An extraordinary sum we’re paying

Today, the NZ Herald published a letter from one Hylton Le Grice, of Remuera, revealing a financial arrangement with the United Nations I was not aware of and that I’m fairly sure I would have remembered our government consulting us over.

In case this facsimile arrives illegible, here’s what it says:

New Zealand produces just 0.17 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions. China, the worst polluter with an appalling 28.5 per cent emissions is however presently building no less than 583 coal-fired power stations, with another five countries creating 529 similar units. Despite these extraordinary figures, New Zealand has unbelievably committed for 10 years to pay an astonishing annual $1.4 billion in taxpayers’ money to the UN Climate Accord Fund, which China does not have to subscribe to until 2030. Some of this UN money is then distributed to the same six so-called undeveloped countries that are building these 1012 coal-powered stations. With the huge economic problems that New Zealand now faces because of Covid-19, this annual payment seems to be totally unacceptable.

Is it true?

Readers may know of this; if you do, please drop us a note below.

What the correspondent calls the UN Climate Accord Fund is in fact the Green Climate Fund.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade records that we made a payment to the GCF in 2015 of $3 million, then, in October 2019, We paid $15 million to the Green Climate Fund’s “first replenishment”. Anyone know what that was?

 

The GCF is a US$10 billion fund used to finance efforts to cut green-house gas emissions and support climate change adaptation in developing countries. The GCF is based in Songdo, South Korea, and governed by a 24-member Board comprising developed and developing country members.

New Zealand has committed to providing $300m to the GCF over the next four years. Watch this space.

 

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29 Thoughts on “An extraordinary sum we’re paying

  1. Simon on 30/10/2020 at 9:05 am said:

    A fair comparison has to be at a per capita level. China and NZ are now about the same but NZ has been polluting for longer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita
    On the plus side, China is involved in massive afforestation projects.
    https://www-bbc-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-54714692
    China has committed to be net carbon neutral by 2060, NZ by 2050.
    NZ contribution to the Green Climate Fund is only 57 cents per capita. I would argue that it should be much more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Climate_Fund

    • Richard Treadgold on 30/10/2020 at 10:51 am said:

      A fair comparison does not ‘have to be’ per capita. Mr Le Grice makes the excellent comparison of total magnitude. All our efforts to mitigate global warming will be futile simply because of China’s monstrous and burgeoning emissions of CO2 — never mind all the rest of humanity’s. Do you agree?

    • Rick on 30/10/2020 at 12:24 pm said:

      “A fair comparison has to be at a per capita level. China and NZ are now about the same but NZ has been polluting for longer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita”

      Speaking of fair comparisons, would you care to explain why you are insinuating that carbon dioxide is a kind of environmental pollution, Simon?

      As far as my research has led me to discover, it is completely non-toxic to practically all life-forms on the planet and it is also the vital plant-food which sustains the entire biosphere in one way and another. It is so harmless to humans, in fact, that our species has not evolved any senses with which to detect it and alert us to its presence: we cannot see it, smell it, hear it, feel it or taste it (at normal concentrations below about 5,000 ppmv). Mosquitos can smell it though: it is the essential scent of the animal body that attracts them to their prey.

      Is it fair, then, to put CO2 in the same class of noxious substances as, say, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and chlorine, which definitely are toxic and for which nature has equipped us with powerful senses so that we will certainly detect them, by their pungent smells and stinging effects on the skin, whenever they are present even in extremely low concentrations of parts per trillion?

      Is that fair, Simon? You can’t rationally pretend that it is.

      And as for the argument that human CO2 emissions are causing ‘heat pollution’ of the planet, we are still waiting to see the scientific evidence which you have said supports this apparently baseless and idiosyncratic idea.

      You seem to think that mere knowledge of the principle of the greenhouse effect is sufficient to provide the compelling argument that proves your claim. It is not sufficient and your claim remains not just unproven, but completely unsupported by any real evidence that stands up to honest scrutiny.

    • Simon on 18/11/2020 at 2:14 pm said:

      Dear Simon

      China, and most especially President Xi, ‘commits’ to an awful lot of things, but the reality is often a somewhat twisted, dystopian and nightmarish version of what was promised. Perhaps you would care to spend some lovely ‘downtime’ in one of his dreamy ‘re-education’ centers learning a brand new trade? You may have heard of them; the ones comrade Jacinda keeps forgetting to talk to him about? In any case, the years 2050, or 2060 are simply too far into the future to have any meaning to anyone in power today.

