UKIP verzet zich tegen $ 10 miljard klimaatfonds voor ontwikkelingslanden

Onnodig, ineffectief en schreeuwend duur.

Voor zover mij bekend is Roger Helmer het enige lid van het Europese Parlement (en thans fractieleider van UKIP) dat zich inhoudelijk in de klimaatmaterie heeft verdiept. Hij weet daar dan ook veel van. Onder de titel, 'A Member of the European Parliament Dissents on Climate', schreef hij onlangs voor de 'American Thinker':

On Tuesday I attended an "Exchange of Views" with the European Commission on their negotiating position for the up–coming climate talks in Lima, ahead of next year's Paris conference, and I shared with them some robust and unpopular views. Part of the package seems to be a proposal for a $10 billion Fund to help developing countries deal with "the effects of climate change."

We in UKIP, the United Kingdom Independence Party, take the view that climate mitigation on the Kyoto model is probably unnecessary; certainly ineffectual; and ruinously expensive.

Unnecessary, because the science underpinning climate alarmism is highly speculative. There has been no global warming for nearly two decades. The computer models on which it is based have repeatedly failed to deliver on their predictions.

Ineffectual, for many reasons. First, there are reportedly 1200 new coal-fired power stations in the global pipeline (including, perhaps surprisingly, 20+ in Germany). Global emissions will increase whatever we do. The recent decline in US emissions is based on the switch from coal to gas – not on climate mitigation or renewables.

Ruinously expensive: renewables were supposed to become competitive when fossil fuel prices went up. But they're going down. Former UK Industry Commissioner Antonio Tajani said that we are creating "an industrial massacre" in the EU with energy prices. We are driving energy-intensive businesses off-shore, taking their jobs and their investment with them. And we are forcing households and pensioners into fuel poverty. We are damaging our economy whilst exporting both jobs and emissions.

We have seen climate summits come and go: they always disappoint. In a triumph of hope over experience, negotiators are now talking-up their expectations of success in Lima and Paris. I predict first, that they will be disappointed again; and second, that even if they strike a deal on paper, it will largely fail on delivery. ...

So what is UKIP's approach? We should be monitoring events, looking at the data, revisiting the science in the light of the actual climate trends. And then we should invest modest sums in adaptation, as and when and if needed, rather than multi–billion investments up–front on solutions that won't deliver and may not be needed at all. Future generations will look back in astonishment and disbelief at the vast waste of resources generated by climate alarmism in the early 21st century.

Aldus Roger Helmer – vooralsnog een roepende in de EP–woestijn.

Lees verder hier.

En zo verdwijnen er weer vele miljarden in een bodemloze put.

Voor mijn eerdere DDS–bijdragen zie hier.