China Ramps up Coal-Fired Energy Production Nullifying Efforts to Reduce CO2

INNER MONGOLIA, CHINA - NOVEMBER 04: Smoke billows from a large steel plant as a Chinese labourer works

at an unauthorized steel factory, foreground, on November 4, 2016 in Inner Mongolia, China. To meet China's targets

to slash emissions of carbon dioxide, authorities are pushing to shut down privately owned …Kevin Frayer/Getty

JAMES DELINGPOLE

China is planning massively to ramp up its coal-fired energy production. This makes a nonsense of claims by gullible Western politicians and dishonest environmental activists that China is as keen as anyone to do its bit to ‘combat climate change.’

Bloomberg reports that China now has enough coal-fired power plants in the pipeline to match the entire capacity of the European Union, ‘driving the expansion in global coal power and confounding the movement against the polluting fossil fuel.’

It says:

The nation has almost 148 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity under active construction or likely to be resumed after being suspended, Global Energy Monitor, a non-profit group that tracks coal stations, said in the report Thursday based on plant-by-plant data. That’s almost equivalent to 150 gigawatts of existing coal fleet capacity in the EU and more than the combined 105 gigawatts under construction in the rest of the world, it said.

In contrast to many other countries, including the U.K.’s pledge to shut all coal plants by 2025, Beijing remains committed to coal as its biggest source of power, representing a major challenge to global emissions reduction targets. Its additions in the 18 months to June dwarf declines elsewhere in the world, according to the report.

None of this will come as the slightest surprise to climate realists. One of their main arguments against concerted government action by the West to decarbonise its economies is that it takes no account of emerging economies like India’s and, especially, China’s. Any attempts to cut carbon dioxide production in Western economies are more than offset by the growth in China’s CO2 output.

This was predicted in a report published last year by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

As the report’s author, Patricia Adams explained:

“The Chinese have spent a lot of money on renewables without results on anything like the scale required. So despite their continuing outward support for the green agenda, China is actually going all out for fossil fuels. The Communist Party’s grip on power depends on it.”

In his foreword to the paper, former U.S. Ambassador and U.S. special envoy to the UNFCCC Dr Harland Watson said:

“Many in the environmental community look to China to assume the role of global climate leader. But Patricia Adams questions China’s interest in assuming this role as the need for continued economic growth means securing new energy supplies will take priority over climate change concerns.”

The report was, of course, largely ignored by the mainstream media which prefers to listen to ‘experts’ like Nicholas Stern.

Only three years ago Nicholas Stern – amusingly billed by the Guardian as ‘an eminent climate economist’, even though his infamous ‘Stern Report’ has been widely discredited for its poor understanding of climate science and economics – was hailing China’s ‘Coal Peak’ as a ‘Turning point in the history of the world’.

The Guardian‘s July 2016 report began with a flourish:

The global battle against climate change has passed a historic turning point with China’s huge coal burning finally having peaked, according to senior economists.

They say the moment may well be a significant milestone in the course of the Anthropocene, the current era in which human activity dominates the world’s environment.

China is the world’s biggest polluter and more than tripled its coal burning from 2000 to 2013, emitting billions of tonnes of climate-warming carbon dioxide. But its coal consumption peaked in 2014, much earlier than expected, and then began falling.

According to ’eminent’ economist Stern, this was a key moment in the war on climate change:

“I think it is a real turning point,” said Lord Nicholas Stern, an eminent climate economist at the London School of Economics, who wrote the analysis with colleagues from Tsinghua University in Beijing. “I think historians really will see [the coal peak of] 2014 as a very important event in the history of the climate and economy of the world.”

Except, of course, that it wasn’t and it isn’t. China wants economic growth and feels under no obligation to kowtow to the green sky fairy invented by activists in the West to justify their fixation with renewable energy.

This tension between green aspirations and economic reality is only likely to intensify.

According to a separate report, produced by the Stockholm Environment Institute, growing fossil fuel output is likely to ‘swamp’ any attempts agreed by the Paris Climate Accord to limit global CO2 output.

 Oil, gas and coal output already planned or in the pipeline will overwhelm efforts to cap global warming at levels consistent with a liveable planet, the UN and leading research groups warned Wednesday […]

[…] “We show for the first time just how big the disconnect is between Paris temperature goals and countries’ plans and policies for coal, oil and gas production,” said lead author Michael Lazarus, director of the Stockholm Environment Institute’s US Center.

This “production gap”—between output in the pipeline and the Paris climate goals—is largest for coal, according the report, a joint project by the UN Environment Programme and four climate change research centres.

Countries plan to produce 150 percent more coal by 2030 than would be consistent with a 2C world, and 280 percent more than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5C.

Greta Thunberg can wag her little index finger all she likes. The global economy just isn’t listening.