  2. Mack on 30/10/2020 at 2:43 pm said:

    Simon,

    “……but NZ has been polluting for longer.”

    I want you to say after me, Simon. Carbon dioxide is NOT a pollutant.
    I want 100 lines from you….
    CO2 is NOT pollution
    CO2 is NOT pollution
    And I want it on my desk, first thing tomorrow morning.

  3. Nick Nicholas on 31/10/2020 at 3:25 pm said:

    Very good item from Hylton, a frequently published Herald letters writer.
    It exposes the farce of the current Paris Agreement situation whereby China is classed
    as ‘underdeveloped’, therefore not having to contribute its dues for decades. I am
    surprised, from my experiences, that the Herald agreed to print it.

    However, the figure of $1.4B , sticks in my mind as the original annual
    cost of our ETS scheme back in 2010 or whenever. Can’t find any
    info on current annual cost to NZ of the ETS.

    God only knows what good all these schemes, calculations and costs
    have ever done to help our country or planet in the meantime.
    Neither He nor anyone else can show me.
    .

    • Peter Pauling on 29/11/2020 at 7:16 am said:

      If someone dumped a load of sewage in your backyard, he should pay to clean it up, would you agree?

      Historically it’s been the wealthy countries which have dumped their CO2 into the atmosphere, to their enormous benefit. The poorer countries have not. That is the basis of the agreement. Note the US has dumped twice as much as China, and its emissions per capita are still double.

      Le Grice’s numbers are wrong; China is not building all those coal stations, and has its carbon neutral goal set for 2060. China knows they will suffer badly from sea level rise. It will not countenance backsliding from NZ. We are going to stop burning fossil fuels or else.

      Some 99.9% scientists publishing in the field do not disagree with the IPCC. There’s no conspiracy, just science working as it should.

    • Richard Treadgold on 29/11/2020 at 1:40 pm said:

      Peter,

      If someone dumped a load of sewage in your backyard, he should pay to clean it up, would you agree?

      But CO2 is pure, clean, colourless, odourless, tasteless plant food. Without it we all die. It has caused an increase in primary plant productivity of about 30%. Nature’s better off, we’re better off. Why do the mindless activists want to reduce it?

    • Richard Treadgold on 29/11/2020 at 1:50 pm said:

      Peter,

      China is not building all those coal stations, and has its carbon neutral goal set for 2060

      Let’s get this straight: you don’t believe China’s word on building coal-fired generators, but you do believe China’s word that it will strive to meet it’s ludicrous Zero Carbon “goal”, correct? This, from the same Communist Party that openly lies about its treatment of its people, tortures and kills its people and openly picks fights with other countries and steals their intellectual property? That also lost the war against the resistance to its socialist takeover of China and cannot let it go?

      I could regret this, but please explain why you make such choices between the CCP’s promises and why you approve of such openly wicked behaviour.

    • Richard Treadgold on 29/11/2020 at 1:57 pm said:

      Peter,

      Some 99.9% scientists publishing in the field do not disagree with the IPCC. There’s no conspiracy, just science working as it should.

      You pluck a figure from the air, sir (justify it!). Tens of thousands of scientists publishing and not publishing in the field disagree with the IPCC, not to mention similar numbers of non-scientists who can read and reason. You’re pleased to argue with them but instead of constructing an argument you simply declaim.

      I never mentioned a conspiracy. Of course there’s no conspiracy. Instead, these shameless ‘climate’ activists openly declare they’re altering the economic system to introduce equality and improve our lives, whether or not we want their improvements.

  4. Ross on 09/11/2020 at 7:49 pm said:

    Hi Richard,
    search ” newshub paris areement targets 22/5/2017

    • Richard Treadgold on 12/11/2020 at 11:00 am said:

      Thanks, Ross. I think $1.4 billion per year equates to about $280 per person per year for at least the next ten years. On top of increased ETS contributions as the “carbon price” rises, more income tax to pay for the COVID-19 overspending and sundry other socialist improvements to come. If Saint Jacinda really loved us, she would surely ask us first.

