IPCC Now Claims All Warming Since End Of Little Ice Age Is Man-Made
In this newsletter:
1) Denying Nature: IPCC Now Claims All Warming Since End Of Little Ice Age Is Man-Made
Climate Scepticism, 9 October 2018
2) Australia Rejects IPCC Energy Policy Prescriptions
The Australian, 9 October 2018
3) President Trump Sceptical About IPCC Authors
AFP & Daily Mail, 9 October 2018
4) IPCC Report Confirms Lord Lawson: Extreme Weather Events Have Not Increased
Michael Bastasch, The Daily Caller, 8 October 2018
5) Despite IPCC Warning, Europe Is Pulling Back Climate Ambition
Dave Keating, Forbes, 8 October 2018
6) Global Health Warning: Who Guidelines Cast Doubt Over Future Of Wind Farms
The Australian, 10 October 2018
7) Bjorn Lomborg: IPCC Ignores Economics Of Climate
The Wall Street Journal, 10 October 2018
8) Melanie Phillips: BBC Censorship And The Man-Made Global Warming Scam
Melanie Phillips, 8 October 2018
9) BBC Director General: ‘We Will Not Give In To Green Pressure’
Daily Mail, 9 October 2018
Full details:
1) Denying Nature: IPCC Now Claims All Warming Since End Of Little Ice Age Is Man-Made
Climate Scepticism, 9 October 2018Jamie Jessop
Much has been written about the newly released IPCC Special report on global warming of 1.5C, in the media and on blogs ranging from sceptical, to not so sceptical, to climate consensual, to downright alarmist. Much more will be written I am sure. This is just a short(ish) post on my initial impressions upon reading the Summary for Policy Makers and some of Chapter 1.
After the Introduction, the authors get straight down to business with this statement:
A1. Human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8°C to 1.2°C. Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate. (high confidence) {1.2, Figure SPM.1}
So straight away, we have an attribution statement with regard to the net warming (approximately 1C) since 1850. SR15 ‘estimates’ that humans caused all of it!
Where did this come from? There is no precedent in AR5 WG1, which talks mainly about attribution of warming since 1950. Note that, unusually for the IPCC, there is no level of confidence attached to this statement.
We have to go to the text in Chapter 1 to seek further enlightenment on this somewhat puzzling and out of the blue attribution statement. [….]
So the very first sentence of the SR15 Summary for Policy Makers, after the Introduction, consists of a statement which is not well supported by the totality of the available scientific literature and which is at odds with the IPCC’s own findings in the AR5 Working Group 1 Report of just 5 years ago! Not a good start.
Full post
2) Australia Rejects IPCC Energy Policy Prescriptions
The Australian, 9 October 2018
Graham Lloyd
A special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has championed a quick end to coal-fired power across the world and found that unprecedented changes in all aspects of society were needed to meet the lower Paris Agreement target limiting warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
The Morrison government yesterday welcomed the report but stood by coal-fired power generation and defended Australia’s record in meeting its international emissions reduction targets.
“If we take coal out of our energy system, the lights will go out on the east coast of Australia — it’s as simple as that,” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said.
The IPCC special report said rising temperatures were already affecting the weather in some places and there would be a big difference in the impacts on all aspects of the natural world from a 2C increase, compared with a 1.5C rise. Warm-water coral reefs would be more than 99 per cent gone with a rise of 2C, but some might survive at 1.5C.
The special report is set to become a central focus of a campaign to encourage countries to increase their ambition under the Paris Agreement, starting in Poland in December. At present, Paris Agreement pledges would lead to global temperature increases of more than 3C.
The Australian government said the report justified the controversial decision to spend $444 million protecting the Great Barrier Reef.
Environment Minister Melissa Price said the IPCC report was designed to inform policy makers but was not “policy prescriptive”.
The Prime Minister defended Australia remaining a signatory to the Paris Agreement, arguing it would not have any impact on electricity prices. But he said Australia would not be held to any of the IPCC report conclusions.
“We are not held to any of them at all, and nor are we bound to go and tip money into that big climate fund,” Mr Morrison told 2GB radio.
