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« Deniers no more | Main | AGU prioritises the unethical over the critical »
Sunday
Apr132014

Working Group III

The Working Group III Summary for Policymakers is being launched at the moment.

I've had a quick glance through it and it looks thoroughly political. Take these headings for example:

Sustainable development and equity provide a basis for assessing climate policies and highlight the need for addressing the risks of climate change
Effective mitigation will not be achieved if individual agents advance their own interests independently
The SPM can be seen here.

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Reader Comments (95)

Here's the BBC's take:

World must end 'dirty' fuel use - UN
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27008352

Comments are open.

Apr 13, 2014 at 11:18 AM | Unregistered CommenterJames Evans

So the new meme is to be 'affordable'.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/13/averting-climate-change-catastrophe-is-affordable-says-ipcc-report-un
As in, 'it's so affordable that we should do it anyway'. Err... Really? Without subsidies?

What happened to 100 days to save the planet? Are we still going to fry? Maybe Richard 4-degrees Betts, or Mark 6-degrees Lynas or some of the hysterical 10-degree-ers could pitch in?

Apr 13, 2014 at 11:25 AM | Unregistered CommenterStuck-Record

No shortage of volunteers to spend other peoples' money.

Apr 13, 2014 at 11:51 AM | Unregistered CommenterJoe Public

Is it me or do those charts of declining CO2 look very much like a hopelessly optomistic dieters plan. 'And if I limit myself to just one square of chocolate a month I should have reached my perfect weight by June... I'll just have one last really naughty meal before I start. Or maybe start Tuesday because Monday I've got that thing...'

Apr 13, 2014 at 12:07 PM | Unregistered CommenterTinyCO2

"What happened to 100 days to save the planet? Are we still going to fry? "

Julia Sligo is one of the signatories to a letter in The Times today saying there is a 50% chance of a 5C rise in temp in the next century.

Apr 13, 2014 at 12:14 PM | Unregistered CommenterTed

Environmentalist = helpful fool
Journalist = might just report the real back room goings on!

Mailman

Apr 13, 2014 at 12:15 PM | Unregistered CommenterMailman

IPCC have form on distorting the science - which makes me sceptical of their report.

Apr 13, 2014 at 12:22 PM | Unregistered Commenteralan kennedy

You might get in if you called yourself a reporter? A reporter might....ummmm report? A journalist - thats a curse I think and I would be very suspicious of any output. Its like a variable without bounds.

cheque please !

Apr 13, 2014 at 12:34 PM | Unregistered CommenterEx-expat Colin

Nicholas Owen, BBC News, the headlines:

Scientists are calling for a big shift to renewable energy as a solution to the problems caused by global warming.

Co-chair of IPCC WG III Otto Edenhoffer, a few minutes later:

My first message is: emissions are still increasing, and they are increasing with an increasing growth rate. The second one is: we - economic growth and population are drivers for emission, and they have outpaced the improvements of energy efficiency. And over the last decade we have seen an increasing use of coal.

And if we want to achieve ambitious climate policy goals around the 2-degree target, we have to depart from this baseline scenario. And for that we need a broad set of technologies - renewables, carbon capture and storage, bioenergy, nuclear power, energy efficiency.

And also the institutional challenges are huge, because we need international cooperation and, at some stage, an international carbon price. This is, I hope, in plain language, what this report shows, but I would like to highlight: this report tries to be policy-relevant without being policy-prescriptive. The IPCC has not the mandate to recommend specific policy goals. Instead of that, we argue simply "if... then" - if you want to achieve a 2-degree target, then you have to do that.

"Policy-relevant" in one end, policy-prescriptive ("Scientists are calling for...") out the other.

Apr 13, 2014 at 12:49 PM | Unregistered CommenterAlex Cull

Actual the more extreme the better , outside of China which has no democracy nor any interest in taking any notice of 'climate doom'
The democracies that will need to take on these ideas , are run by people who have two overriding desires , get elected and stay elected , therefore the notion of taking on and pushing policy which will undermine those heart felt desires are 'bad ideas'
And the extreme green ideas which call for massive 'guilt money' and 'massive ' changes to peoples life styles , to drag humans back to some mythical rural past , is a very 'bad idea '

Odd it seem.the madder the badder the better for must people will see them as stupid over reactions and will able to work out for themselves what they actual would mean in pratice.

Apr 13, 2014 at 12:52 PM | Unregistered CommenterKnR

"I wonder what the justification for this decision is."

It's far easier to make plans if you exclude anyone who might bring up reality at any point. The UN are masters at making rules nobody sticks to. I don't suppose it occurs to them that they need to change tactics if they want to change the outcome.

