By John Acher, Reuters
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday negotiators had just 10 days left to secure a global climate deal and governments must not be hindered by domestic troubles.
The United Nations hopes to bring 190 governments together in early December in Copenhagen to finalize a deal on greenhouse gas emissions to replace provisions of the Kyoto Protocol expiring in 2012. “There are just 10 negotiating days left until we come to Copenhagen,” Ban said, referring apparently to the remaining days of September 28 to October 9 climate talks under way in Bangkok and to a November 2-6 meeting in Barcelona.
“In 10 days we need to decide what needs to be done for our future,” he said in a speech at Copenhagen University. “We are not there yet. There is still a lot to be done and not much time left,” he said during a visit to Denmark’s capital to meet Danish officials and speak to an Olympic Congress.
Ban said a proposal to hold extra talks in November on financing for a climate deal was still under consideration. “I see a value and importance of having that kind of last pressure effort,” he said. “But we have to first of all see how these negotiations in Bangkok come out.”
Ban said responsibility for reaching a deal rests on governments all of which, he added, face domestic challenges. “Now is not the time to look at domestic challenges, we must look at global challenges that will impact the whole world,” the South Korean secretary-general said. Ban said success depended on the United States, though he recognized that U.S. President Barack Obama could have difficulty pushing through the necessary legislation in time for the December Copenhagen meeting.
“It is true, a fact of life, that without U.S. participation, this deal cannot be done,” Ban said when asked what the world should do if the United States did not join. The United States stayed outside the Kyoto Protocol when it was adopted in 1997, but Ban said this time all countries, “without exception,” should join.
“We must have a comprehensive deal,” he said.
“Now it seems it may be difficult for President Obama to come with strong authority (to Copenhagen) because this bill is still in the Senate. “They might not be able to do that by the end of this year, but that should not give the United States an excuse not to do it.”
See this nonsense from one of many fools on the world stage here. See the draft of the new UN treaty with its new and improved wealth transfer and dignity penalty excerpted and in its entirety linked on WUWT here. You may like our congressman not have the opportunity to read our Health Care or Cap-and Tax bills (sorry Barbara and John, this is no jobs bill) before they vote on them, but you do have the chance to read what the UN plans for Copenhagen. If only the United States and the other world nations would have the sense to tell the UN NO, the world would be a much better place. The people of each nation should be allowed, armed with the real truth to make the choice of what is best for them. The UN in order to achieve its goal of one world governance and dominance has helped concoct this phony threat with bad or no science. They should be dissolved, or at least weakened, relegated to the role of arbitrating disputes and peace keeping and removed from the shores of this still for now great nation.
Norm Kalmanovitch of Calgary expresses well in this note to Dr. Benny Peiser of CCnet, what should be done is the UN was an honest not agenda driven broker:
This whole issue is about media manipulation and painting us as lackeys to the energy industry and enemies of the environment. Since the Environmentalists do nothing for the Environment except protest anything to do with energy, and scientists actually do the studies and put in place practices that actually improve the environment, we should be called “Environmental Stewards” and change the debate to a battle between those who improve the environment and those who do nothing except protest and cause harm to the global population.
The Calgary Chamber of Commerce through Friends of Science and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, hosted a presentation by Lord Christopher Monckton titled “Apocalypse Cancelled; The Overheated Hype behind Global Warming”.
There were four members of the Alberta Provincial Legislature recognized by the host prior to the presentation. During his presentation, Monckton asked by a show of hands for those who did not support the concept of human caused global warming, and there was a unanimous response; when he asked for the supporters not a single hand went up.
The Alberta Government is spending $2billion in taxpayers’ money for CCS (carbon capture and sequestration). The rational given by the government for this ridiculous wastage is the IPCC, which they use as their sole basis for scientific support to the exclusion of all with contrary evidence. This means that members of the Alberta Legislature believe in human caused global warming, yet none of the four members in attendance raised their hands to show support for the government position.
This presentation puts the Members of the Legislature in the awkward position of being exposed to the hard physical facts that contradict their own government position. The simple question is what will they do when they get back to the Legislature? The government is already so committed to this endeavour with projects that are already underway, that it is a physical impossibility for the government to stop the process through political means without losing power.
This is the dilemma facing all world governments, no informed leadership can be unaware of the fact that the Earth is cooling in spite of the continued increase in global CO2 emissions, but all leaders are committed to doing something about “Climate Change” otherwise they will be put out of office. There is only one possible way out of this conundrum. The IPCC was formed under a “science mandate” and under this mandate science protocol demands that all postulations are backed up with physical facts. Since the physical facts clearly demonstrate that there is no possible connection between CO2 emissions and global warming, the IPCC must declare that it is not in the world’s interest to continue with Kyoto Initiatives to stop global warming because global warming has already stopped. Since the IPCC is the sole reference for all governments on this issue, this retraction will allow governments to put an end to the wastage without losing power. It is up to the IPCC to put an end to this fraud, and the world must force them to do so, or be held accountable for the food crisis, the economic crisis, and all of the other detrimental effects to the world population caused by this misrepresentation of facts.
There is a curious coincidence revealed by Lord Monckton. Monckton points to direct measurements in a new paper by Professor Richard Lindzen that shows the effect of doubling CO2 will produce less than 0.5C of possible warming, in contrast to the model predictions of over 3C. This is only one sixth of the catastrophic temperature predicted by the IPCC, and certainly nothing to worry about since at the current rate of 2ppmv/year it will take 193 years for this doubling and 0.5C temperature increase to occur.
Over 20 years ago the whole global warming issue was started by climate models that used a forcing parameter based on 0.6C of observed warming from a 100ppmv observed increase in atmospheric CO2. The world has been warming since the Little Ice Age at a rate of about 0.5C/century, and since the observed warming of 0.6C took place over a century the 0.5C must be subtracted to determine the temperature increase attributable to CO2.