Full story
3) President Trump Sceptical About IPCC Authors
AFP & Daily Mail, 9 October 2018
President Donald Trump says he plans to review the UN report that warns of global warming-caused chaos unless drastic action is taken – although he says he’s skeptical of its authors.
‘It was given to me and I want to look at who drew it, which group drew it,’ Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday, as he left for an Iowa campaign rally.
‘Because I can give you reports that are fabulous and I can give you reports that aren’t so good,’ he said. ‘But I’ll be looking at it, absolutely.’
President Donald Trump says he plans to review the UN report that warns of global warming-caused chaos unless drastic action is taken – although he says he’s skeptical of its authors.
The landmark report released Monday said that time is running out to avert climate-induced disaster.
The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) declared it had ‘high confidence’ in its predictions.
But as of Tuesday evening, Trump said he has not read it yet.
It was Trump’s first reaction to the report, which says that the Earth surface has warmed one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) and is on track toward an unliveable (sic) 3C or 4C rise.
The Trump administration has dismantled emissions reduction policies domestically, and vowed to ditch the Paris treaty on attempting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. However, Washington did not obstruct the report, as some had expected.
Many in Trump’s Republican party are self-described climate change skeptics, questioning whether the overwhelming consensus of scientists around the world about manmade causes for ever-rising temperatures is accurate.
Full story
4) IPCC Report Confirms Lord Lawson: Extreme Weather Events Have Not Increased
Michael Bastasch, The Daily Caller, 8 October 2018
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change’s (IPCC) newly-released climate report, once again, found little to no evidence global warming caused many types of extreme weather events to increase.
“The IPCC once again reports that there is little basis for claiming that drought, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes have increased, much less increased due to” greenhouse gases, University of Colorado professor Roger Pielke, Jr. tweeted Sunday night.
For example, the IPCC’s report noted that “there is only low confidence regarding changes in global tropical cyclone numbers under global warming over the last four decades.” Pielke pointed out this inconvenient data.
Much like the IPCC’s 2013 climate assessment, the new special report confirmed what Pielke and others have said for years about the relationship between global warming and extreme weather.
But don’t expect to hear that from many other media outlets, especially those that often cite individual weather events as evidence of man-made warming.
For example, The Washington Post’s write-up of the IPCC’s report focused on the mainline findings — namely, that “the world is woefully off target” to keep future global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The New York Times highlighted the IPCC’s warning of “a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040.”
Neither WaPo nor NYT mentioned the report’s findings on extreme weather.
The IPCC’s new report is meant to sound the alarm on global warming ahead of the UN climate summit, which is to be held in Poland this December. Delegates are expected to make further commitments to implement the Paris climate accord that calls for limiting future warming below 2 degrees Celsius by 2100.
Aside from dire predictions, however, the IPCC’s new report also noted that many types of extreme weather events are not getting worse.
When it comes to droughts, for example, the IPCC admits there is “low confidence in the sign of drought trends since 1950 at global scale. The report says there are “likely to be trends in some regions of the world,” including increasing droughts in the Mediterranean and decreasing droughts in parts of North America.
The IPCC also noted there is “low confidence due to limited evidence, however, that anthropogenic climate change has affected the frequency and the magnitude of floods.” The report added that “streamflow trends since 1950 are non-statistically significant in most of the world’s largest rivers.”
However, the report’s authors warned that future warming could exacerbate extreme weather and hurt the global economy. The report’s authors also claimed extreme weather had already increased, contrary to much of their own evidence.
Full story
5) Despite IPCC Warning, Europe Is Pulling Back Climate Ambition
Dave Keating, Forbes, 8 October 2018
The energy sector in Europe has been keenly awaiting the release of a long-term climate strategy document from the European Union, due to be released in November. This week a draft of the strategy has been leaked to the media, and it has environmental campaigners furious.
The strategy was expected to contain a headline goal of getting the EU to ‘net zero’ emissions by 2050.
Under such a scenario, any carbon emissions in the EU would be offset by actions elsewhere in the globe to lower the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, such as planting forests or using carbon capture and storage technology to trap carbon underground.
