If the United Nations and fellow climate alarmists get their way on restricting carbon dioxide, the poor will soon be getting poorer — much, much poorer — especially in places such as Africa, Latin America, and large swaths of Asia. It is hardly an exaggeration to suggest that millions could die of starvation, cold, and more. Despite bogus promises of abundant, government-mandated “green” energy (think Solyndra), Europeans, Americans, Japanese, and others who live in developed countries will suffer greatly, too. The devastation will be particularly severe among the least well-off.
Earth’s would-be rulers, however, do not seem to care. The radical UN plan to fight “climate change,” as outlined by the global body amid the implosion of its man-made global-warming theory, would dramatically curtail available energy supplies. If adopted, nobody disputes the fact that the scheme would grant unprecedented powers over people, businesses, and governments to planetary bureaucrats. The multi-trillion-dollar ploy would also wreak havoc on the global economy — virtually every human activity, including breathing, releases carbon dioxide.
On top of that, experts say the plan would have virtually no effect on the climate. Indeed, all of the UN climate models have already been thoroughly debunked as global warming, in defiance of hysterical predictions, stopped over a decade and a half ago (see companion article on page 25). But the agenda was never really to stop “global cooling,” “global warming,” or even “climate change,” so it is hardly surprising to learn that the UN is nowhere near ready to give up on its vision of complete planetary dominance.
The “Budget” to “Save” the World
With its latest report, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formally called for national rulers to help foist what it calls a “carbon budget” on humanity — rationing CO2 emissions in a supposed effort to stop potential future temperature increases. The global body’s “solution” to the alleged anthropogenic (man-made) global-warming problem, however, can be summarized neatly without any mention of “climate” or “carbon”: More power and money for governments and international bureaucrats; less freedom and prosperity for humanity as a whole.
Based on the findings of its widely ridiculed Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), the UN “carbon budget” would, among other measures, drastically limit man-made CO2 emissions — and therefore limit energy production and all economic activity — by empowering a global climate regime to rule over humanity. Prices, of course, would necessarily skyrocket — the cost of everything from food and electricity to gasoline and travel would inevitably soar.
As part of the global body’s first-ever “carbon budget” calculations, the UN claims that its decrees must be adhered to in order to offer a “50 percent” chance of keeping global warming below two degrees Celsius. “Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions,” claimed the summary report, implausibly arguing that anything over its dubious targets would lead to the “most dangerous” effects of global warming.
It goes into much more detail, too, presenting lots of numbers to give the impression that its claims are more than just arbitrary figures cooked up by power-hungry bureaucrats and tax-funded alarmists. “Limiting the warming caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions alone with a probability of >33 per cent, >50 per cent, and >66 per cent to less than 2°C since the period 1861-1880, will require cumulative CO2 emissions from all anthropogenic sources to stay between 0 and about 1560 GtC [gigatons of carbon], 0 and about 1210 GtC, and 0 and about 1000 GtC since that period respectively,” the report claims. “An amount of 531 [446 to 616] GtC, was already emitted by 2011.”
In simpler terms, the overall amount of carbon that the UN claims humanity can be allowed to emit is around one trillion metric tons — somewhere between 820 billion and 1.5 trillion, depending on the “probability” desired by governments and dictators. However, the IPCC report claims that by 2011, people had already used up between half and two-thirds of their allowable “carbon budget,” and other factors may mean the budget should be even lower.
The top CO2 limit, the politically selected UN experts warned, will be reached within a matter of decades if rulers do not work together through the UN to impose what even some proponents describe as “radical policies.” Radical might actually be an understatement — literally everyone and everything would have to submit to UN decrees.
To enforce its vision, the UN and its allies hope to finally secure a planetary treaty creating the carbon regime by 2015. Despite the best efforts of international bureaucrats and more than a few national governments, previous attempts at foisting the UN-run scheme on humanity have failed — most notably in Copenhagen. However, the UN climate establishment does not plan to give up on its machinations.
The top UN “climate” bureaucrat, Christiana Figueres, for instance, claimed the most recent IPCC report underscored the need for “urgent action” to restrict carbon. “To steer humanity out of the high danger zone, governments must step up immediate climate action and craft an agreement in 2015 that helps to scale up and speed up the global response,” she demanded.
It was not immediately clear how the UN thought humanity’s “carbon budget” should be divided up — how much CO2 Americans should be allowed to emit versus, say, Europeans, Chinese, Africans, Indians, and so on. “In essence, the scientists were putting a big carbon pie on the table and asking: How are we going to carve this thing up?” reported the New York Times, adding that the Obama administration intervened to ensure the inclusion of the “carbon budget” in the latest IPCC report. “Suppose countries got a piece proportionate to their share of world population. The United States, with less than 5 percent, would get a sliver.”
More concrete UN policy demands are expected by early 2014, when another section of the IPCC report is due to be released. The schemes outlined in the upcoming document, produced by one of the UN’s global-warming working groups, will undoubtedly be seized upon ahead of the 2015 UN climate summit in Paris by power-hungry planetary bureaucrats, governments, dictators, crony capitalists, and other special interests hoping to benefit from the alarmism.