Ottawa Needs to Boost Carbon Tax by $50 a Tonne to Meet Emissions Reduction Targets

This was predictable, and was certainly well-known in the Liberal caucus for years. This is how climate alarmists work. They convince you that you need to sacrifice part of your lifestyle to save the planet and you no sooner agree when they tell you you need to give much more. And it will never end. It will continue until gasoline is no longer affordable to the middle class and the poor. That's the plan. Canada has bought into it thanks to climate alarmism. It will happen in other countries as soon as you elect a left-wing government.

'There's a gap' between federal policy and the Paris target, says PBO Yves Giroux

John Paul Tasker · CBC News

A flare stack lights the sky from the Imperial Oil refinery in on Dec. 28, 2018. On Thursday, a parliamentary budget officer report said Ottawa would have to levy an additional $50 per tonne carbon tax on emissions if Canada wants to meet reduction targets. (Jason Franson/Canadian Press)

The federal government would have to levy an additional carbon tax worth as much as $50 a tonne on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to achieve Canada's emissions reduction targets, the parliamentary budget officer (PBO) said in a report released Thursday.

Canada is a signatory to the Paris climate agreement, which committed virtually every country to lowering emissions to try to halt the effects of climate change. Under that agreement, Canada has committed to lowering emissions by some 30 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

Lowering our GHG emissions by 30% will make no difference either to the weather in Canada or globally. Canada produces less than 2% of the world's anthropogenic GHG emissions. Total global anthropogenic CO2 emissions makes up 3 - 4 % of all the CO2 that enters the atmosphere. 2% of 3.75 = 0.075%. 30% of that would be a reduction of about 0.025%. That's one quarter of one-tenth of one per cent! Any temperature difference as a result of that will not be measurable. How much are we willing to pay for 'no difference'?

In real terms, that would mean lowering GHG emissions from 732 megatonnes to 513 megatonnes by 2030, a target initially pitched by the former Conservative government and agreed to by Environment Minister Catherine McKenna at the Paris climate talks.

The PBO said the problem is the government's current policies and measures just aren't enough to get the country to that promised level. Under the PBO projections, based on the government's current carbon tax and other promised policy fixes, Canada will only get to 592 megatonnes — leaving a shortfall of 79 megatonnes.

Wait a minute! I'm confused. Why is the Parliamentary Budget Officer considered an expert on climate change?

The government's policy states that every province and territory should have some sort of carbon pricing scheme — and it has stepped in to impose a carbon pricing levy in hold-out provinces with conservative governments like Ontario, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and two territories.

And on January 1, 2020 - Alberta.

But the PBO said Ottawa would have to go further still with the addition of a separate, more broadly based carbon tax, starting at $6 per tonne in 2023 before rising to $52 per tonne in 2030.

That would be on top of the current carbon price, which is worth $20 per tonne of emissions this year and rises incrementally to $50 by 2022.

It also would mean those living in those four provinces, and those living in provinces with their own pricing mechanisms, would have to pay as much as $102 per tonne by 2030 to ensure Canada hits the Paris targets — which are meant to keep the planet from warming more than 2 C from pre-industrial levels.

Carbon levy could lead to higher gas prices

A total carbon price of $102 per tonne — which includes the government's carbon price and this new, PBO-suggested levy — would result in an additional hike to gas prices of as much as $0.23 per litre by 2030.

Supporters of a carbon tax say the threat of climate change demands action and a revenue-neutral plan of this sort (the current federal carbon tax will be largely rebated to most households) is the best way to shift patterns of consumption away from GHG-emitting fossil fuels. Opponents fear a levy of this sort will be economically damaging and too punitive for consumers and small businesses.

The PBO-pitched carbon levy would be different from the current carbon tax in that the proposed hike would apply more broadly, covering all sectors except agriculture. The current carbon tax is focused largely on fossil fuels like oil, natural gas and propane.

"For illustrative purposes, we've focused on carbon pricing to give an idea to Canadians and parliamentarians as to how much it would cost, or how much effort it would require, to meet the targets under the Paris accord," Yves Giroux, the parliamentary budget officer, told reporters.

"The government has clearly stated its intent with respect to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and it has a plan that goes to 2022, but there's a gap."

McKenna tried to distance herself from the PBO's findings Thursday, saying the government does not intend to rise the carbon price after 2022 even if it's re-elected in the fall.

"The parliamentary budget officer's report has nothing to do with our climate plan. Our climate plan includes a price on pollution. We give the money back to families and 80 per cent of families are better off, especially low- and middle-income families, and we have a whole range of other measures," McKenna said.

I'm not! I live in British Columbia. We don't get that refund. And those who do will find it much less than adequate when gas goes up 23 centiliters.

"The report doesn't represent the approach we've taken, which is to make sure life is affordable, that we're growing the economy and that we're tackling climate change."

In a statement, McKenna said that the government has "no plan to increase the price post 2022. For Conservatives to suggest otherwise is simply false and misleading.

