The ABC thinks particulates and toxins are GHGs…

Greenhouse gases are continuing their steady rise, and the climate is stubbornly refusing to play the game:

The amount of global warming-causing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere rose to a new high in 2010 and the rate of increase has accelerated, the UN weather agency said on Monday.

Levels of carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas and major contributor to climate change – rose by 2.3 parts per million between 2009 and 2010, higher than the average for the past decade of 2.0 parts per million, a new report by the World Meteorological Organisation found.

“The atmospheric burden of greenhouse gases due to human activities has yet again reached record levels since pre-industrial time,” said WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud. (source)

No emotive language there. Despite the fact that emissions have risen significantly over the last decade or so, the increase in global temperature has slowed significantly. This alone is sufficient to demonstrate that the hypothesis of “dangerous global warming” is false. As Bob Carter explained in a recent email exchange:

The greenhouse hypothesis, which is almost never formulated correctly in the public discussion, but is “That human carbon dioxide emissions are causing dangerous global warming”. 

Given that the mixing time of the atmosphere is ~1 yr, and that physical radiative effects are instantaneous, a 10 year period is plenty of time to test that hypothesis. And the data that I cited invalidate it.

Note that that DOESN’T mean that humans have no effect on global temperature, because we know they do. What is indicated is that that effect is small, and for the time being lost in the noise of natural variation of the climate system.

So it is fortunate, then, that there is no chance of any global agreement on reducing emissions in the near future, because it would be a complete and utter waste of time and money. Headline of the day, in The Guardian, is not exactly what their moonbattish environmental staff would like to be writing a few days before Durban:

“Rich nations give up on climate treaty until 2020”

Governments of the world’s richest countries have given up on forging a new treaty on climate change to take effect this decade, with potentially disastrous consequences for the environment through global warming.

Ahead of critical talks starting next week, most of the world’s leading economies now privately admit that no new global climate agreement will be reached before 2016 at the earliest, and that even if it were negotiated by then, they would stipulate it could not come into force until 2020.

The eight-year delay is the worst contemplated by world governments during 20 years of tortuous negotiations on greenhouse gas emissions, and comes despite intensifying warnings from scientists and economists about the rapidly increasing dangers of putting off prompt action.

After the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009 ended amid scenes of chaos, governments pledged to try to sign a new treaty in 2012. The date is critical, because next year marks the expiry of the current provisions of the Kyoto protocol, the only legally binding international agreement to limit emissions.

The UK, European Union, Japan, US and other rich nations are all now united in opting to put off an agreement and the United Nations also appears to accept this. (source)

Hang on a minute, didn’t Julia Gillard sell her carbon tax on the premise that Australia was lagging behind the rest of the world? Ah, that was a lie, wasn’t it? In fact, we are at the bleeding edge of climate madness, with our economy set to haemorrhage billions of dollars over the next forty years thanks to a pointless carbon tax which morphs into an ETS, neither of which will do anything for the climate. What it will do, however, is send thousands of jobs overseas, and funnel your hard-earned taxes to developing countries. Great move.

Barely a month after the carbon tax was passed into law, the chance of any global deal, on which all the highly favourable treasury modelling was based, has evaporated. What was that about the rest of the world following Australia’s lead? Greg? Hello?

The reality is that there is no chance of a “global deal” on anything. With 190-odd countries’ competing interests battling it out, the possibility of reaching an agreement about something as simple as what colour the sky is today is all but impossible.

At least this gives us all some breathing space. The Coalition will repeal the carbon tax in 2013, and a few cold winters in Europe and the US, combined with ever increasing fuel poverty, will finally force their governments to think twice about setting nonsensical renewable energy targets. Politicians will begin to realise that adaptation might be a better way of allocating valuable and scarce resources, rather than mitigation which simply won’t work.

By the way, if you would like to relive some of the dramas of Copenhagen, go here.

No hope

What is the government’s carbon tax modelling based upon? Global trading of emissions by 2016 (see here). What is the chance of that? Zero.

Not only is Kyoto about to fall apart, but the divisions between developed and developing countries as to who should bear the greatest burden of emissions cuts are as wide and unbridgeable as ever:

U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres lauded a climate change meeting in Panama as “good progress” this weekend, even as environmental activists warned that the world’s only structure for curbing greenhouse gas emissions appears about to crumble.

The next time diplomats meet, it will be in Durban, South Africa, in December for the year’s final climate change summit. There, countries must finally decide what they have put off for several years: the future of the Kyoto Protocol.

“South Africa is the tipping point in terms of the future of the climate regime,” said Tasneem Essop, international climate policy advocate for the World Wildlife Fund in South Africa. [Just like Copenhagen and Cancun were both the “last chance” for a deal – Ed]

The 1997 treaty requires carbon emission cuts from industrialized countries, and the first phase of the agreement ends in 2012. Developing countries are adamant that a second commitment period is non-negotiable. Moreover, they insist any follow-up should closely hew to the original agreement: Wealthy countries must agree unilaterally to cut steeper emissions, and poorer ones would cut carbon voluntarily after financial assistance from the rich. (source)

The fragility of the global negotiations on climate change only make Labor’s pointless carbon tax seem all the more ridiculous.