  5. Andrew on 13/11/2020 at 11:22 am said:

    Richard – i thought i would share this link with you, a comment from the Minister in charge of climate change on stuff.co.nz got my attention! James Shaw makes the pleasing comment that he listens to scientists, which is reassuring, however he seems to only want to follow the advice of scientists who tell him what he wants to hear!! maybe we should feed him science papers that provides an alternative view of the world that is opposite to his – i wonder if he would follow their advice – i somehow doubt it but could be some fun!!

    ““I am absolutely committed that we will follow that advice,” said Shaw. “If there’s anything Covid taught us, it’s to follow the advice of the scientists. That’s why we pay them in the first place.”

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/123360658/rude-shocks-ahead-on-climate-targets–which-james-shaw-is-dead-set-on-hitting

    • Peter Pauling on 29/11/2020 at 5:57 pm said:

      Link 10 papers from experts, ie scientists who have published papers in the field of climate science in peer-reviewed journals, that show the IPCC wrong.

      List 10 recognised scientific institution that do not recognise the IPCC as an authority.

    • Richard Treadgold on 29/11/2020 at 9:55 pm said:

      Link 10 papers from experts … that show the IPCC wrong.

      That’s not what you said. Read what I said.

      List 10 recognised scientific institution that do not recognise the IPCC as an authority.

      Impossible. After 30 years of the long march through the institutions, they’ve all been infiltrated by activists. But you could describe the evidence for dangerous man-made global warming that the IPCC claims is overwhelming. That’s all that’s missing. You must know it by heart.

  6. Peter Pauling on 29/11/2020 at 3:25 pm said:

    R Treadgold: “Tens of thousands of scientists publishing in the field disagree with the IPCC.”

    Lies.

    • Richard Treadgold on 29/11/2020 at 9:45 pm said:

      I’ll try to find a link.

    • Mack on 29/11/2020 at 9:46 pm said:

      Have you got any science yourself, to offer …or are you just sit here indignantly assaulting RT with appeal to authority and calling him a liar?

  7. Ross on 30/11/2020 at 4:31 am said:

    I would be interested to know if there is any peer reviewed science confirming the accuracy of the IPCC climate models. One reference would be fine.

    • Peter Pauling on 30/11/2020 at 11:46 am said:

      The IPCC produces synthesis reports. There is no original research. It’s all from thousands of papers considered and judged by hundreds of experts – scientists with a record of publishing original work.

      You don’t need climate models to see what is happening to the atmosphere and climate. Marginally over 1K increase in global mean land surface temperature – bearing on mind that’s just a small fraction of the human-added energy – has produced catastrophic and devastating droughts and fires.

  8. Mack on 30/11/2020 at 10:21 pm said:

    You should also be mindful of the fact that “human-added energy” , mainly hot air from fellow alarmist climate clowns, has been channeled into your brain producing catastrophic and devastating bedwetting.

  9. Brett Keane on 02/12/2020 at 6:20 pm said:

    https://principia-scientific.com/publications/PROM/PROM-Macdonald-Quantum-Raman-Atmosphere.pdf

    In fact, as the above demonstrates and Maxwell proved in c.1865 (Kinetics of Gases etc), ALL gases warm from irradiation in an Atmosphere, uncontained.. The Ideal gas Laws and Quantum Mechanics do not allow the CAGW self-heating postulated. The required Tropopausal Water Vapour heating never happened!

    But, transfer of Solar and conducted energy is vastly dominated by faster processes or more powerful ones eg Vibrational transfer KE and expansive uplift.
    From 6km, Radiative Free Paths allow radiation to dominate, but til then water vapour Phase Change has ten times the needed transport capacity.
    The CAGW crowd at realclimate etc are watching the withering vine of a make-believe fairytale made up to help destroy Western Civilisation as all Marxist States do to themselves……. on a Cooling planet warmed only by the burning of true Records. Which are archived….. Brett Keane

  10. Peter Pauling on 08/12/2020 at 1:28 pm said:

    Impossible. After 30 years of the long march through the institutions, they’ve all been infiltrated by activists. But you could describe the evidence for dangerous man-made global warming that the IPCC claims is overwhelming.