"We will meet our 2030 target through what we are already doing and new measures, including tackling plastic pollution, doubling the amount of nature that we are protecting, investments in clean tech and innovation."

It's not like you will be around long after 2022 anyway.

The PBO agreed carbon pricing alone might not be the only solution and additional regulatory changes could be enacted by the current government or future governments to target particular sectors of the economy.

"There's a multiplicity of regulations that could be implemented, like vehicle efficiency, emissions of electricity generators, subsidies for certain sectors. There's so many policy instruments that are possible ... but regulations also have a cost," he said.

While other measures have been proposed by the government to help reduce emissions, including building retrofits and installation of electric vehicle charging stations, the budget officer said Environment and Climate Change Canada could not say with any sort of accuracy just how much those measures would actually reduce emissions.

The PBO said the projections do not preclude a massive technological breakthrough of some sort that could make this aggressive pricing unnecessary.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said the PBO report demonstrates that the current Liberal environmental policy is inadequate, arguing that the carbon tax will cost Canadians more but will stop well short of helping Canada meet its Paris targets.

"Justin Trudeau's carbon tax would need to be $102 per tonne ... that's five times more expensive than it is today, meaning Canadians will pay more for groceries, home heating and gasoline prices will jump 23 cents a litre," Scheer said in a statement.

Basically, we will pay considerably more for everything that moves.

"Trudeau pretends he has a plan for climate change but it's clear that his carbon tax will not even come close to achieving Canada's emissions reductions targets.The PBO confirmed today that his plan is not as advertised."

Scheer has vowed to scrap the federal carbon tax. He said he'd release a Conservative plan for the environment and climate change on June 19.

Questionable Science in Global Warming Theory - Doesn't Support Carbon Tax

To be right up front - none of this means there is no global warming. There is global warming but it doesn't deserve the hysteria that it is getting; there's another agenda at work here. And the science behind global warming is certainly questionable. For instance, most global warming theorists will not release their computer prediction models so they can be tested by other scientists. Why? Is it because they know they won't stand up to scrutiny? Isn't that what science is all about?

FYI: Carbon isn't pollution

Graham Lane
Winnipeg SUN Opinion Columnists

Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna poses for a photo in her office on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday Nov. 7, 2017.Sean Kilpatrick / Canadian Press

With these facts, it should be impossible to claim, as McKenna does, that human production of CO2 is tipping our climate towards disaster.

Federal Climate Change minister Catherine McKenna, a lawyer, repeatedly uses the term “fighting carbon pollution” to rationalize the Trudeau Government’s obsession with taxing energy consumption.

Tragically, her policy pronouncements reveal enormous ignorance of basic science and economics. Their policy (carbon taxes) will deliberately raise energy costs in a vast often-cold country competing with an burgeoning American economy where its political leadership is going the opposite way — pushing “energy dominance” policies that maximize oil, coal and natural gas production.

No surprise, cheaper American energy policies are creating jobs, manufacturing investment, and raising living standards. McKenna’s energy policies will do the opposite for the Canadian economy, as Ontario and other provinces that have implemented the green agenda know. It will enrich her government and fill the pockets of subsidy-seeking groups and corporate cronies who benefit from damaging Canada’s conventional energy sector.

It's almost impossible to find information on the disaster that Ontario Liberal's Green Energy Act is - locking payments for solar energy contributions to the power grid in for many years at prices far above market value, has made a few people in Ontario very rich, and a whole lot of people poorer. Meanwhile, Ontario hydro rates have more than doubled in the past 10 years, and for some, have more than quadrupled. Canada is far from ready to go completely green and the cost of even attempting to do so prematurely will fall on those least capable of paying.

A few facts underscore the false basis for the carbon tax scam starting with the misnomer: “Carbon pollution.” While carbon is a solid, they mean Carbon Dioxide (CO2), a gas. The word “carbon” is used because most people connect it to soot, as it becomes an Orwellian-named new revenue tool — the carbon tax.

According to Dr. Tim Ball, a retired University of Winnipeg climatologist, CO2 is not a pollutant but a harmless natural trace gas vital to plant existence.

Anthropogenic CO2 accounts for 3-4% of all CO2 generated

Plants take in CO2 and give off oxygen; without photosynthesis both plants and animals die. CO2 is a trace gas, representing but a fraction of the atmosphere. Ball notes that present CO2 levels are 400 parts per million, just 0.04% of the atmosphere (equivalent of 40 pennies in a jar of 100,000). Most CO2, 99% (actually, more like 96 or 97%) of it, comes from natural sources — animal respiration, soil decomposition, volcanoes, ocean evaporation. Man-made sources are minuscule — equivalent of 1.2 of the 40 pennies in a jar of 100,000 pennies.

Canada accounts for just 2% of all anthropogenic CO2.

Current global levels = 400 ppm. Average = 1200 ppm.

