Frank Bainimarama, Prime Minister of Fiji and President of UNFCCC COP 23 in Bonn, called “the international community to decisive action to address the underlying causes of global climate change,” to “embrace the Paris Agreement’s more ambitious target of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 at the latest,” and “address the need to finance adaptation and to increase private-sector support for adaptation and mitigation actions, including insurance,” and “join … in a grand coalition to save our Earth and the people and other living things that call it home.” (Image source: Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Fiji, via Wikipedia)
Media are abuzz with the climate conference at Bonn. The conference seeks to strengthen the commitments made by signatories of the Paris Agreement.
The UNFCCC, the wing of the United Nations responsible for ‘tackling’ climate change, has been advocating for immediate actions to mitigate what it calls Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW).
The storyline at climate change conferences remains the same—a continuous clarion call to decrease carbon dioxide emissions, the greenhouse gas they believe is pushing us all into an eternal inferno by increasing the Earth’s temperature to dangerous levels.
Is there a scientific basis for their claim? Will the Paris agreement remain intact?
Climate data have categorically revealed that there has been no significant rise in the global temperature for 18 straight years, beginning in the year 2000. Measurements of sea surface temperature, land surface temperature, and atmospheric temperature have confirmed this.
The carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere however, rose steadily during the same period, thus confirming temperature doesn’t depend on carbon dioxide levels.
This also re-affirms the research findings from historical temperature reconstructions of Earth’s past. Earth has experienced warmer temperatures during the past 2000 years and civilizations thrived during those periods. In contrast, it was the colder periods that made life difficult for humans and the world’s ecosystems.
These scientific developments are not the only hurdle for the Paris Agreement. The major roadblock is the U.S.’s withdrawal from the agreement.
America is the second biggest emitter of carbon dioxide and probably the biggest financial heavyweight. The pullout by President Trump has rendered the signatories clueless about the course of action. …
Tiny Fiji, assigned to lead the Bonn conference, has called for a revision of emission reduction targets set initially by individual countries. It demands a mandatory increase in targets for the signatories to achieve a higher emission reduction.
This has angered both India and China. … [Read the rest.]
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