It’s difficult to determine what was accomplished at the recent UN conference on climate change in Bali. The UN claimed historic progress, as all countries signed on to the “Bali Roadmap.” Canada and the U.S. were initially pilloried for their stubborn resistance to Kyoto yet, by the end of the conference, they were hailed as the new global leaders in the battle.
But this roadmap won’t save the world from destruction by a few bouts of bad weather. It’s just an empty promise to keep talking; it contains no targets or time frames for cutting CO2 emissions and is essentially an agreement for Western nations to implement emissions quotas if developing nations such as China and India agree to the same.
This “I’ll do it, if you do it first” type of agreement isn’t exactly an indication we are now buying into the UN’s climate change game (as the UN claims), but inking any deal on this issue is still an implicit endorsement of the UN’s scientific policies at a time when increasing numbers of scientists are coming forward to say that the UN’s plans are fundamentally flawed and more rooted in ideology than science.
A recent issue of Nature, one of the best scientific journals, published a paper that calls for an end to the Kyoto Accord and warns against creating any similar agreements that are geared toward targets and timetables for cutting CO2 emissions. The authors say Kyoto is a “symbolically important expression” of concern, but it’s “the wrong tool for the job.” A major flaw is the simplistic assumption that global emissions quotas are the best way to confront climate change.
A second concern is the validity of the UN reports that are the foundation for discussions and policy-making at international meetings such as Bali.
The scientific reports are generated by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the UN body dedicated to combating global warming. They are written by scientists but the Summary for Policymakers, which is the working document for politicians and negotiations, is not. It’s drafted by policymakers and its simplistic interpretations are more reflective of UN ideology than science. Scientists don’t vet the summary, which means there is plenty of opportunity for bureaucrats to manipulate and distort the scientific conclusions, and draft alarmist statements that have no finding in fact.
A third problem stems from the UN’s claim that more than 2,500 scientists have contributed to and/or reviewed the reports. There is no mention as to whether they concur or disagree with the data presented, but in The UN Climate Change Numbers Hoax, an Australian researcher crunches the numbers.
The UN claimed 2,500 scientists supported a key study that stated, “Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years.”
Yet only 62 of the 2,500 scientists reviewed the chapter containing that statement, and 55 of those had “serious vested interests” in the report. Even so, almost 60 per cent of these experts submitted critical reviews that UN editors refused to include in the final report.
Hence, when the news media proclaim that 2,500 scientists say global warming is related to human causes, the general public is alarmed and politicians feel obligated to take action — on what may be the wrong conclusion.
A final concern is that the IPCC’s premise on climate change specifically excludes any notion that natural factors might also be contributing to global warming. As such, one scientist who is one of the UN’s 2,500 expert reviewers says the entire process is a “swindle” and “fundamentally corrupt.” By failing to consider or acknowledge factors other than human causes, the process is, by definition, biased and unscientific.
Can you imagine putting all our breast cancer research funds into one study that considers only outside causes and deliberately ignores the natural physiological factors at play within the human body? We wouldn’t do it for cancer, so why are we so willing to do it with the UN’s scientifically corrupt studies on climate change? The Bali agreement is a symbolic victory for politicians. But it comes at the expense of valid science and therefore demonstrates the real problem at the heart of global warming: Choosing political expediency/ideology over science. It begins with fudging the scientific conclusions in UN reports and continues at international conferences as politicians commit to meaningless actions to appease the growing global warming anxiety among their people.
Canadians are entrusted with protecting some of the most spectacular and unique environments in the world. We can’t afford to implement faux solutions that have no scientific basis. It’s time to part ways with the UN and create our own solutions.
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