Lord Monckton: World government lite -- the Cancun Treaty is coming

From The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley in Bonn, Germany
Lord Christopher Monckton
Jun. 11, 2010

Well, here we are again. In Bonn, Germany, that is, for the latest in a long series of two-week negotiating sessions intended to lead to the triumphant signing of a binding climate treaty in Cancun, Mexico, this December.

Why Germany? The UN’s bureaucrats were humiliated by the chaotic failure of its attempt at Copenhagen last December, under the charmingly inept direction of the Danish Prime Minister, who was so far out of his depth that he could not even recall the names of the heads of government he was calling to speak.

The UN did not want the Copenhagen catastrophe to repeat itself in the manana republic of Mexico, so it scheduled three two-week sessions for bureaucrats to prepare the draft of what they hope will be a legally-binding treaty to be signed by all the member states in Cancun.

There is no doubt that the super-efficient Germans have made a very good job of the negotiations. The draft negotiating test that was circulated today is shorter and more to the point than the 186 pages of the now-ditched “world-government” treaty draft that failed at Copenhagen.

In the new draft, there is no mention of turning the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change into a world government.

No explicit mention, that is. Yet the intention of Sir Maurice Strong, the UN official who said a quarter of a century ago that he was establishing the UN’s climate panel, the IPCC, not as a scientific but as a political body so that one day it would form the nucleus of a world government, remains all too evident in the current draft.

The recitals at the beginning of the draft treaty make the intention clear. Here are just a few:

“Deeply concerned about the findings of the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC that the climate system is warming as a consequence of human activity,

“Recognizing that the adverse effects of climate change are already evident and widespread, particularly in vulnerable regions of the world, and that a delay in prompt and sufficient global emission reductions will lead to significant additional cost for both mitigation and adaptation, constrain opportunities to achieve lower stabilization levels and increase the risk of large-scale, abrupt and irreversible impacts and breaches of critical climate thresholds, …

“Realizing that addressing climate change requires a paradigm shift towards building a low-emission society that offers substantial opportunities and ensures continued high growth and development, based on innovative technologies and more sustainable production and consumption and lifestyles, while ensuring a just transition of the workforce that creates decent work and quality jobs …

Not a word about the need to scrutinize the now-discredited reports of the IPCC, or to question whether “global warming” is truly a global crisis. Instead, the German draft swallows the climate-extremist version of events hook, line, and sinker.

In the vast, cheerless, airless concrete bunker that is the Hotel Maritim – so called because it is at least 100 miles from the sea – the delegates from 192 nations are not necessarily going along with the UN’s world-government wannabes. For the first time, some of them are openly beginning to question whether there is any scientific basis for action against “global warming”.

I sat in the bar with one delegate from a small island nation and suggested that there might perhaps be some doubt about the central scientific message of the IPCC. At first, he reacted angrily: “So are you saying that we should simply sacrifice the people of Tuvalu and the Maldives?”

“Not at all,” I replied mildly. “They are not in fact at risk. The tide-gage at Funafuti in Tuvalu shows very little in the way of sea-level rise over the past half-century, and the most detailed survey of sea-level rise ever conducted, which Professor Niklas Moerner of Stockholm has carried out over the past decade, shows no sea-level rise in half a century.”

The delegate looked doubtful. “Let me explain,” I said. “It is no mere coincidence that coral atolls are all at or a little above sea level, after 11,400 years and 400 feet of sea-level rise. Corals grow to meet the light, and they grow fastest when the sea rises above them, and they can grow ten times faster than the sea rises.”

That point (recently verified by measurement of several Pacific atolls, which show clear signs of growth to keep up with rising seas) struck home. The delegate had never before been told that corals grow to meet the light. He was visibly startled.

“How do I check what you are saying?” he asked.

And that was the right question. Here was a delegate – and there are growing numbers of them – who was genuinely interested in the truth. The first sign of the truth-seeker is that he always asks for evidence.

“Don’t take it from me,” I said, “I’m a layman. But here is Professor Moerner’s email address. Tell him I have asked you to speak to him, and he will happily provide you with all the evidence you need.”

Perhaps the most startling outcome of my one-on-one meetings with individual delegates was when, in the main meeting hall, I had a long and fascinating conversation with a representative from a leading nation in southern Africa.

I introduced myself and said I was doubtful about whether the treaty draft should treat mitigation of “global warming” (by cutting carbon emissions) and adaptation (waiting until a consequence of “global warming” happens and dealing with it there and then) as equal.

The delegate said, “Why are you talking to me?” I explained that I was talking to several delegates. He smiled, shook me vigorously by the hand and said, “I have just made an intervention in this conference on behalf of my country, explaining that trying to change the climate by limiting carbon emissions cannot work, and that we should really be focusing entirely on adaptation. That would be far more cost-effective.”

I replied that I feared the mitigation proposals in the draft treaty amounted to a form of eco-imperialism – a neo-colonial attempt by the West once again to dictate terms to Africa. The delegate was delighted. “I want you to keep in touch,” he said, “and I shall be telling my Minister what you said. You are the first person from the West in this conference who has understood our problem.”

None of these increasingly openly-expressed doubts has appeared or will appear in the final draft text which will be presented to heads of government at the Peterberg hotel, high on a hill near Bonn, in a couple of weeks’ time. There, surrounded by multiple layers of security so that the outside world cannot communicate with them, they will be cajoled into agreeing the treaty draft in principle. A follow-up meeting, again in Bonn, will wrap up the last details in August, so that the treaty can be signed in triumph at Cancun.

Or not, as the case may be. One specter hovers over the proceedings – a specter that will not go away. It is the specter of democracy. The United States has a written Constitution. Its framers foresaw that there would be moments of great danger when the pressure of a bad idea might lead Congress to enter into a profoundly damaging treaty. So there must be at least 67 of the 100 Senators voting for the Treaty of Cancun before it will pass.

Given that 41 Republicans and 6 Democrats voted for the Murkowsky resolution declaring the EPA’s carbon-emissions power-grab unlawful. Another four Dems and the resolution would have passed by the simple majority that was all that was necessary under the Congressional Review Act.

But a Treaty requires 67 votes. There are not even enough supporters of cap-and-trade to pass Obama’s climate Bill with just 60 votes. And the mid-term elections are on the way. It is likely that the Republican presence in the Senate will be still stronger after the mid-terms than now.

The Republicans have renewed and reinvigorated themselves with commendable rapidity following their defeat in the last Presidential election. And part of that process has been a slow but steady awakening to the fact that one cannot oppose cap-and-trade on economic grounds alone: one must also tackle the science, otherwise the climate extremists will merely say, “We must Save The Planet, no matter how much it costs.”

Now, the GOP’s members in both Houses are getting to grips with the science, and finding it wanting. They will not – repeat not – vote for the Cancun Treaty, or anything like. And if America is not at the party, it won’t be much of a party.

As the climate continues to fail to change as predicted, as a series of cold winters make it impossible to believe that “global warming” is happening, the United States will be protected by its own great Constitution from the damaging absurdity that is the Cancun Treaty draft. And it is not only the US that will be protected, but the rest of the world as well. God bless America!












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