Since this is only 0.1C but the climate models are based on 0.6C the climate models have a forcing parameter that gives CO2 increases six times the forcing than what the measured values allow. It is this false six fold overstatement of the effect from CO2 that underlies the entire premise of AGW alarmism, and it has taken over two decades to finally develop physical proof that the models overstate global warming by a factor of six.
Since the work by Lindzen has clearly passed rigorous peer review, and unlike the MBH98 Temperature Proxy, there has not been a single piece of evidence, that contradicts the assertions of the Lindzen Paper, The IPCC has no choice because of its scientific mandate to discard the computer model projections and accept the six fold decrease in projected warming from CO2 as the physical basis for all further reports. This will put an end to global warming fallacies, and give world governments the “out” that they need to stop these wasteful policies addressing a problem that does not exist.
By Susan Ferrechio, Washington Examiner
Senate Democrats appear ready to follow the House playbook for passing contentious global warming legislation by trading pollution allowances for votes. But even with the aide of this tactic, the bill is unlikely to pass this year.
The draft legislation circulated by Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and John Kerry, D-Mass., includes a requirement for steep emissions cuts, but does not stipulate how emission allowances will be allocated. Instead, those details will be filled in as Democratic Senate leaders work to strike deals with their moderate faction, many of whom are reluctant to support a “cap and trade” system, particularly while the jobless rate continues to climb.
House Democratic leaders successfully used this negotiation strategy earlier this year to narrowly pass their own cap and trade bill, winning votes in exchange for free allowances for manufacturing and coal plants as well as oil refineries.
Senate Democrats have so far given the global warming bill a lukewarm reception. Sens. Jay Rockerfeller, of West Virginia and Tom Carper, of Delaware, told The Examiner the bill’s requirement of a 20 percent reduction rate in emissions is too high and should reflect the 6 percent reduction experts say has occurred as a result of the economic downturn. “Fourteen percent is closer,” Rockerfeller said, signaling the emissions cut he would support. Carper, who also wants the bill to provide incentives for clean-coal plants, said the Boxer-Kerry bill “is not the end, it is the beginning of the process,” and would have to be modified to win his support.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he wants to try to pass a global warming and energy reform bill by the end of the year. “This is an opportunity for Boxer and Reid to use all of those allocations to buy votes,” said Matt Dempsey, spokesman for Sen. James Inhofe, of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the panel that will draft the bill. Inhofe sent a letter Tuesday to Boxer, the committee chair, calling for “a fair, open, and transparent process so we can have a debate on the facts and the substance of legislation with all its provisions, no matter how politically sensitive they may be.”
Republicans concede Boxer will likely be successful in passing the global warming bill out of her committee before December, when President Obama heads back to Copenhagen for a climate change summit. But Senate passage is very much uncertain, with many moderate Democrats, including Sens. Ben Nelson, of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana, simply unwilling to support a cap and trade policy. The bill must also clear the Senate Agriculture Committee, chaired by Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., who told the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association earlier this month that she is opposed to the cap and trade legislation passed by the House.
“It is a deeply flawed bill, and I will not support similar legislation in the Senate,” she said. Passing a global warming bill in the Senate this year, Lincoln said Wednesday is “going to be tough. Real tough.” Read post here.
EPA
LOS ANGELES - U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson will announce today in a keynote address at the California Governor’s Global Climate Summit that the Agency has taken a significant step to address greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act. The Administrator will announce a proposal requiring large industrial facilities that emit at least 25,000 tons of GHGs a year to obtain construction and operating permits covering these emissions. These permits must demonstrate the use of best available control technologies and energy efficiency measures to minimize GHG emissions when facilities are constructed or significantly modified.
The full text of the Administrators remarks will be posted at www.epa.gov later this afternoon.
“By using the power and authority of the Clean Air Act, we can begin reducing emissions from the nation’s largest greenhouse gas emitting facilities without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the vast majority of our economy,” said EPA Administrator Jackson. “This is a common sense rule that is carefully tailored to apply to only the largest sources - those from sectors responsible for nearly 70 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions sources. This rule allows us to do what the Clean Air Act does best - reduce emissions for better health, drive technology innovation for a better economy, and protect the environment for a better future - all without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the better part of our economy.”
These large facilities would include power plants, refineries, and factories. Small businesses such as farms, restaurants and many other types of small facilities would not be included in these requirements.
If the proposed fuel-economy rule to regulate GHGs from cars and trucks is finalized and takes effect in the spring of 2010, Clean Air Act permits would automatically be required for stationary sources emitting GHGs. This proposed rule focuses these permitting programs on the largest facilities, responsible for nearly 70 percent of U.S. stationary source greenhouse gas emissions.
With the proposed emissions thresholds, EPA estimates that 400 new sources and modifications to existing sources would be subject to review each year for GHG emissions. In total, approximately 14,000 large sources would need to obtain operating permits that include GHG emissions. Most of these sources are already subject to clean air permitting requirements because they emit other pollutants.
The proposed tailoring rule addresses a group of six greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).
In addition, EPA is requesting public comment on its previous interpretation of when certain pollutants, including CO2 and other GHGs, would be covered under the permitting provisions of the Clean Air Act. A different interpretation could mean that large facilities would need to obtain permits prior to the finalization of a rule regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
EPA will accept comment on these proposals for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.
For the proposed rules and more information go here.
Icecap Note: This is part of not so subtle administration pressure on congress to approve a Cap-and-Tax program where they can maintain more control and benefit from revenues from carbon limitations. All this despite no peer review proof ever that carbon dioxide can have or has had any major effect on the world’s climates.