    Yeah yeah, or perhaps the science is correct and so naturally there is a consensus. The evidence for AGW is the IPCC reports, which clearly you cannot understand.

    Australia has warmed 1.4K since reliable records began in 1910. Is that catastrophic? I think I’ll ask the Australians, not you.
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/05/a-change-in-the-weather-new-demand-for-tv-presenters-to-include-climate-in-forecasts

    Incidentally here are some truths about the daft old denier William Happer:
    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/11/unforced-variations-nov-2020/
    (Start at comment #2)

    • Richard Treadgold on 08/12/2020 at 4:54 pm said:

      You’re quite right, where the science is correct, a consensus develops naturally. But why don’t we know, as a matter of common reference and agreement—you might call it a consensus—what the evidence is for dangerous man-made global warming? It’s a very odd thing, this lack of evidence. I’ve asked the IPCC, the Royal Society, they had no evidence. You can’t describe it either, can you? Everyone says it’s overwhelming, nobody knows what it is. If you want to know the truth, I”ll tell you: it doesn’t exist.

      Why do you ask whether 1.4 K Australian warming is catastrophic — I didn’t mention them. Oh, but after asking, you say you wouldn’t ask.

      Nobody should expect to see truth from “real” climate. Just leave them alone.

  11. Peter Pauling on 09/12/2020 at 11:26 am said:

    The consensus has inevitably developed, summarised by the IPCC reports. For a layman the IPCC reports are the evidence.

    For anyone who understands the science, the evidence is clear. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes warming. More CO2 more warming. You cannot understand the science — that doesn’t make the evidence non-existent!

    realclimate.org is owned by scientists, including Gavin Schmidt, director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Several cranks have visited and been shot down.

    You’re as bad as the old fool Happer, thinking there is a conspiracy; only a few people who know nothing about the science can comprehend the evidence.

    There is a consensus. Humanity is going to attempt to act on it. Maybe we’ll keep the increase in mean global temperature under 3K, maybe not. There’s a lot of our CO2 in the oceans waiting to come out again.

    • Richard Treadgold on 09/12/2020 at 12:31 pm said:

      Peter,

      For anyone who understands the science, the evidence is clear.

      Again, describe the evidence, or your words are no better than hot air. If you manage to produce evidence, which I believe you cannot do, you’ll be doing better than the Ministry for the Environment, the NZ Royal Society and the IPCC Secretariat, none of whom had evidence to give me. The panel of scientists (pdf, 717 KB) I gathered to examine what the IPCC gave me as evidence were unanimous in declaring it unpersuasive.

       

      A post last June summarised various failings of the IPCC and my correspondence with the Secretariat.

      Regular readers have followed my letter-writing campaign in recent years, asking for proof of a human cause of dangerous global warming. I had approached individual scientists, leading scientific organisations and institutes and had never been given proof. Without exception I was told to “read the IPCC reports”, “ask the IPCC” and, often hostile, “you know what the evidence is, you just don’t believe it.” They believe there’s evidence but don’t believe I’ve searched diligently and not found any.

    • Andrew on 09/12/2020 at 1:51 pm said:

      Peter – if your argument is correct,

      ‘For anyone who understands the science, the evidence is clear. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes warming. More CO2 more warming,’

      …..we should be seeing a significant drop in global temperature then as there are significantly less planes flying around the world at the moment, giving off nasty CO2??!!

      Which of course it won’t because CO2 does not cause the air temp to rise according to the various papers i have read on the topic eg Dr Tim Ball, Climatologist – it is the other way around, CO2 increases following an air temperature rise, because more CO2 is released from the oceans!

      i am sure others with more scientific knowledge than i can comment – i am just a part time farmer doing my bit for recycling CH4 & CO2 into meat!!

  12. Brett Keane on 20/12/2020 at 3:55 pm said:

    So, debunk Maxwell’s “Kinetics of Gases” and the Ideal Gas Laws. Disprove his LOTD which carry modern Physics including Einstein’s Quantum Mechanics, as he acknowledged.
    As Maxwell noted, any Atmosphere has freedoms of movement which very quickly redistribute energy inputs back to Space at all scales from atomic to weather system uplift; ending in radiative exitance via the upper half of the System.

    By the way, use of the “Consensus” term, shows true ignorance of Scientific Method……Brett Keane

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