Higher CO2 levels pose no direct hazard to human health. CO2 in submarines can reach levels well above 10,000 ppm without harming the crew. The average atmospheric level for the last 270 million years is, at 1200 ppm, interestingly, the optimum level for plant growth.

High CO2 does not correlate with high temperatures

Professor Ball observes correlation with temperature is equally dispelled in the geologic record. What is known as the Ordovician Ice Age, 495 million years ago, had CO2 levels of 4500 ppm. Ball observes that Antarctic ice core data shows temperature increases long before CO2 increases, not as assumed in the human-caused warming theories used in climate models.

Professor Murry Salby has shown that temperature increases follow CO2 increases, historically by about 800 years.

With these facts, it should be impossible to claim, as McKenna does, that human production of CO2 is tipping our climate towards disaster. 

Paris Accord to reduce temp by 1/2 of 1/10th of 1 degree C. by 2100 - at extraordinary cost

Bjorn Lomborg, a statistics professor and author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” estimates that implementing the Paris Climate Agreement by 2030 would reduce temperatures only 0.048°C by 2100. Politicians use the false CO2 story because it enables massive new taxation and further government control under the guise of saving the planet.

Finally, Professor Ball confirms that this dishonest story misuses computer models, claiming human carbon dioxide will cause a global climate crisis, that have been consistently wrong.

The carbon tax party is gearing up, politicians selecting and using false facts, and it is about to rip the political landscape, in Ontario and Manitoba.

And, indeed, it did in Ontario last week as the provincial Liberal Party was reduced from a majority government to short of party status in the Ontario legislature, and a Conservative government was elected.

Nevertheless, the staggering costs of the Liberal Cap n Trade policy, the Green Energy Act and the privatization of Ontario Hydro will cost Ontarians an extraordinary amount of money for the next few decades. Then, just when you need it, Justin Trudeau adds Canada's Carbon Tax to the list of green-related expenses that will ensure many difficult years for the Canadian economy.

Millions in Foreign Funds Spent in 2015 Fed Election to Defeat Harper, Report

In total, 114 third parties poured $6 million into influencing the election outcome and many of those third parties were funded by the U.S.-based Tides Foundation

And those are just the ones we know about. There were possibly many millions more in pre-election donations. 

International interference in the Canadian election was predicted by the UK's Lord Monkton in 2014 (see below). 

This expose of Tides Foundation is just the tip of the iceberg. But our far-left government in Canada is afraid of ice-bergs and there is no way a full-scale investigation into the funding of the 2015 election will occur, although there should be, as there should also be an investigation into the funding of the 2017 British Columbia elections - they smell just as fishy.

Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press, Postmedia News

Foreign money funnelled towards Canadian political advocacy groups affected the outcome of the 2015 federal election, according to a document filed last week with Elections Canada and obtained in part by the Calgary Herald.

The 36-page report entitled: Elections Canada Complaint Regarding Foreign Influence in the 2015 Canadian Election, alleges third parties worked with each other, which may have bypassed election spending limits — all of which appears to be in contravention of the Canada Elections Act.

The Canada Elections Act states that “a third party shall not circumvent, or attempt to circumvent, a limit set out . . . in any manner, including by splitting itself into two or more third parties for the purpose of circumventing the limit or acting in collusion with another third party so that their combined election advertising expenses exceed the limit.”

“Electoral outcomes were influenced,” alleges the report.

The Canada Elections Act also states: “No person who does not reside in Canada shall, during an election period, in any way induce electors to vote or refrain from voting for a particular candidate” unless the person is a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident.

“Yet the outcome of the 2015 election was skewed by money from wealthy foreigners,” alleges the complaint, submitted by Canada Decides, a registered society with three listed directors — including Joan Crockatt, a former Conservative MP for Calgary Centre, who lost her seat to Liberal Kent Hehr, now the MP for the once long-held Tory riding and the Minister of Veterans Affairs. The other two directors include Chad Hallman, a University of Toronto political science student.

The number of third parties registered during the 2015 general election more than doubled, to 114 compared with 55, in the 2011 election.

Much worse than Russian/US interference

Americans are rightly concerned about Russia hacking into U.S. government emails. Well, this appears to be much worse

In total, the 114 third parties spent $6 million and many of those third parties were funded by California-and New York-based Tides Foundation — which is known in Canada for holding numerous anti-Canadian oil campaigns.

In 2015, Tides Foundation donated $1.5 million of U.S. money to Canadian third parties in the election year, according to the report.

Crockatt’s seat was one of the 29 targeted by an organization called Leadnow through its “largest ever campaign” called Vote Together. The complaint by Canada Decides alleges that foreign money “spawned” Leadnow and helped fund an elaborate campaign to oust the ruling Conservative Party.

Mount Royal University political science professor Duane Bratt says Canadians should be concerned about any kind of foreign involvement in our elections.

