react to the agreement in Cancun ; looks like the US delegation agreed to something the Obama Administration knew would face huge hurdles for ratification ; the same story as in Kyoto.
A possible consequence could be the following : the new Chamber might be so upset that they will start investigating the (pseudo) science behind the AGW and exposing its shortfalls more quickly and agressively than already intended. The climate may become very warm really for the hockey team !
Could I refer y'all to the GWPF and this item, (Philip Stott: Dr Pangloss Alive And Well At Cancún ) and scroll down towards the 2nd last line which begins:: The reality is surely dawning, if too slowly, etc
Eh, nothing has changed then!
Happy Christmas Dead Beat Zeds.
Peter Walsh
Martin Brumby - agreed on the hosts agenda at TOD many confirmed warmists - but there are a lot of regular energy guys on there too, oil men, gas men etc. there's a sceptic minority too. They also have BP data etc. and cover the other side too, which is usually ripped up as WUWT rips up the alarmists, it's not all one sided.
The people trumpeting shale gas seem to be performing some version of a boiler room scam IMO.
I'm not proposing any solutions BTW, I'm just convinced we're heading for a supply gap, it go go any which way, but chance favours the prepared mind and all that.
Ah, Er, Frosty: One barrel of oil to get three?
Is that equivalent energy or an absolute requirement that a barrel of petroleum be expended for each 3 barrels recovered?
Useless bit of information (the bish has authorised this apparently, as long as we are good):
there are approx 4.4 million methane emitting units (cattle) in New Zealand.
The human population isn't much more.
The ovine (sheep) population is additional to the above.
Peter Walsh
Ref www.stuff.co.nz and then go to quizzes