For those who have been living on Mars during the last few years, COPs, officially titled Conference of the Parties, are the annual UN-run climate jamborees, intended to forge global agreements to fight climate change. Since the first was held in 1995 in Berlin, the world’s emissions of CO2 have steadily grown by 60%, despite a small reduction in richer countries.
You might therefore have thought that the UN would have taken the hint by now and stopped having COPs. But then the great and the good would not have an opportunity to show the rest of us how important they are, as they fly in on their private jets.
As is the norm, COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan did not actually address the issue of cutting emissions. It was agreed long ago that developing countries would be under no obligation whatsoever to make any such cuts. Strangely, countries like China, India and the Middle East oil states are all still classified as “developing”, and they have long made it clear they have no intention of following the lemmings over the cliff.
Instead, COP29 was all about the money. For years, poorer countries have been demanding more money to “fight climate change” and “reduce emissions”. Their latest demand is for $1.3 trillion a year.
Currently, the West hands over around $100 billion, but most of this is in the form of repayable loans, which isn’t very attractive to poor African countries who think the money should just be given to them, no strings attached.
In Baku, the richer countries upped their offer to $300 billion a year, but not before a number of poor nations walked out of the conference in disgust. Eventually, developing countries agreed to take the offer, no doubt worried they might not get a penny if they didn’t.
However, the agreement was widely slammed by both environmental charities and many poorer nations. This is all academic, because the recipients of the West’s largesse are unlikely to see much of that $300 billion, particularly if Trump pulls the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
To put the money into perspective, if £300 billion is averaged out according to GDP, without the U.S. contribution, the U.K. would end up paying $36 billion a year, which is nearly three times the overseas aid budget. Even Rachel from Accounts would have difficulty magicking this out of thin air!
Needless to say, developing countries will not be obliged to cut emissions in return for their Danegeld. Back in the heady days of 2009, the naive Barack Obama believed that throwing dollar bills around would magically lower the world’s emissions. We now know the reality!
Nor is there any obligation for China, India, or the Middle Eastern oil states, all still classified as “developing”, to cough up a penny.
And more fundamentally, COP29 never even addressed the issue of emission reductions. No new pledges were made, no NDCs updated. Not even a timetable for discussing them in future.
Perhaps the most ludicrous part of the Conference was the first day agreement on carbon markets.
As the BBC explained, a poor country with lots of trees can sell carbon credits to richer nations, so they can continue to burn fossil fuels.
Apparently, carbon emissions are alright, so long as you pay a penance!
It is time to dump these annual jamborees. Western countries need to make it clear that they will not make any further emission cuts until the rest of the world starts doing so as well.
And they also need to refuse to give in to any further blackmail.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I wonder how China is defined as ‘developing’ on any metric?
Is there an official document that explains this?
Largest economy in the world. I guess it is ‘developing’ to become the Largererest economy in the world. Yes, farcical isn’t it. The UK which is regressing back to the Middle Ages with bird choppers and solar power is ‘developed’ apparently.
Presumably as we are “developed” there is no where to go but backwards. Pass me flint axe please.
Not really – it’s generally rather ill-defined what distinguishes a “developing” nation from a “developed” one. Bodies such as the UN, the World Bank and the IMF use varying economic and social indicators (such as GDP, average income and advancement of the economy), and throw around terms such as “emerging economies”. Basically it’s all relative, and you might say that “developing” nations can always be said to exist, as long as there is a global disparity in the metrics that gauge “developed-ness”. So even if India or Pakistan become as advanced and wealthy as we are today, the West may still remain a few steps ahead in their ongoing “development”! It’s all really just a matter of language and mathematics.
Yes and that is what these conferences are about —Wealth inequality.
CO2 =Wealth, NOT Climate. —These are not really climate conferences, they are economic ones resulting in rich countries (developed) always having to fork out astronomical sums of money to poorer countries (developing). —-Basically an Eco Socialist or Marxist scam, which is why the likes of Miliband is so full of zeal for it. —The climate is simply the plausible excuse for those wealth re-distribution policies that most ordinary people are falling for.
Possibly GDP per person, quite low for China, which has a high GDP because there are a lot of them. Yet another reason why GDP is pants, a country can increase it just by migration, everybody consumes, which apparently counts towards GDP.
“everybody consumes, which apparently counts towards GDP.”
Which is why our GDP is increasing while the reality is that we are individually becoming poorer.
It’s complete bollox.
Destroying Britain Won’t Save the Climate
Sod the climate, will it save Milibrain’s career, which is his real agenda? Hopefully not…
I have a better idea: Western countries should make it clear that they categorically won’t put any more efforts into reducing their relatively minuscule CO₂ emissions but that developing countries are free to try should they feel like it, provided someone else pays for that.