“The whole concept and idea of foreign influence in an election is an important issue and is something that Canadians should not tolerate,” Bratt said Monday.

Tides Foundation and Leadnow representatives did not return repeated phone calls and emails from the Herald to respond to concerns raised by Canada Decides.

A December 2015 Leadnow report, Defeating Harper, discusses how effective its campaign was in the 2015 general election. “The Conservatives were defeated in 25 out of 29 ridings, and . . . in the seats the Conservatives lost, our recommended candidate was the winner 96 per cent of the time.”

Leadnow’s Defeat Harper report also states: “We selected target ridings with field teams run by paid Leadnow organizers….”

Crockatt lost her Calgary Centre seat by 750 votes.

Conservative MP Lawrence Toet lost his Manitoba seat of Elmwood-Transcona to the NDP’s Daniel Blaikie by just 61 votes.

THE CANADIAN PRESS / Adrian Wyld

Former Conservative Finance Minister Joe Oliver lost his seat to Liberal Marco Mendicino with a margin of 5,800 votes. Only six per cent of voters in that riding voted for the NDP candidate, who complained of Leadnow’s tactics on Twitter.

Leadnow staff members flew around the country on numerous occasions, as Facebook postings and photographs show, to distribute flyers and put up signs. Also, 57 local polls were commissioned across 37 ridings urging citizens to strategically vote for the most winnable, left-of-centre candidate in order to defeat the Conservative candidate.

There is an $8,788 spending limit per riding for the election. NDP candidates and even CUPE complained about Leadnow’s activities being anti-democratic.

“This is not a partisan issue or a case of sour grapes by Conservatives,” insists Hallman, 20.

“This is a Canadian issue. This affects all Canadians whether you’re an NDP, Green, Liberal or Conservative. You should be very concerned about foreign money being spent in Canada during an election campaign.”

Most Canadians would be very alarmed by this. This happened in the 2015 election

Crockatt, who prior to becoming a Member of Parliament was a journalist, including a stint as an editor with the Calgary Herald, said researchers from Fredericton to Nanaimo worked for 18 months gathering information on this issue.

“Foreign money meddled in a big way in our election and that’s not right,” she added. “Americans are rightly concerned about Russia hacking into U.S. government emails. Well, this appears to be much worse — foreign money, in many cases by very wealthy people — was donated and arguably changed the outcome of our Canadian election. It needs to be taken seriously and investigated.”

In the 2015 annual report of the California-based Online Progressive Engagement Network (OPEN) where Ben Brandzel, one of Leadnow’s founders, currently works, he said: “We ended the year with . . . a Canadian campaign that moved the needle during the national election, contributing greatly to the ousting of the conservative Harper government.”

Just how greatly these foreign organizations and money contributed to interfering in the Canadian election needs to be investigated by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, states Canada Decides.

“The threat to Canadian election sovereignty is real and must be eliminated by the Commissioner as quickly and decisively as possible,” adds the report.

It appears as though Yves Cote, commissioner of Elections Canada, is considering doing just that.

Cote admitted during an April 13 Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee that an investigation needs to be launched following questions by Conservative Senators Linda Frum and Bob Runciman.

“Issues of significance have been raised . . .” said Cote, during the senate committee hearing, “which in my view deserves Parliament taking the time to looking at the situation, trying to understand what has happened, what is likely to happen and then taking measures . . . to make sure there is compliance.”

Cote added that “the Supreme Court of Canada said the objective of maintaining a level playing field is, for them, a very important objective.”

Senator Frum is planning to introduce a private member’s bill updating the Canada Elections Act to prohibit third parties from accepting foreign funding for domestic political activity.

Canadians can only donate $1,550 to political parties and candidates. Union and corporate donations have been banned completely, and yet in the Senate hearing, Commissioner Cote said that as long as foreign money is donated to a third party six months prior to the election writ being dropped, the amount that can be donated is endless.

Frum made the following observation during the April 13 senate hearing: “I could take a cheque for $10 million from Saudi Arabia, from Iran, from China — I could take any amount of money from a foreign contributor so long as I, a Canadian citizen, am receiving it?”

Cote said as long as funds are received six months before an election “the third party is free to use that money.”

“Most Canadians would be very alarmed by this,” added Frum. “This happened in the 2015 election.”

So, the interference by the American liberal lobby groups may actually pale in comparison to money that might have come in to Canada from other international interests. 

In 2014, only Canada and Australia stood in the way of a global climate accord to be signed in Paris in December, 2015. That year, Lord Christopher Monkton overheard Sir David King, William Hague's (Home Secretary) United Kingdom “climate change ambassador” who was asked by the Environmentalist Committee of the House of Commons (UK) in May 2014 “whether all the nations of the world were in principle ready to sign their people's rights away in such a treaty,” to which he replied “Oh yes, but there are two stand-outs.  One is Canada, but don't worry about Canada.  They've got an election in the spring of 2015 and we and the U.N. will make sure that the present government is removed.”  Monckton recalled his absolute bluntness about the matter.