However in the draft strategy, the net zero goal is presented as just one of three possible options for the EU’s long-term climate target. The other two options are an 80% emission reduction by 2050 or reaching net zero emissions by 2070. The strategy will be published by the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch. It would need to be considered by the European parliament and EU national governments.
Worryingly for climate campaigners, the net zero by 2050 option is presented as the most ambitious of the three. The EU rarely chooses the most ambitious of scenarios presented in such strategy documents, which are usually seen as pointing toward the middle option…
German Resistance
German Chancellor Angela Merkel had come out publicly against the idea of raising the 2030 target, after significant pressure from German industry association BDI. It is thought that German pressure forced the Commission to shelve the plan.
Merkel’s increasing role as a spoiler for EU climate ambition is reportedly causing friction between her and her environment minister Svenja Schulze, who said today the IPCC report shows “we must not waste any more time on climate protection”…
But with the 2030 target raise now apparently off the table, and the EU’s long-term 2050 strategy watered down, many are now concerned the EU will be coming to the summit without the ability to pressure other parts of the world into more ambitious action.
Full post
6) Global Health Warning: Who Guidelines Cast Doubt Over Future Of Wind Farms
The Australian, 10 October 2018
Graham Lloyd
Global health authorities have finally recognised what residents living near wind farms have been saying for years; the noise they emit is more than an inconvenience, it is a risk to health.
WHO Europe chief Zsuzsanna Jakab said “more than a nuisance, excessive noise is a health risk — contributing to cardiovascular diseases, for example.”
This is exactly what multiple researchers have been saying about wind turbines but to date they have been routinely ridiculed or ignored.
This is the first time WHO has made recommendations regarding wind turbines.
The Organisation highlighted that a lack of quality research had made the task more difficult.
But for average noise exposure, the WHO conditionally recommended “reducing noise levels produced by wind turbines below 45 dB , as wind turbine noise above this level is associated with adverse health effects.”
No recommendation was made for average night noise exposure because the quality of evidence of night-time exposure to wind turbine noise was too low to allow a recommendation.
To reduce health effects, the WHO conditionally recommends that policy-makers implement suitable measures to reduce noise exposure from wind turbines in the population exposed to levels above the guideline values for average noise exposure.
Although the WHO recommendations were drawn up for Europe, they are relevant for the rest of the world because they are based on data from various continents, the WHO said.
The WHO findings add to difficulties already faced by the wind industry regarding noise impact on nearby residents.
An immediate concern is the finding of an independent review the Bald Hills wind farm in South Gippsland was causing harm to some neighbours.
Regardless of what happens next the finding of nuisance under the Public Health and Welfare Act has already spurred threats of a class-action suit.
With recognition by the World Health Organisation of potential health impacts, the outlook for wind farm developers is looking increasingly fraught.
Full story
7) Bjorn Lomborg: IPCC Ignores Economics Of Climate
The Wall Street Journal, 10 October 2018
The global economy must be transformed immediately to avoid catastrophic climate damage, a new United Nations report declares. Climate economist William Nordhaus has been made a Nobel laureate. The events are being reported as two parts of the same story, but they reveal the contradictions inherent in climate policy—and why economics matters more than ever.
Limiting temperatures to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels, as the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change urges, is economically and practically impossible—as Mr. Nordhaus’s work shows.
The IPCC report significantly underestimates the costs of getting to zero emissions. Fossil fuels provide cheap, efficient power, whereas green energy remains mostly uncompetitive. Switching to more expensive, less efficient technology slows development. In poor nations that means fewer people lifted out of poverty. In rich ones it means the most vulnerable are hit by higher energy bills.
The IPCC says carbon emissions need to peak right now and fall rapidly to avert catastrophe. Models actually reveal that to achieve the 2.7-degree goal the world must stop all fossil fuel use in less than four years. Yet the International Energy Agency estimates that in 2040 fossil fuels will still meet three-quarters of world energy needs, even if the Paris agreement is fully implemented. The U.N. body responsible for the accord estimates that if every country fulfills every pledge by 2030, CO2 emissions will be cut by 60 billion tons by 2030. That’s less than 1% of what is needed to keep temperature rises below 2.7 degrees. And achieving even that fraction would be vastly expensive—reducing world-wide growth $1 trillion to $2 trillion each year by 2030.