Global Support for UN Carbon Budget
Analysts, even in the establishment media, pointed out that one of the key purposes of the IPCC report was actually to help provide a semblance of public support for the anti-CO2 regulatory scheme sought by would-be global authorities. And already, as if on cue, UN schemers, communist dictatorships, and Western powers are loudly lining up behind the plot. In many cases — the Obama administration’s schemes, for example — efforts to fasten the elements of the regime on populations are already under way.
Even before the IPCC report was released, the Obama administration’s scandal-plagued EPA was issuing lawless decrees to force energy companies to comply with impossible-to-meet caps on emissions of what it ludicrously refers to as carbon “pollution.” Critics noted that the administration would further devastate the fragile U.S. economy with its anti-carbon scheming. Still, Obama has made the “climate” crusade a key element of his agenda, and more “executive actions” are expected if Congress continues to tolerate the assaults.
After the latest IPCC report was released, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry promptly issued a statement agreeing with its findings and pretending that it was all really “science,” using the term five times in the brief document. “If ever there were an issue that demanded greater cooperation, partnership, and committed diplomacy, this is it,” Kerry said, using nice terms to describe the UN-empowerment agenda under the pretext of fighting alleged anthropogenic global warming. “We will work with our partners around the world through ambitious actions to reduce emissions, transform our energy economy, and help the most vulnerable cope with the effects of climate change.”
Obama’s radical science czar John Holdren, who in 1977 proposed forced abortions and secretly drugging the water supply with sterilants to deal with a supposed population crisis that never came, echoed Kerry’s alarmism. In comments about the IPCC’s claims — even though 100 percent of its climate models were wrong — he said, “The kinds of harm already being experienced from climate change will continue to worsen unless and until comprehensive and vigorous action to reduce emissions is undertaken worldwide.”
European Union “Climate Commissioner” Connie Hedegaard, another prominent alarmist whose job depends on the perpetuation of global-warming theories, demanded that the UN’s “carbon budget” for humanity be taken into account during the 2015 UN “climate” summit. “Hopefully this will add momentum for governments to act — 2015 is the deadline when all governments must be ready to commit internationally,” the EU climate czar decreed. “The EU is getting ready with our 2030 climate and energy targets that we will present before year end.”
The communist dictatorship ruling mainland China has also jumped on the anti-CO2 bandwagon, though most analysts expect it to demand that Western populations bear most of the crushing “carbon budget” burden. “If we continue with business as usual, the long-term average temperature increase is more likely to be between 3.6°C and 5.3°C (compared with pre-industrial levels), with most of the increase occurring in this century,” alleged Su Wei, the regime’s “chief climate change negotiator.”
In the United Kingdom, establishment politicians on both sides of the supposed political spectrum seized on the findings as well. “The publication of a carbon budget by the IPCC increases the urgency and importance of the UN process and of future CoP [UN Conference of the Parties] meetings,” Conservative party Parliamentarian Tim Yeo was quoted as saying.
“Work should start at once on the establishment of a fair apportionment of emissions country by country, based on the principle of contraction and convergence,” he added. “Greater efforts must be made to develop a worldwide emissions trading system since cap and trade is the one policy tool whose successful deployment could guarantee that the IPCC carbon budget is met.”
Despite the renewed wave of ferocious alarmism from the UN and dictatorial threats from the Obama administration, Americans do not appear to be very concerned about the “climate” non-issue. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center, for example, showed that just two in five Americans consider supposed “global climate change” to be a major threat to the country — among the lowest on the list of concerns, and about at the same level as “political instability in Pakistan.”
In Australia, voters recently delivered a landslide victory to a political coalition that vowed to kill a costly carbon tax and rein in the climate alarmism machine. In Britain, the hysteria is dying, too, though officials have already adopted a five-year-plan “carbon budget” for British subjects. Aside from the almost comically alarmist U.K. Guardian, even much of the world media appears to be taking a step back. But even though it has become clear that the climate emperor has no clothes, the agenda behind it marches on.
As UN alarmists become increasingly shrill while their wild demands become more transparent and outlandish, their theories are falling apart at breathtaking speed. That means the planetary body and national governments, which are desperately seeking to expand their own power under the guise of saving the climate, are in a race against time to get the global carbon/governmental regime in place.
Carbon, as scientists know, is crucial to life on Earth. Fossil fuels, meanwhile, have been the life-blood of civilization for generations, lifting billions out of poverty while drastically extending life. If the UN and alarmist governments get their carbon budget, though, human progress and the economy would be crushed — ensuring that dealing with natural climate changes, which have always occurred, will be all the more difficult.
This article, originally entitled “Carbon Budget for Humanity,” is an example of the exclusive content that’s only available by subscribing to our print magazine. Twice a month get in-depth features covering the political gamut: education, candidate profiles, immigration, healthcare, foreign policy, guns, etc. Digital as well as print options are available!