The other holdout was Australia which was in an arguably stronger position as there was no election until after the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference.  With Tony Abbott as leader there was no chance that Australia would be signing the treaty. Monckton warned of the need to protect Abbott and the danger from the Turnbull faction, in conjunction with the United Nations, doing their best to remove him ahead of this year’s Climate Change Conference. 

In February this year (2015), barely five months after Monckton's warning, Abbott survived a first attempt on his leadership from the Turnbull faction.  However, incessant negative and biased media coverage influenced the perception of Turnbull by the Australian population, and hence depressed his polling figures. Consequently, a substantial number of government MPs became anxious with an election less than a year away.  In September, as reported by LifeSiteNews, Abbott was replaced by Turnbull 54-44 in a leadership spill ballot.

The above is documented on a post on the eve of the Canadian elections in Oct. 2015: One-World Government if Harper Loses Election - Margaret Thatcher Advisor.

The implication is that this has much less to do with actual climate change and more to do with the UN assuming authority over every country in the world. It would start with climate change but the end result would be 'One-World Government!' At least, that's the theory. And there are arguments to support that theory.

This is one of the reasons Trump's presidency has upset so many people - it is delaying the inevitable, One-World government. It also contributes to the numbers of the  many working to undermine Trump and get him impeached. Lest you get a false impression - I despise Trump and many of the things he is doing or trying to do. But not giving the UN authority over the USA is not one of them.

Hundreds of Scientists Urge Trump to Withdraw from U.N. Climate-Change Agency

MIT’s Richard Lindzen says policies cause economic harm with ‘no environmental benefits’

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull in the Oval Office of the White House, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017 in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

By Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times 

More than 300 scientists have urged President Trump to withdraw from the U.N.’s climate change agency, warning that its push to curtail carbon dioxide threatens to exacerbate poverty without improving the environment.

In a Thursday letter to the president, MIT professor emeritus Richard Lindzen called on the United States and other nations to “change course on an outdated international agreement that targets minor greenhouse gases,” starting with carbon dioxide.

“Since 2009, the US and other governments have undertaken actions with respect to global climate that are not scientifically justified and that already have, and will continue to cause serious social and economic harm — with no environmental benefits,” said Mr. Lindzen, a prominent atmospheric physicist.

Signers of the attached petition include the U.S. and international atmospheric scientists, meteorologists, physicists, professors and others taking issue with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC], which was formed in 1992 to combat “dangerous” climate change.

In 1990, the IPCC predicted a 1 degree C rise in the global temperature by 2025. It is now 2017 and we have seen about a quarter of a degree rise in temperature. Until they get the science right we should not be spending extreme amounts of money to fix a problem that is greatly exaggerated. Alleviate the poverty in the world; stop the selling of weapons as a center-piece of western economies. The worst problem in the world is child sex abuse - by a long shot. Tens of millions of children are sexually abused before they turn 18. Do something about that!

The 2016 Paris climate accord, which sets nonbinding emissions goals for nations, was drawn up under the auspices of the UNFCCC.

“Observations since the UNFCCC was written 25 years ago show that warming from increased atmospheric CO2 will be benign — much less than initial model predictions,” says the petition.

And certainly not worth the trillions of dollars those lunatics want to spend on it.

Carbon Pricing Doesn’t Work

Today, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ambushed provincial and territorial environment ministers by announcing in Parliament that the provinces had two years to come up with a carbon tax or the federal government would impose one on them. Why this issue is of such immediate importance as to destroy what was a pretty favourable relationship between the feds and the provinces, is beyond me. 

But there is a big push on to get the Paris Accord signed, and just today, the EU signed on making the accord official and in effect. The push, in my view, was needed because the world is entering a La Nina winter which will result in colder than normal temperatures for much of the world and that will take away some of the trumped up fear that the sky is falling.

There are 2 major issues with a carbon tax that I can see:

1. If it works and reduces Canada's carbon footprint by 10% at the cost of trillions of dollars to the economy, what will that mean for global warming? Well, briefly, Canada produces less than 2% of global anthropomorphic CO2. Anthropomorphic CO2 accounts for less than 4% of total global CO2 production. 

Consequently, a 10% reduction in Canada will result in a total global reduction in carbon of 0.008%. 

What will that do to the global temperature? - absolutely nothing!

2. Carbon tax doesn't work. See below:


Aldyen Donnelly, Special to Financial Post

"The Canada 2020 background paper believes that reducing

Canadian greenhouse gas emissions ("GHGs") and "pricing

carbon" through government taxation are one and the same thing.

They are not."

STEEN ULRIK JOHANNESSEN/AFP/Getty Images"The Canada 2020 background paper believes that reducing Canadian greenhouse gas emissions ("GHGs") and "pricing carbon" through government taxation are one and the same thing. They are not."

