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Friday, April 14, 2017

GWPF Newsletter: Paris Accord Is A Dead Deal Walking As $100 Billion Climate Fund Disappears








China's New Coal Boom

In this newsletter:

1) Paris Climate Accord Is A Dead Deal Walking As $100 Billion Climate Fund Disappears
The American Interest, 11 April 2017 
 
2) Emerging Nations Urge Trump Administration To Honour Obama’s $100 Billion Climate Funding Pledge
Reuters, 11 April 2017
 
3) No Consensus: G7 Energy Ministers Fail To Agree On Climate Change
Daily Mail, 10 April 2017 
 
4) Trump’s Climate Demands Roil U.S. Allies
Politico, 11 April 2017 
 
5) China’s New Coal Boom: China’s Coal-Conversion Plants Surge Back To Life 
Financial Times, 12 April 2017
 
6) British Anti-Fracking Campaigners Lose High Court Battle
ITV News, 12 April 2017 

Full details:

1) Paris Climate Accord Is A Dead Deal Walking As $100 Billion Climate Fund Disappears
The American Interest, 11 April 2017 

Shocking news—the magic $100 billion climate fund appears not to be taking shape! Even optimistic estimates sat the fund is $40 billion short, and developing countries say that understates the problem. 

The Financial Times:

Climate ministers from Europe, India, Brazil and South Africa have gone to Beijing in recent weeks, hoping to sustain momentum from the Paris talks despite the Trump administration’s dismantling of US regulations meant to limit American emissions.

But discussions have quickly run up against the issue of financing.  “Developed countries have not met their commitments. In their reports a lot of their commitment is in the form of development aid. That doesn’t meet the commitment to contribute to new funds,” China’s top climate change negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, told a briefing on Tuesday. “A lot of countries don’t want to chip in. I said to the European minister: that’s your problem as developed countries. It’s your responsibility to work together and sort it out.”

First world donors have been busily relabeling other foreign aid as contributions to the climate kitty. For developing countries, this is a cheat — they expect $100 billion in new money.

Or, to put it more accurately, they are not nearly stupid and naive enough to believe the lies Western diplomats tell when trying to bamboozle naive green voters at home that they are “Doing Something” about climate change. So they don’t really expect all that money, but hope to use these commitments to pry something out of the West. Also, since the West will certainly default on these bogus commitments, developing countries have all the justification they need to blow off their own commitments when the time comes.

This, one notes, is the house of cards that the last Administration claimed was a big piece of its legacy.

Full post

2) Emerging Nations Urge Trump Administration To Honour Obama’s $100 Billion Climate Funding Pledge
Reuters, 11 April 2017

China, Brazil, India and South Africa have urged industrialized countries to honor financial commitments made in Paris in 2015 to help developing countries fight against global climate change, they said in a statement on Tuesday.



Following a meeting in Beijing, climate change ministers from the “BASIC” bloc of four major emerging economies called on rich countries “to honor their commitments and increase climate finance towards the $100 billion goal”, and said more clarity was needed to “track and account for” those pledges.

Climate financing was a major bone of contention during negotiations to seal a new global deal to curb and reduce climate-warming greenhouse gases in Paris at the end of 2015, with China and other developing nations adamant that the bulk of the burden should fall to advanced industrialized nations like the United States.

As part of the Paris deal, developed countries agreed to make more funding available to a Green Climate Fund (GCF), which is designed to be used by poor and climate-vulnerable countries.

But the agreement has been plunged into uncertainty after U.S. President Donald Trump, who has questioned the scientific basis of global warming, last month proposed an end to payments to the GCF and signed an order to undo climate change regulations introduced by his predecessor.

At a media briefing after the Tuesday meeting, South Africa’s deputy minister of environmental affairs, Barbara Thompson, said recent changes in U.S. policy were “of major concern”.

But “the position of the U.S. is still very unclear to us”, she said, adding “we believe there are different views within the U.S. administration” on this issue.
At the same briefing, China’s chief climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua, insisted China remained willing to work closer with the United States.

Xie told Reuters after the briefing that he expected China and the United States to hold talks on climate issues, and that discussions were going on at multiple levels.

Joint pledges made by China and the United States, the world’s two biggest emitters of climate-warming greenhouse gases, helped bridge the gap between developed and developing countries and provided the momentum to seal the deal in Paris.

Full story

3) No Consensus: G7 Energy Ministers Fail To Agree On Climate Change
Daily Mail, 10 April 2017 

G7 energy ministers have failed to agree a statement on climate change this afternoon because of ‘US reservations’, it has emerged.

Top officials from the Group of Seven industrial nations gathered in Rome, Italy today amid growing concerns over the US administration’s moves to unravel policies aimed at stalling global warming.

Environmental activists fear US President Donald Trump is dismantling Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which aimed at reducing carbon pollution from power plants.

Greenpeace was holding a sit-in outside Monday’s meeting, calling on officials to maintain their commitments to reduce greenhouse gases under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

However, the US ‘reserved its position’ on the text about commitments made by G7 countries under the Paris accord, said Carlo Calenda, the Italian minister for economic development, who chaired the meeting in Rome.

The ministers’ agenda had called for discussion of energy security, policies to move away from coal, natural gas routes and supply, sustainable development of electricity sources, alternative fuel scenarios and energy access and investments in Africa.

Lacking unanimity, Italy, which currently presides the Group of Seven, decided against proposing the joint statement, Calenda said.

Full story

4) Trump’s Climate Demands Roil U.S. Allies
Politico, 11 April 2017 

Documents show the administration pushed other G-7 countries to embrace larger roles for nuclear power and fossil fuels. They refused.

Andrew Restuccia
Fracking looks set to go ahead at Preston New Road. Credit: ITV News 
Shale company Cuadrilla originally made an application to drill up to four wells at Preston New Road.

The plan was supported by Lancashire County Council officials but turned down by the planning committee.

But following a public inquiry, the planning inspector recommended the scheme.

Environmentalists and local campaign groups reacted angrily to the decision, which they said went against the wishes of residents.

Full story

The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.

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