by Nicolas Loris
December 11, 2015
from
TheDailySignal Website
Nicolas Loris, an
economist, focuses on energy, environmental and
regulatory issues as the Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow
at
The Heritage
Foundation. |
John
Kerry's Surprising Comments
on
International Regulations and Climate Change
Secretary of State John
Kerry got unexpected attention when he stated,
"If all the
industrial nations went down to zero emissions -
remember what I just said, all the industrial
emissions went down to zero emissions - it
wouldn't be enough, not when more than 65
percent of the world's carbon pollution comes
from the developing world."
This bring up several
logical disconnects.
If America were pushed
back to an 1800s lifestyle, wouldn't we pollute just
as bad as every other 3rd world country?
The UN's leadership has
already revealed that the point of climate change
dogma isn't about climate change at all, but rather
about
redistribution of wealth on a global scale.
Source
Although he probably didn't mean to, Secretary of State John
Kerry made a compelling case for why the U.S. and other
countries should not go down the path of shutting down coal-fired
plants, raising energy prices and stunting economic growth to combat
'global warming.'
Speaking in Paris, Kerry said:
"The fact is that even if every
American citizen biked to work, carpooled to school, used only
solar panels to power their homes, if we each planted a dozen
trees, if we somehow eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse
gas emissions, guess what - that still wouldn't be enough to
offset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world.
"If all the industrial nations went
down to zero emissions - remember what I just said, all the
industrial emissions went down to zero emissions - it
wouldn't be enough, not when more than 65 percent of the world's
carbon pollution comes from the developing world."
He's exactly right.
Paul Knappenberger and Patrick
Michaels estimate that the climate regulations the Obama
administration are imposing on the energy sector - costs that will
be passed down to households -
will avert a meager 0.018 degree Celsius
of warming by the year 2100.
In fact, the U.S. could cut 100 percent
of its CO2 emissions and it would not make a
difference in global warming.
Using the same climate sensitivity
modeling as the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
the world
would only be 0.137 degree C cooler by 2100.
What's worse is that if you included 100
percent cuts from the entire industrialized world in their modeling,
then you would only
avert warming by 0.278 degree C by the turn of the century.
If Kerry got his wish, developing
countries like India and China would play ball. But they're not
going to and quite frankly, neither is the rest of the developing
world and some parts of the developed world.
According to the
Climate Action Tracker,
there are plans to build more
than 2,400 coal-fired power plants over the next 15 years.
That
includes plants that have been announced, in the pre-permit
stage, permitted or under construction. These countries want access
to cheap and abundant energy, in order to provide their citizens
with a stable current of electricity and to keep their economy
growing.
Kerry got one point very wrong, however.
We're talking about
carbon dioxide emissions, not carbon pollution.
The administration has evolved their message on this issue,
from
global warming, to climate change, to carbon pollution...
Carbon dioxide is a colorless, non-toxic
gas that does not have adverse impacts on human health. Calling CO2, carbon
pollution, is deceiving the public.
But at least Kerry spoke clearly
about the futility of any unilateral or multilateral plans to
address global warming:
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