Canada 2020 a wrong-headed think tank

Canada 2020 is a think tank established “to identify progressive policy solutions and to help redefine federal government for a modern Canada.” Given this objective, it is surprising to see Canada 2020 sponsor an initiative whose goal is to “sell” Canadians on the purported merits of carbon pricing policies. Canada 2020 recently launched such a policy marketing initiative, with the publication of a background paper entitled “Why would Canadians buy carbon pricing?”

This paper should be presented as a case study in every first year economics class as a perfect example of “confirmation bias.” Researchers exhibit confirmation bias when they form a belief or hypothesis and then selectively identify or creatively interpret data to reinforce that belief.

I am not a climate change skeptic. I have advocated for efficient regulation of fossil carbon content since the late 1980s. But the Canada 2020 background paper asserts that reducing Canadian greenhouse gas emissions (“GHGs”) and “pricing carbon” through government taxation are one and the same thing. They are not.

Interested and objective researchers can review fairly comprehensive datasets for over 120 developing nation pollution pricing policy precedents going back to 1978. Roughly one-third of these are “cap and trade”-type measures, while the rest are more direct consumption, production tax and/or tariff measures or measures that combine direct taxation and cap and trade.

Not one of the pollution pricing precedents can reasonably be described as effective, let alone efficient, by any analyst who considers all of the publicly available data. Yet the Canada 2020 background paper goes to some lengths to selectively report or creatively interpret data to support its pro-carbon pricing policy bias.

For example, the report says: “British Columbia’s carbon tax stands out” as a success story and “a review conducted in 2012 concluded that: the carbon tax is working and that businesses are not unduly disadvantaged.”

But BC Ministry of Finance budget documents show, clearly, that total demand for the B.C. carbon-taxed products grew faster after the carbon-tax was introduced than over almost every other similar timeframe between 1992 and 2008 (before the carbon tax was introduced). Further, B.C.’s official 2013 Fiscal Plan expressly forecasts that, in spite of the carbon tax, B.C. demand for the carbon-taxed goods will grow another 8.6% by April 2016, while the population is expected to grow only 1.2%. This is an unprecedented rate of GHG growth, which is forecast to be realized long before even one B.C. LNG plant might become a reality.

B.C.’s per capita demand for the carbon-taxed goods did decline between 2007 and the end of 2011, by 13.5 terajoules (Tj) per 1,000 persons. But B.C.’s decline in demand for those same commodities was -16.6 Tj/1,000 persons over the four years immediately preceding the introduction of BC’s carbon tax. And it was -14.3 Tj/1,000 persons over the four years starting in 2001. In fact, the rate of decline in B.C. per capita demand for the carbon-taxed goods slowed down after the tax was introduced. To claim the carbon tax is working, analysts have to take the post-carbon-tax trend entirely out of context.

The Canada 2020 report and the two B.C. carbon tax “studies” it references imply that consumer prices for the carbon-intensive goods went up because of the B.C. C-tax, and consumer demand for the goods went down in response to the price increases.

In reality, reduced industrial demand for diesel accounted for over 61% of the reduction in post-2007 per capita demand for B.C. carbon-taxed products. Within months of the introduction of the carbon tax, the pump price for diesel had fallen from $1.40/litre to less than $0.95/litre, a floor below which the price of diesel had not fallen since early 2005. The nominal retail price of diesel did not return to pre-carbon-tax levels until April, 2012. No objective analysts can review this price history and can reasonably attribute the 2008-2011 reduction in per capita diesel demand to BC’s carbon tax.

Most of the reduction in B.C. diesel demand, as well as the diesel price crash, reflect the unprecedented rate at which B.C. lumber, pulp and paper mills shut down after 2007. Direct employment in B.C.’s forest sector–which accounted for over 35% of BC industrial GHGs prior to

2008–fell from 82,880 to 53,340 jobs between 2007 and the end of 2011. So the correlation between job loss in the value-adding part of the forest sector and BC’s 2008-2011 per capita GHG reductions is pretty clear. A similar correlation between value-adding job losses and GHG reductions is evident in the European, Japanese and U.S. data. I do not take the position that BC job losses were due to the carbon tax. But BC’s forest sector job losses and GHG reductions have the same cause, so to claim the carbon tax is in any part responsible for BC’s GHG reductions, one must also attribute the job losses to the tax.

Beyond the indisputable correlation between job losses and GHG reductions, there is a more frightening signal in the European data. Due largely to the coincident implementation of the two general carbon pricing strategies to which Canada 2020 limits the scope of its new “dialogue that is respectful of all positions,” Scandinavian and German households typically pay over CAD$0.40/kWh for electricity. But 40% to 50% of the electricity generated to supply the fully integrated Scandinavian and northern German markets still comes from burning coal. Swedish taxpayer-owned utility Vattenfall is currently building two of the largest coal-fired power plants in European history, one in Denmark and the other in northern Germany. To maintain a secure long-term supply of cheap coal for these plants, in 2004 Vattenfall bought the eastern German lignite coal mines that the government of
Germany was then proposing to shut in.

