A storm of anger rising from developed countries negotiators gathered strength at the Climate Change talks at Bonn on the weekend, ahead of the formal launch of the negotiations on Monday. The Africa Group joined hands with the Like-Minded Developing Countries, of which India and China are member, to oppose the draft for the Paris agreement in its current shape. The two groups conveyed that further negotiations would not be possible without countries being first allowed to re-insert their proposals unopposed back in to the imbalanced draft agreement. –Nitin Sethi, Business Standard, 18 November 2015
Global warming will benefit China by increasing rainfall in its dry northern regions while reducing flooding in the hotter southern areas, according to a new study by scientists in the country. The research team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences said that if the phenomenon continues, the planet’s thermal equator will move northward and push the rain belt associated with the monsoons in East Asia from the southern to northern part of the country. The new finding challenges the traditional view that global warming will exacerbate water shortages in this part of the world. –Stephen Chen, South China Morning Post, 16 October 2015
While large international authorities such as the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have vowed to tackle climate change head-on, some scientists and organisations believe it may help boost the production of crops and forests, among other benefits. In a report published Monday the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a London-based think tank, said that all the carbon dioxide being dumped in the atmosphere has helped boost crop production to the tune of US$140 billion a year in recent times. The foundation has called for a reassessment of the impact brought on by greenhouse gas emissions. –Stephen Chen, South China Morning Post, 16 October 2015
France’s leading television weather forecaster, Philippe Verdier, was taken off air last week for writing that there are “positive consequences” of climate change. Freeman Dyson, professor emeritus of mathematical physics and astrophysics at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, declared last week that the non-climatic effects of carbon dioxide are “enormously beneficial”. Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace, said in a lecture last week that we should “celebrate carbon dioxide”. With tens of thousands of activists and bureaucrats heading for a UN conference in Paris next month, there is such vast vested interest now in demonising carbon dioxide that it will be hard to change the world’s mind. Freeman Dyson laments that “scientific colleagues who believe the prevailing dogma about carbon dioxide will not find Goklany’s evidence convincing”, but hopes that a few will try. Amen. — Matt Ridley, The Times, 19 October 2015
It is very likely that the impact of rising CO2 concentrations is currently net beneficial for both humanity and the biosphere generally. No compelling case has been made that the net impacts of climate change will be negative by the end of this century, particularly given the gradual rate of warming observed recently. Halting the increase in CO2 concentrations abruptly, or reducing them, would immediately halt or reverse improvements in plant growth rates, increasing hunger and habitat destruction. On the other hand, any consequential change in warming would happen much more slowly. Thus, any reductions in CO2 emissions would deprive people and the planet of the benefits from CO2 much sooner and more surely than they would reduce any costs of warming. –Indur Goklany, Financial Post, 13 October 2015
Philippe Verdier, a journalist in charge of the weather service of the French public TV channels France T√©l√©visions, is threatened in his job and his career for having published a non-conformist book about climate. In January, citizens from all countries in the world stood up for freedom of speech, with ¬´ Je suis Charlie ¬ª as a motto. Time has come to stand up again. The Collectif des climato-r√©alistes call on you to sign this petition regardless of your opinion about climate change. —Collectif des climato-r√©alistes