Apr 13, 2014 at 12:54 PM | Unregistered CommenterTinyCO2

I just cannot read this sh*t anymore. The kick off premise is wrong !

Apr 13, 2014 at 12:56 PM | Unregistered CommenterEx-expat Colin

Sorry, got the name wrong, it's Ottmar Edenhofer, not Otto Edenhoffer. Need another coffee...

Apr 13, 2014 at 1:08 PM | Unregistered CommenterAlex Cull

The second one is: we - economic growth and population are drivers for emission, and they have outpaced...

The last time we will hear an UN official talking about population growth, no doubt.

Apr 13, 2014 at 1:15 PM | Registered Commentershub

World must end 'dirty' fuel use - UN

i.e., the poor and others must die.

As Pascal Bruckner in 'The Fanaticism of the Apocalypse' has noted

"We have to save the world from its self-proclaimed saviours who brandish the threat of great chaos in order to impose their lethal impulses".

Apr 13, 2014 at 1:28 PM | Unregistered CommenterAlleagra

I blame Simon Cowell. The ‘I could be successful with the modicum of effort and the public behind me’ crowd. Ignore that you haven't got what it takes. Ignore that everything tried before has been an unmitigated failure. Ignore that those who know you best have stopped listening to you. Just go for it !

‘I’m sorry IPCC, from me it’s a no.’

Apr 13, 2014 at 1:35 PM | Unregistered CommenterTinyCO2

cont.

Aunty BEEB and Granny Guardian are right behind you and if this year you're not a success, there's always COP21 in Paris next year.

Apr 13, 2014 at 2:12 PM | Unregistered CommenterTinyCO2

I have the solution. Everybody should be sterilised so humans can become painlessly extinct in order to leave the Planet for all the other species. That should make all the greenies happy.

Easy!

Apr 13, 2014 at 2:34 PM | Unregistered CommenterDavid Porter

Shock and awe..........................UNEP win again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - crowing at the beeb and offices of the graun'....

So, here's the thing.


Even after, the IPCC 'scientists' say, we think, maybe, somehow soon and if because there is nothing to worry about - thus do the politicians and green sock puppets take over and guess what? Yup, the sky is falling in again, and lo, the ............... solution is............?

More green boondoggles, more taxation and no say whatsoever for [you and me] the little people - got that?


Do as we say but not as we do.

Apr 13, 2014 at 2:50 PM | Unregistered CommenterAthelstan.

Effective mitigation will not be achieved if individual agents advance their own interests independently.

Ah yes, the answer is more central planning. According to a bunch of wannabe central planners. What a shock!

Apr 13, 2014 at 4:06 PM | Unregistered CommenterBloke in Central Illinois

I don't see the BBC or the Guardian fretting about China's crash-build coal-fired power station orgy.
Is it because they make all those nice windmills for us idiots in the West?

Apr 13, 2014 at 4:29 PM | Unregistered CommenterDon Keiller

Bish writes:

Donna Laframboise notes that journalists were excluded from the four-day meeting in Berlin at which the SPM was finalised. Environmentalists, however, were not.

I wonder what the justification for this decision is.

'Twas ever thus, Your Grace. It's part and parcel of the IPCC's idea of "transparency".

No doubt, the climate choreographers have been working overtime to ensure that this latest SPM conformed to their great expectations. Pls See:

Climate politics choreography

At this point, I think it's safe to say, we could probably write the still to be published SPM of the so-called "Synthesis Report" for them.

Apr 13, 2014 at 4:34 PM | Registered CommenterHilary Ostrov

IPCC DRAFTING AUTHORS - JUST 16 X GERMANS!!
More of a WWF\Greenpeace rally.

Ottmar Edenhofer (Germany)
Thomas Bruckner (Germany)
Steffen Brunner (Germany)
Felix Creutzig (Germany)
Patrick Eickemeier (Germany)
Manfred Fischedick (Germany)
Jochen Harnisch (Germany)
Susanne Kadner (Germany)
Stephan Klasen (Germany)
Volker Krey (Austria/Germany)
Jan Minx (Germany)
Steffen Schlömer (Germany)
Christoph von Stechow (Germany)
Timm Zwickel (Germany) 
Elmar Kriegler (Germany)
H.‐Holger Rogner (Austria/Germany)

Apr 13, 2014 at 4:36 PM | Unregistered CommenterFay Tuncay

Igor Alexeyevich Bashmakov (Russia).

Would that negate the report? He couldn't possibly be right on anything...could he?

Anybody up for sanctions and flying a few Tornado kites at the Russian AD radars.

Apr 13, 2014 at 4:53 PM | Unregistered CommenterEx-expat Colin

Donna picks up a photo from Hilary on September 26, 2013 showing activists present at an earlier IPCC discussion. The crucial point she adds is that journalists are not present. It can be the most obvious points that elude us sometimes. That is really major, thanks to both Canadians.