“As the BBC explained, a poor country with lots of trees can sell carbon credits to richer nations, so they can continue to burn fossil fuels.”
What about Countries with a lot of grass and hedgerows – Britain for example – that too absorbes CO2, in fact much more quickly than trees?
And how about all that new plant life covering an area the size of the USA as a result of increased atmospheric CO2, not to mention significantly increased crop yields?
Food crops also absorb CO2, quite a lot more than solar farms I would imagine.
What a disgusting spectacle it was on the news the other night, all the leaders of the small islands walking out on the COP talks because they were not going to be given enough money. Meanwhile in the real world the land area of these is actually increasing. They remind me of Geldof “Give us yer f*cking money”. I would not give them the steam off my p!ss. You know that if they get it they will just spend it on new Mercedes cars anyway.
Remember when my mate lived in Plymouth a decade ago, being a Volvo enthusiast he had a Volvo 960, as some black dude walked passed he commented on it saying how those cars bring back memories of his Government having a whole fleet of them. That is where a lot of foreign aid ends up.
Or new oil refineries!
Same here – I wonder why we don’t just all collectively say ‘no’. What do these nations have over us – is it natural resource availability or something else? Clearly a lever somewhere…
If the elites want to transfer wealth from the richer countries to the poorer to give them more equity, then that’s great, so long as it’s their own money they are giving away and not ours. Yes, that will never happen will it.
I believe (hope) that “Climate Aid” is taken from the overseas aid budget, and rebranded from resilience-to-bad-weather to “fighting-climate-change”.
Anyway, for gawd sake don’t just give money to UN bodies. Try reading their websites, you can’t find out what they do besides promote diversity, equality, inclusivity etc.
Watch this condescending leftie on Jeremy Vine being so sure of herself that bad floods is because of the “climate crisis”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcVErsNfepc
I can’t. Sorry.
Me neither – I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than listen to that smug git
In his bilateral meeting with President Xi, Obama delivered America to the Chinese Communist Party, agreeing among others: “Clean Energy Cooperation : Under the framework of the Development Cooperation Annual Meeting between the United States Agency for International Development and the Ministry of Commerce of China, the two sides intend to explore clean energy cooperation in third countries”.
His Dem successor Biden was also an asset of the CCP.
I’m willing to offer 100-1 odds to those in the picture that the Erath will still be here in 12 years time (unless the picture was taken some time ago). Plus of course, the irony that the banner looks plastic and what is plastic made from?
I was just imagining Ron Smith’s friend mowing them down in his Volvo 960……
“Climate change” is just a cover all employed to disguise the push towards a One World Government and those pushing it know this.
Club of Rome – Limits to growth 1972.
As an aside and just like ULEZ, if you pay the money you can pollute as much as you like. Carbon Credits. FFS!
You haven’t got twelve years you will be lucky with twelve weeks get a grip. The last couple of years you heard stories of a month’s worth of rain falling in a day. Now you are hearing stories about a year’s worth of rain falling in a day. Who pays attention to that – nobody. The current military situation isn’t going to remain in stasis for much longer. And the price of vegetables is about to go through the roof. Most won’t have the money it is simple econmics. You think the crisis is in the future you are wrong.
The average rainfall in the UK is about 800mm total. When it comes and how much is unknowable and in the lap of the Gods. All the floods are due to various “Govermental and utilities” bodies not understanding what “average” means in any realistic way. The rainfall this year is a bit higher but not much. We need more, clear drainage in some places. Will they do this? No. On average what we have is adequate, just like the solar panels and wind turbines! Their mathematical ability is rather less than zero!
It’s about money, not the climate. It’s always been about money …. and destroying the economies of industrialised western countries.
And stop believing in the nonsense that is anthropogenic climate change.
Considering climate change is a natural phenomenon, rather than a man made one, except of course when DARPA and DOD and the deep state continually perform chem trails, weather manipulation, dews, attempting to change the climate. Cyclone bombs, a months rain in a day, severe flooding, fires due to “drought”? But actually initially started with dews as in Hawaii. GeoengineeringWatch.org
yes folks keep buying the man made climate change garbage or start reading Professor Willie Soon’s research and other of his fellow scientists who say otherwise.
The whole fiasco is a scam to squeeze as much money out of taxpayers as possible.
The saddest part is the naivety of the Britsh public, brainwashed beyond repair.
We need a damn good blackout to wake people up from their apathy.
I agree – I think it would really help focus peoples attention