Climate change: a touch of realism
By Richard North - November 7, 2022
I didn’t really want to return to the subject of CoP 27 so soon, when the issue has about as much allure as a tour of a lunatic asylum.
Mind you, the last time I did such a tour (of a lunatic asylum), I was trailing slightly behind my group, clipboard in hand, when an inmate marched up to me, looked me in the eye and declared: “You’re a c**t”. My host, a senior official at the hospital, was most apologetic, but the only thing that really disturbed me was the unanswered question: how on earth did the inmate know?
No such question need trouble us about the intervention of the Oaf at the conference: his status has been common knowledge for some considerable time. But the man seems to be keen to reinforce this reputation as he prepared to deliver a speech urging that “the mission to drive down fossil fuel use must not be disrupted by war in Ukraine and ‘corrosive cynicism’”.
He is, we are told, to use his appearance at the Cop27 on Monday to warn against the “naysayers” who threaten “his” net zero ambitions, adding that a “corrosive cynicism” is jeopardising efforts to wean the world away from fossil fuels. Not content with that, he will also call for the West to fight against a “defeatism” over climate change, which he blames on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
There is no polite response to this, although in respect of his comments on “corrosive cynicism”, one might tell him to look in the mirror. But more generally, one might simply mutter, sotto voce, “well, you can f**k right off”, and move on, in anticipation that this presumptuous intervention will do more harm to the Oaf’s cause than good.
As a suitable counter to the Oaf, though, we have a lengthy opinion piece in The Times expressing the paper’s view on CoP 27 and net zero, encapsulated in two words: “Getting real”, with the sub heading telling us that “a healthy dose of realism is needed in the climate debate if public support is to be maintained”.
Starting with the premise that the Paris Agreement on limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels, isn’t going to happen – not that there is an accurate way to measure global temperature, but then that’s another story.
The reason for over-running the target is, in part, the paper says, thanks to the eye-watering emissions of China, which belches nearly as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the United States and Europe combined.
In that context, it opines, there is a need for some realism in the British climate debate, declaring: “Measures to accelerate the transition towards net zero need to be tested with careful cost-benefit analysis”.
The Oaf aside, the paper warns that politicians need to be realistic, specifically about what difference Britain can make. Here, it reminds us of a point which cannot be emphasised too often, that the UK is responsible for about 1 percent (actually slightly less) of global emissions.
Thus, much of the supposed benefit of achieving net zero at home is in setting an example abroad, an ambition first articulated by Blair back in the late 90s. Unable to take the UK into the euro, because his chancellor Gordon Brown wouldn’t let him, this facile man instead chose global warming as his instrument of influence, seeking to lead Europe in setting an example to the rest of the world on how to destroy your economy.
Ever since then, we’ve been saddled with this political virtue signalling on an industrial scale, which is being pursued with vigour, even though the chances of China, India and most other developing countries following suit are next to zero – the only “net zero” which these countries will consider.
Thus, The Times at last gets the point: it would be a challenge to persuade voters to accept a big hit to living standards in service of preaching rights alone, it says, adding that: “the risk that ordinary citizens disengage from the climate issue will be all the more acute if they are relentlessly bombarded with apocalyptic pronouncements in the style of Greta Thunberg”.
This is a good point well made. Outside the Westminster bubble, and away from the “Just Stop Oil” evangelists and others of their ilk, ordinary people are sick to the teeth of being hectored on climate change, even those who accept that there might be a problem.
Even then, the paper can’t help itself, dropping into the familiar warmist rhetoric about a pressing need to invest in cost-effective technologies “that help citizens live safe and prosperous lives on a warmer planet”. It even goes so far as to refer to the Climate Change Committee – that hotbed of evangelist warmism masquerading as an “expert body”.
It has recently warned of a “gap” in plans for such adaptation measures, which has the paper warbling about restoring peatlands that absorb carbon, ensuring that the electricity system is resilient enough to cope with more extreme weather, and investing in flood defences.
Abroad, the paper tells us, it can mean introducing hardier crop strains, better warning systems for extreme weather events, and infrastructure for lugging fresh water to remote areas in periods of dry weather. Helping developing countries to access finance for these projects should be a priority, it says.
It was too much to hope that the paper could then stick to its theme about “realism”. In its view, Sushi has “rightly” urged world leaders to accelerate the switch to renewable energy sources, reducing the need for adaptations in the first place.
From these, it’s downhill all the way, with the paper laboriously concluding that, if Britain were to ditch its “net zero” targets, then hopes of persuading less developed countries, including China, to tack faster towards green technology may dissolve.
Despite its earlier comments, it simply doesn’t seem to be able to come to terms with the reality it seeks and acknowledge that hell will freeze over before China and others follow the Western world in its determination to commit economic suicide.
That leads us to the question that the paper poses by way of a conclusion: how to get to “net zero” in a way that the public can afford, and can back, in the real world. But there is no way: the antidote to suicide is simply not to commit suicide.
Meanwhile, I suppose the Russians have solved Ukraine’s “net zero” problem for it, having deprived more than 4 million citizens of that beleaguered country of their power, by dint of knocking out most of the thermal generation plants.
On this basis, one might venture that there is a quick way for our politicians to achieve their “net zero” ambitions. In the way that Hitler’s Luftwaffe was so helpful to our town planners in clearing slums during the London Blitz, they could invite Putin to send his missiles over here to blow up our power stations – except, in respect of many of the coal-fired units, our own politicians got there first.
And that really is the defining characteristic of “net zero”. While the likes of Ukraine are suffering terminal damage to their infrastructure through hostile action, our politicians are doing the same thing here, voluntarily – in plain sight – in a grotesque form of virtue signalling. Putin could do no worse.
Needless to say, developing countries will applaud our self-immolation, as they build their own industries to replace those that we have destroyed, while demanding shed-loads of cash by way of reparations, to “compensate” for their chronic inabilities to manage their own affairs.
Sushi is already planning to pledge £65.5 million for green technology in developing countries, but this could only be a down payment as a Downing Street source says Sushi is planning to “scale up progress and support” for developing countries suffering the worst effects of global warming.
Yet, if The Times thinks it would be a challenge to persuade voters to accept a big hit to living standards in service of “net zero”, our Westminster Muppets – of which Ed Miliband is one – might care to consider how people might react when hard-pressed taxpayers are forced to pay for our “climate sins” abroad, while people here can’t afford to heat their homes.