Apr 13, 2014 at 4:57 PM | Registered CommenterRichard Drake

So the chapters of the SPM are mitigation, mitigation and more mitigation. I guess adaptaton, adaptation and more adaptation is in Working Group IV.

Apr 13, 2014 at 5:23 PM | Unregistered CommenterMartyn

Was there a UK boycott? Just 5 x UK authors:-

John Broome (UK),
Jim Skea (UK) 
Pete Smith (UK)
Giovanni Baiocchi (UK/Italy)
Kevin Chika Urama (Nigeria/UK)

What does this tell us? Perhaps our protests are having an effect on UK academia.

Apr 13, 2014 at 5:42 PM | Unregistered CommenterFay Tuncay

Aren't the BBC allowed in? After all, they're environmentalists not journalists, aren't they?

Apr 13, 2014 at 5:47 PM | Unregistered Commentermike fowle

Wasn't there a single journalist who thought of posing as an environmentalist in order to gain access?

Apr 13, 2014 at 5:55 PM | Unregistered CommenterStonyground

IPCC is a bit like the UN Human Rights Commission. Ever looked at who is on the Human Rights Commission.

Apr 13, 2014 at 5:58 PM | Unregistered CommenterLeon0112

The IPCC must be sponsored by Big Wind...

Apr 13, 2014 at 6:14 PM | Unregistered CommenterSC

Just read the Summary, boy is it turgid and dull, gives all the vested interests the chance to "adjust" the message to suit their agendas.

But, some optimism may be in order, give the greenies some more windmills and solar, business as usual elsewhere, a bit like charging for supermarket bags.

Apr 13, 2014 at 6:29 PM | Unregistered CommenterMikky

BBC News now is "stretching" the truth about the benefits of a "greener" future.

Apr 13, 2014 at 6:42 PM | Unregistered CommenterRob Schneider

Some woman being interviewed on the BBC said something along the lines of we must just "walk a little more, drive a little less" .

This is dishonesty of the worst kind. There can not possibly be any of the sort of reductions they are demanding unless industry and transport worldwide has a massive shutdown, making life as we know it ... well, "unsustainable".

There is no "little more, little less" option for the result these people want.

Apr 13, 2014 at 6:50 PM | Unregistered Commenterkellydown

I wonder what plans the UN has for replacing the internal combustion engine?
I'm confident of one thing: the required advances in technology are more likely to come from Formula One racing than from the IPCC.

Apr 13, 2014 at 7:28 PM | Unregistered Commentermichael hart

Because environmentalists tell journalist what to say.

Apr 13, 2014 at 7:37 PM | Unregistered CommenterBrute

I have not been here for several months due to pressure of work, however the BBC reporting of this IPCC nonsense has left me furious!

"We need to triple renewable energy or we are all going to fry. 97% of climate scientists whose jobs depend on it agree with this statement." (I paraphrase).

Please let us get the FACTS right:

1. There is no empirical evidence to support the man made global warming (MMGW) hypothesis.

2. It is mathematically impossible to numerically simulate a poorly defined, highly multivariate, closely coupled, non-linear, chaotic system. Met Office climate models have demonstrably been falsified by nature.

3. Trenberth's radiative physics analogy is laughably incorrect. Any physics graduate can explain this to you.

4. "Greenhouse gas" is a misnomer (apart from the fact that CO2 is added to greenhouses to make the plants grow faster). Greenhouses inhibit convection - the atmosphere does not. Higher concentrations of CO2 will be beneficial to humanity and will have a negligible effect on the climate, as evidenced by the differences between deserts and tropics at equatorial latitudes - which have not changed during the instrumental record.

5. The planet has been both much warmer and much colder over the last 1000 years, as shown by the evidence of human activities. Nothing much is happening (to borrow Rhoda's hypothesis).

Finally, with the brainwashing of school students in the news, I suggest the following A level physics question to 18 year old students:

a) How much has the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increased in your lifetime?
b) How much has the average temperature of the Earth increased in your lifetime?
c) How much of (b) was due to human activity?
d) Explain the physical principles behind your answers.

N.B. (d) is a trick question.....

Rant over.

Apr 13, 2014 at 7:37 PM | Unregistered CommenterRoger Longstaff

"I wonder what plans the UN has for replacing the internal combustion engine?
I'm confident of one thing: the required advances in technology are more likely to come from Formula One racing than from the IPCC."

Air pollution laws will become 'stifling' for the motor car...................

Apr 13, 2014 at 8:59 PM | Unregistered CommenterAthelstan.