The European Union promises to cut emissions 80% by 2050. With realistic assumptions about technology, and the optimistic assumption that the EU’s climate policy is very well designed and coordinated, the average of seven leading peer-reviewed models finds EU annual costs will reach €2.9 trillion ($3.3 trillion), more than twice what EU governments spend today on health, education, recreation, housing, environment, police and defense combined. In reality, it is likely to cost much more because EU climate legislation has been an inefficient patchwork. If that continues, the policy will make the EU 24% poorer in 2050.
Trying to do more, as the IPCC urges, would be phenomenally expensive. It is important to keep things in perspective, challenging as that is given the hysterical tone of the reaction to the panel’s latest offering. In its latest full report, the IPCC estimated that in 60 years unmitigated global warming would cost the planet between 0.2% and 2% of gross domestic product. That’s simply not the end of the world.
The new report has no comparison of the costs and benefits of climate targets. Mr. Nordhaus’s most recent estimate, published in August, is that the “optimal” outcome with a moderate carbon tax is a rise of about 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. Reducing temperature rises by more would result in higher costs than benefits, potentially causing the world a $50 trillion loss.
Full post
8) Melanie Phillips: BBC Censorship And The Man-Made Global Warming Scam
Melanie Phillips, 8 October 2018
This evening, an important lecture is being delivered in London on the subject of man-made or anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory.
If you follow BBC news programmes, you are extremely unlikely to hear anything about this important lecture.
That is because the scientist delivering it is saying that man-made global warming theory is a scam.
BBC policy is to report no challenge to AGW theory at all. The explicit statement of this policy was set out in a four-page memo by Fran Unsworth, the BBC’s Director of News and Current Affairs, which was leaked to Carbon Brief last month.
This memo maintained that man-made climate change “exists” and no-one proposing the contrary view – offensively termed a “denier” – was needed to balance the debate. “To achieve impartiality, you do not need to include outright deniers of climate change in BBC coverage, in the same way you would not have someone denying that Manchester United won 2-0 last Saturday. The referee has spoken.”
In true Soviet fashion, the BBC will now indoctrinate its journalists into misreporting the issue. It will be “offering all editorial staff new training for reporting on climate change. The one hour course covers the latest science, policy, research, and misconceptions to challenge, giving you confidence to cover the topic accurately and knowledgeably”.
In itself, this is absolutely astounding. In the BBC’s mindset, propaganda is fact and scientific facts are propaganda. Censoring information like this goes against the most fundamental BBC rules of fairness. It goes against the most fundamental rules of journalistic objectivity. And it goes against science itself. The widespread claim that “the science is settled” on AGW is scientifically illiterate. Science is never settled but is always subject to fresh discovery, analysis and challenge….
The man delivering tonight’s lecture is one of the most eminent climate scientists in the world. He is Richard Lindzen, who until his retirement in 2013 was Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of over 200 papers on meteorology and climatology and is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He has consistently drawn attention to the fact that AGW theory is a sham and a scam.
Full post
9) BBC Director General: ‘We Will Not Give In To Green Pressure’
Daily Mail, 9 October 2018
The BBC will not give in to pressure to omit views felt to be ‘beyond the pale’, director-general Tony Hall said last night.
The Corporation was found to have breached its editorial guidelines last year by ‘not sufficiently challenging’ climate change sceptic Nigel Lawson on Radio 4’s Today programme.
The former Chancellor of the Exchequer claimed ‘official figures’ showed average world temperatures had fallen and there had not been an increase in extreme weather events for ten years.
Former Chancellor of the Exchequer inaccurately (sic!) claimed ‘official figures’ showed there had not been an increase in extreme weather events for ten years.
But Lord Hall said the BBC would not start airing ‘one-sided arguments’ to appease the majority. He told the Society of Editors: ‘Our impartiality does not mean we strike some sort of false balance, but that we reflect all contributions to a debate.
‘So no equivalence between the climate change sceptic and the overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion. But no exclusion of viewpoints because they’re generally felt to be beyond the pale.’
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