Talking Points on Nations not Meeting their Climate Targets

Quick Summary

• A goal of limiting warming to 1.5° since the 1800s never had any scientific basis whatsoever. The 1800s were a very cold time (Little Ice Age) and the 1°C warming since then has coincided with the greatest improvement in human life in history—in large part due to fossil fuels.

• When people talk about 1.5°C of warming as catastrophic, it's even more absurd than it sounds because it's not 1.5°C warming starting now, it's 1.5°C total since the 1800s. Which means 0.5°C warmer than now--in a world where far more people die of cold than of heat.¹

• A goal of slashing GHG emissions to the levels that the UN claims are necessary to limit warming to 1.5°C never had any chance of happening—because fossil fuels are by far the lowest-cost source of reliable energy for most of the world. Unreliable solar and wind can’t come close.

• The main reason global GHG emissions are rising is because billions of people in the developing world are bringing themselves out of poverty by using fossil fuels to power factories, farms, vehicles, and appliances. This is a wonderful thing that we should not stop.²

• When you hear scary claims about a “climate crisis,” keep in mind that climate catastrophists have been claiming climate crisis for 40 years. For example, Obama science advisor John Holdren predicted in the 1980s that we’d have up to 1 billion climate deaths today.³

• After 40 years of “climate crisis” predictions by climate catastrophists, human beings are safer than ever from climate. The climate death rate has decreased by 98% over the last century.⁴

• Fossil fuels were supposed to make climate far more dangerous in the last 40 years but they have actually made it far safer by providing low-cost power for the amazing machines that protect us against storms, protect us against extreme temperatures, and alleviate drought.

• Fossil fuels' CO2 emissions have contributed to the warming of the last 170 years, but that warming has been mild and manageable—1 degree Celsius, mostly in the colder parts of the world.⁵

• Fossil fuels' CO2 emissions have not only contributed to mild and manageable warming, they have also caused the benefit of significant global greening. Thanks to fossil fuels the Earth is far greener than it was just 40 years ago.⁶

• If the world continues using fossil fuels to provide reliable, low-cost energy to billions of people, the result will not be a climate crisis but continued slow warming, significant greening, and a far better life for billions of people.

• The head of the UN says “the world is on a catastrophic pathway to 2.7° of heating.” But 1) that really means 1.7°, since we’ve already had 1°, 2) that specificity of prediction is impossible, and 3) it would occur mostly in cold places during a cold time in Earth’s history.⁷

• The actual catastrophe we face that will, to use the head of the UN’s words, “be measured in the massive loss of lives and livelihoods” is not slightly warmer temperatures but the banning of the fossil fuels that alone can provide low-cost, reliable energy to billions of people.

• The upcoming UN climate conference seeking to get the world to rapidly eliminate fossil fuel use is a crime against humanity, especially the poor, and should be canceled. I encourage African nations in particular to boycott the event, as they are its greatest victims.

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