United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made many misinformed remarks about climate science during his time in office. However, his December 5th statements at the UN Climate Change Conference in Qatar set a new low for the U.N. chief.
“The climate change phenomenon has been caused by the industrialization of the developed world,” said Ban. “It’s only fair and reasonable that the developed world should bear most of the responsibility.”
“Climate change is happening much, much faster than one would understand,” he added. “The science has plainly made it clear: it is the human beings’ behavior which caused climate change, therefore the solution must come from us.”
Ban is wrong on all counts.
As anyone who has followed the issue knows, the United Kingdom’s Met Office, considered to be the gold standard for world climate data, announced recently that there has been no overall warming, or cooling, of the planet for about 16 years. The November 29th open letter to the Secretary General from, now, 134 experts “qualified in climate-related matters” explained, “Global warming that has not occurred cannot have caused the extreme weather of the past few years.
The scientists continued, “Whether, when and how atmospheric warming will resume is unknown. The science is unclear. Some scientists point out that near-term natural cooling, linked to variations in solar output, is also a distinct possibility.”
Professor Bob Carter of James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, describes the uncertainty: “Science has yet to provide unambiguous evidence that problematic, or even measurable, human-caused global warming is occurring. Consequently, any agreements to reduce humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions are utterly futile.”
It is not simply the view of outlier skeptics, or “deniers” as climate campaigners mistakenly dismiss them. Many mainstream experts now view the climate scare as hopelessly misguided.
Professor Ole Humlum of the Institute of Geosciences at the University of Oslo, Norway, is a good example.
“Today’s climate debate is essentially about the relative influence of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2) versus natural climate variations,” says Humlum. “In my mind, there is no doubt that the data available clearly show that the natural variations are the dominant of these two factors, including during the last few years. The net temperature effect of our CO2 emissions appears to be insignificant.”
As demonstrated by the Nongovernmental International Climate Panel on Climate Change (www.nipccreport.org), authored in part by Carter, warming alarmism has largely been fueled by computer-generated representations that bear little relationship to today’s climate or to its observed history.
If this is correct, and the scientists signing the open letter believe it is, then developed nations are in no way guilty of causing climate change that developing nations claim they are suffering. Climate changes all the time—warming and cooling—due to natural causes, and there is nothing that we can do to stop it. However, to the degree possible, and considering our economic circumstances, developed nations still have a moral obligation to devote a proportion of their foreign aid to helping the world’s most vulnerable people adapt to natural climate events.
Carter sums up, “Governments need to recognize that the really dangerous climate hazards are natural events and change, and to prepare more fully to adapt to them when they occur.”
No matter one’s political persuasion, no one wants to pour money down the drain on a non-issue. Yet, it is happening as a result of the climate scare. Expensive and ineffective wind and solar power projects are receiving vast government financial support across the world in the belief that they will reduce the CO2 emissions that are wrongly blamed as a cause of dangerous global warming. Meanwhile, conventional power sources that we need for our very survival are deliberately starved of support. That is very dangerous.
As nearly all independent observers have now concluded, a new approach is needed to address climate change. The no-regrets solution is that nations should prepare for and adapt to the onset of damaging climate-related events and change as and when they occur, however caused.
Instead, most of the negotiations underway across the world are focused on vainly trying to stop what might happen decades in the future, instead of what is happening right now. It is irrational and, for the many people who need help today, immoral.
