golf charlie at 8.01pm.

Not a lot has changed recently in Iran, nor is it likely to. Here are my notes from the Paris Agreement/INDCs thread:

Islamic Republic of Iran (INDC submitted on 21st November 2015)
As one of the world's leading oil-producers, their INDC is rather important if the Paris Accords are going to amount to anything other than a lot of hot air (pardon the pun). Unfortunately, the introduction makes it clear that they are pretty effectively sticking two fingers up at the process, so it's worth quoting in full. It's all highly negative, but the final short paragraph is the killer:
"The Islamic Republic of Iran, in recent decades, has always supported the international efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and to adapt to the impacts of climate change, on the basis of the principle of “Common But Differentiated Responsibilities” (CBDR). Despite various obstacles such as unjust sanctions, the eight year imposed war upon Iran (1980-1988) which put Iranian young and talented human resources at risk, as well as hosting millions of refugees from the neighboring countries, Iran has implemented comprehensive programs over the last three decades in the field of sustainable development. In the coming years, however, economic growth, social development, poverty eradication and environmental sustainability continue to be the main priorities of the national development agenda.
In spite of the desire to move towards low-carbon economy and to implement and achieve its objectives, young population and national development requirements on the one hand, and availability of hydrocarbon resources from the other hand, have made the national development to rely on the energy-intensive industries. These have made upward trend of GHGs emissions in the country inevitable.
Dependence of the national economy on revenues from production and export of oil and its byproducts - that are high-carbon intensive- have made the economy, public welfare, resources and technology of the country, vulnerable to mitigation of GHGs emission. These adverse impacts from the point of view of response measures to climate change, have turned the Islamic Republic Iran to a suitable candidate, to the attention of developed country parties to the Convention, in the areas of finance, technology transfer and capacity building support (according to articles 4.8 and 4.9 of the UNFCCC).
This intended program, inclusive of unconditional and conditional participation in mitigating GHGs emission as well as in terms of areas related to adaptation, is in its entirety, subject to the removal of economic, technological and financial restrictions and in particular termination of unjust sanctions imposed on Iran during the past several decades, as well as non-imposition of restrictions or sanctions in the future.
Obviously, due to the long-term impacts of unjust sanctions and restrictions, capacity development and creation of suitable institutional structures will be a time consuming process and constrain achieving objectives of this program, even if international financial and technical support as well as technology transfer are provided. The Islamic Republic of Iran, while has no legally binding commitments under the Convention to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while emphasizing the voluntary nature of its actions, presents its “Intended Nationally Determined Contribution”, as endorsed by the Cabinet of Ministers, in the following macro-areas of mitigation, vulnerability and adaptation.
It is noteworthy that, this document does not constitute committing the Islamic Republic of Iran, in any way, in a binding manner, with regard to the measures that will be undertaken in its various economic and industrial sectors."
And sure enough, the detail demonstrates that they aren't really interested:
"On the basis of national capabilities, financial resources available and requirements of the national development program, taking into account GHGs emission scenarios, the Islamic Republic of Iran intends to participate by mitigating its GHGs emission in 2030 by 4% compared to the Business As Usual (BAU) scenario." And
"Subject to termination and non-existence of unjust sanctions, availability of international resources in the form of financial support and technology transfer, exchange of carbon credits, accessibility of bilateral or multilateral implementation mechanisms, transfer of clean technologies as well as capacity building, the Islamic Republic of Iran has the potential of mitigating additional GHGs emission up to 8% against the BAU scenario (i.e. 12% in total). "
And just to make the point (in case we hadn't got it already):
"The Islamic Republic of Iran has already included a program to mitigate GHGs emission in its "Fifth 5 Year National Development Plan" (2010 to 2015), targeting 30% reduction in energy intensity. Unfortunately, due to the unjust sanctions imposed on our economic, financial and technological sectors, not only this target was not achieved, but energy intensity was increased in recent years. " And:
"Bearing in mind the status of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a major developing country with a growing economy, the national development plan of the country aims to achieve 8% economic growth annually, with an emphasis on energy and industrial sectors in the next fifteen years. "
And despite offering next to nothing, they aren't shy about asking for lots of money:
"The total annual investments needed to achieve unconditional and conditional GHGs mitigation are about 17.5 and 52.5 billion US dollars respectively".