I noted this tweet from Richard Tol:

https://twitter.com/RichardTol/status/455358480267100160

Stood up by TV. They found a problem bigger than climate change: Ukraine. At last my message is getting through.

Apr 13, 2014 at 9:43 PM | Unregistered CommenterIt doesn't add up...

Anyone with a bit of memory and reflective capacity will tell you english gardens never were so green and lush with plant life.

Don't take my word for it, consult your family photo book

Apr 13, 2014 at 10:23 PM | Unregistered Commenterptw

"I wonder what plans the UN has for replacing the internal combustion engine?
I'm confident of one thing: the required advances in technology are more likely to come from Formula One racing than from the IPCC."

Air pollution laws will become 'stifling' for the motor car...................

Apr 13, 2014 at 8:59 PM | Unregistered CommenterAthelstan.

Running out of fossil fuel might also be inconvenient.

Apr 13, 2014 at 10:36 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

I noted this tweet from Richard Tol:

https://twitter.com/RichardTol/status/455358480267100160

Stood up by TV. They found a problem bigger than climate change: Ukraine. At last my message is getting through.
Apr 13, 2014 at 9:43 PM | Unregistered CommenterIt doesn't add up...

There is a link.

In 2010 extreme weather damaged Russia's grain harvest. They exported nothing, the grain price rocketed and food riots triggered a revolution in Egypt.
Russian harvests have improved, but there has been ongoing weather damage.

Ukraine is the world's 4th largest corn producer and 6th largest grain producer. I doubt that Putin's interest in a neighbouring breadbasket is purely political.

Apr 13, 2014 at 10:52 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

strange how entropic man could never admit that there is no problem - all he wants to do is to blame people on the Bishop Hill blog for not being as credulous/stupid/intolerant as he is. What evidence does he have for his views versus the centuries of evidence that sceptics have on their side, when climates have varied drastically and yet humans and polar bears and elephant seals have managed to survive - cf Prof Parker's recent book."Global Crisis"

Apr 13, 2014 at 11:25 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes

"I wonder what the justification for this decision is."

They skated past justification and swooshed directly to obfuscation.

Business as usual.

Apr 13, 2014 at 11:49 PM | Unregistered Commenterg1lgam3sh

Is this summary report from Berlin the final one ?

As I understand it the WG1 report process went like this :
1. Scientists write Summary report.
2. Bureaucrats , politicians & NGOs go to Stockholm - October 2013, to do the line by line game.
( 10 pages of alterations needed for the various chapters so they align with modified Summary, go back to chapter
editors )
3. Between Oct 2013 and March 2014 UN , NGOs and Govts revise Summary again.
4. New revised report goes to Yokohama for another 4 day line by line game.
5.Final Summary released.

Did a similar process occur for the WGII Summary before the highly political Summary was released ?

Apr 13, 2014 at 11:49 PM | Unregistered CommenterRoss

EM, and how would you describe everyone else who is ignoring the issue entirely? Or those who swear it's real but have bigger CO2 footprints than anyone here? Are you overwhelmed by the indifference? And we're not stingy, we'd give any amount of your money towards the problem. It's what your side does all the time, commit other people's money to their obsession and then feel virtuous about it.

Apr 13, 2014 at 11:51 PM | Unregistered CommenterTinyCO2

Diogenes et al

The same science which supports climate change also supports quantum mechanics, atomic theory and electronics. If that science is wrong, none of the technology you use to deny it would function.

There is also disappointment, that a soi-disant philosopher does not appreciate his own logical fallacy. Hundreds of years of past natural climate variation does not exclude the possibility of human-induced climate change now.

On a practical level your rejection of mitigation commits you to adaptation, a much more expensive option, involving much more damage to our civilisation. Enjoy! :-)

Apr 13, 2014 at 11:52 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

Tiny CO2 et al

To the credit of those here, you are taking an active interest in the problem.

Most of humanity think no farther than immediate problems or immediate gratification, which is why we have dug ourselves into this hole.

Apr 14, 2014 at 12:01 AM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

If CO2 causes global warming then it is the independent variable. Try plotting a graph of CO2 concentration on the X axis and global temperature on the Y axis (use the IPCC data since 1850). Publish that and be a Climate Change Hero!

Apr 13, 2014 at 11:55 PM | Unregistered CommenterGraeme No.3

Already done. Look at page 4 here.

www.spaceupdate.com/activities/EU07_temp_vs_co2.pdf

Apr 14, 2014 at 12:14 AM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

"Running out of fossil fuel might also be inconvenient.
Apr 13, 2014 at 10:36 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man"

Not going to happen this century, EM. There's an awful lot of coal down there.

Apr 14, 2014 at 12:53 AM | Unregistered Commentermichael hart

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