PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT
Donald Trump’s recent announcement that he was pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord was met with dismay by many around the world. But Mr Trump has done what few politicians are capable of by actually doing what he pledged prior to being elected. Many businesses would agree with President Trump, saying that the agreement was ‘a self-inflicted major economic wound.’
The UN Climate Change conference in Paris in November 2015 was a last-ditch and desperate attempt to get any kind of agreement and by getting the reluctant developing nations on board. These annual climate conferences have been going on now for over 22 years. Each symposium, in mostly exotic locations, have seen tens of thousands of delegates flying in for the gatherings and creating thousands of tonnes of additional and unnecessary emissions. Their personal carbon footprints are the polar opposite of what they claim to be aiming for, a reduction in greenhouse gases to prevent the calamities of global warming.
The Paris Accord had many objectives, among them an agreement for nations to have targets in reducing emissions. But these were written into the treaty as being voluntary, not legally binding, and there are no penalties for failure. That of course does not include the UK and Scotland who recklessly passed legally-binding Climate Change Acts in 2008. China, one of the world’s biggest polluters through its heavy use of fossil fuels, said it would not be reducing its emissions until after 2030.
Scientists have said that the ‘promises’ made in Paris amount to less than half of what is essentially needed to stop a litany of runaway global disasters. We may be inclined to ask where the rest is to come from? Population control? Consider the statistical data: 1995 – 5.7billion; 2017 – 7.5billion; 2050 – 9.7billion; 2100 – 11.2billion.
A key aspect of getting the developing nations to agree to the Paris Accord was the commitment from the richest nations to contribute £78billion every year to the Green Climate Fund. This was aimed in helping poorer countries make the costly shift to cleaner energy sources and to shore up defences against the impact of climate change. The UK promised £720million but President Trump has now withdrawn America’s £2.3billion.
Already, many East European states – amongst them Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – are mounting a behind-the-scenes revolt against the Paris Agreement.
America is now energy independent, with its abundance of shale gas. Mr Trump’s desire to un-mothball many coal mining sites in the US by making them fully operational again is vindicated if we consider the enormous tonnage of coal exported to Europe, America’s best customer. Europe relies, too, on Russian gas for one-third of all its supplies. Coal, oil and gas are the nemesis of the green lobby.
China, which accounts for 30 per cent of global emissions, is deliberately leaving its coal reserves in the ground for a rainy day. Meanwhile, it is importing coal from America and Africa. A host of countries – China, India, Japan, Germany, South Korea, South Africa, Turkey, the Philippines, as well as countries within the EU – have plans to build an additional 1,892 coal-fired plants to the existing 3,722.
The theory of global warming and climate science has become almost a religion with a cult following, while the renewables revolution has been an environmental disaster. EU countries are planning to significantly increase the number of trees they cut down and burn, thus greatly reducing the forest carbon sink they would otherwise provide. They have completely ignored the fact that new trees will take 20 years to grow before they absorb the equivalent of the CO2 released by burning.
Crucially, without American financial support the Paris Agreement will collapse. It will do so because other Western countries will be unwilling to shoulder a share of the £2.3bn that the U.S. will no longer contribute.
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