The Green Blob should be demonstrating through the streets of Iran, denouncing the leaders as heretics. Not only are they building nukes, but now threatening the Holiness of the Paris Climate fiasco.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/20/climate-shakedown-iran-demands-their-share-of-paris-agreement-climate-cash/

To be fair on the authors of the original paper, they are (as suggested by stewgreen) talking about emissions and not atmospheric levels. Presumably McGrath has difficulty understanding the difference. However, simply changing the sentence from "atmospheric levels" to "emissions" would still be a bit of a stretch, as they have not "detected" a rise in emissions, they have "inferred" one on the basis that atmopsheric levels are not dropping as fast as they expected.

Ozone Hole. The profits made from inventing new refrigerants, depends on finding reasons to get the old ones banned as their Copyrights/Patents run out. Someone, somewhere in SE Asia can't be bothered, and nor can the Ozone Hole.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_refrigerants

This is greenspin (flat out lying) taken to a new level.

First sentence: "scientists have detected an unexpected rise in atmospheric levels of CFC-11". No they have not ... it is continuing to decline and there has not been any rise in atmospheric levels (unexpected or otherwise).

Second sentence (for those who read that far): "CFC-11 was seen to be declining as expected but that fall has slowed down by 50%".

Ah, so we lied when we said that is was rising unexpectedly but what we actually meant to say was that it is continuing to decline but less fast than we had expected.

Are these really scientists and yet do not know the difference?

"Mysterious rise in emissions of ozone-damaging chemical
By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent
16 May 2018"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44138984

"Scientists have detected an unexpected rise in atmospheric levels of CFC-11, a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) highly damaging to the ozone layer.

Banned by the Montreal Protocol in 1987, CFC-11 was seen to be declining as expected but that fall has slowed down by 50% since 2012.

Researchers say their evidence shows it's likely that new, illegal emissions of CFC-11 are coming from East Asia.

These could hamper the recovery of the ozone hole and worsen climate change."

And

"The authors of this research say it's likely that illegal production of CFC-11 in East Asia is behind the rise.

"They do point in that direction, fairly definitively," Dr Stephen Montzka from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) told BBC News.

"We are making the measurements from very far away from these regions and I think more specificity is going to come once the people... in that region...look carefully at their measurements and publish their results," he added.

"Any production of an ozone-depleting gas that's controlled by the Montreal Protocol has to be reported to the ozone secretariat, and, currently, global production is essentially zero. We know of no production even for intermediary or side products."

The researchers are puzzled as to what the motivation for any unauthorised new production might be.

They point to the fact that since the production of these chemicals was ended over eight years ago, any industry that was involved in this work would have transitioned to other substances.

"It's disappointing, I would not have expected it to happen," said Dr Michaela Hegglin from Reading University, UK, who was not involved in the study.

"The newer substances that are out there, the replacements for CFC-11, might be more difficult or expensive for some countries to produce or get at.

"I hope that somehow the international community can put pressure on South East Asian countries, maybe China, to go and look at whether they can get more information on where the emissions come from. They should tell the industries that's not going to work."

The study authors point out that while CFC-11 can persist in the atmosphere for 50 years, the overall level of chlorine atoms is still declining.

However, if no action is taken on the new source of emissions, it could be highly significant.

"If the emissions were to persist, then we could imagine that healing of the ozone layer, that recovery date, could be delayed by a decade," said Dr Montzka.

It could also make a contribution to rising global temperatures."

And we're supposed to believe that China is seriously signed up to international agreements regarding climate change and the environment...

May 20, 2018 at 5:30 PM | tomo

The Green Blob is running out of suckers.