Any objective reviewer of European energy taxation, pricing, demand and development trends since 1990 must reasonably ask: At prices well over CAD$0.40/kWh, why can’t Europeans afford zero-emission electricity? How can policies that deliver so little renewable energy at such a high cost to families be found, by objective analysis, to be efficient?

Canadian governments have a stellar history of adopting product standards that efficiently move suppliers of polluting products to “green up.” This is how we got lead levels down in gasoline and paint, sulphur levels down in gasoline and diesel and massively reduced the ozone-depleting substances in refrigerant chemicals.

In all of these examples, companies competing to secure their shares of the new demand arising from our regulated product standards massively reduced pollution content while nominal prices for the regulated products fell. Our historical environmental policy successes and failures clearly show that governments can only foster highly competitive, efficient pollution reduction outcomes with product standards that do not involve governments in either the price-setting or new technology selection processes.

Yet the Canada 2020 framework for policy evaluation does not even allow for the possibility that pollution levels can fall while retail prices for polluting commodities and their substitutes are declining. The Canada 2020 model for dialogue has slammed the door on any consideration of the only pollution reduction policy model that has worked well, and often, in the past.

Aldyen Donnelly is President, WDA Consulting Inc. in Vancouver.

Tens of Thousands Of Scientists Declare Climate Change A Hoax

by Sean Adl-Tabatabai in Sci/Environment  YourNewsWire

30,000 scientists declare man-made climate change a hoax

and that's just in America

A staggering 30,000 scientists have come forward confirming that man-made climate change is a hoax perpetuated by the elite in order to make money. 

One of the experts is weather channel founder, John Coleman, who warns that huge fortunes are being made by man-made climate change proponents such as Al Gore.

Natural News reports:

In a recent interview with Climate Depot, Coleman said:

“Al Gore may emerge from the shadows to declare victory in the ‘global warming’ debate if Hillary Clinton moves into the White House. Yes, if that happens and the new climate regulations become the law of the land, they will be next to impossible to overturn for four to eight years.”

Unfortunately, President Obama has somehow already ratified the Paris Accord as announced in China yesterday. How did he do that? Once 16 or so more countries ratify the accord, it will become law and a portion of American sovereignty will be ceded to an unelected UN panel. This, some say, will be the first step in forming a one-world government.

Climate change proponents remain undeterred in their mission, ignoring numerous recent scientific findings indicating that there has been no warming trend at all for nearly two decades.

Al Gore’s dire predictions of the melting of polar ice on a massive scale have proved to be completely false. In fact, in 2014 – a year that was touted as being “the hottest ever” in the Earth’s history – there were record amounts of ice reported in Antarctica, an increase in Arctic ice, and record snowfalls across the globe.


Debunking the “97 percent” lie

On top of those “inconvenient truths,” the White House’s assertion that 97 percent of scientists agree that global warming is real has been completely debunked. Several independently-researched examinations of the literature used to support the “97 percent” statement found that the conclusions were cherry-picked and misleading.

More objective surveys have revealed that there is a far greater diversity of opinion among scientists than the global warming crowd would like for you to believe.

From the National Review:

“A 2008 survey by two German scientists, Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, found that a significant number of scientists were skeptical of the ability of existing global climate models to accurately predict global temperatures, precipitation, sea-level changes, or extreme weather events even over a decade; they were far more skeptical as the time horizon increased.”

Other mainstream news sources besides the National Review have also been courageous enough to speak out against the global warming propaganda – even the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed piece in 2015 challenging the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) pseudoscience being promulgated by global warming proponents.

And, of course, there are the more than 31,000 American scientists (to date) who have signed a petition challenging the climate change narrative and 9,029 of them hold PhDs in their respective fields. But hey, Al Gore and his cronies have also ignored that inconvenient truth, as well.

Many of those scientists who signed the petition were likely encouraged to speak out in favor of the truth after retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist John L. Casey revealed that solar cycles are largely responsible for warming periods on Earth – not human activity. Nor CO2 levels. 

Northumbria U's Prof Zarkhova reports the same findings, even predicting that a cooling cycle has begun (El Nino not withstanding).


Al Gore and cronies continue getting richer from the global warming hoax

But the global warming crowd continues to push their agenda on the public while lining their pockets in the process. If you’re still inclined to believe what Al Gore has to say about global warming, please consider the fact that since he embarked on his crusade, his wealth has grown from $2 million in 2001 to $100 million in 2016 – largely due to investments in fake “green tech” companies and the effective embezzlement of numerous grants and loans.

Ah, but his motives are entirely altruistic; I'm sure; I think; maybe.

You might want to take all of this information into serious consideration before casting your vote in the November election.