What did it achieve? To gather again next year in Copenhagen. Giddyup.
Did it achieve anything else? Yes.
Thousands of tonnes of unnecessary CO2 pumped into the atmosphere. Diminished focus on those areas of the world that really are suffering. The belittling of real science in favour of political dogma.
Fortunately, there were a number of Climate Blasphemers who attended and they provide some great commentary of the event.
Read the whole thing from the links provided at nzclimatescience.net...
From Viscount Monckton:
As I was handing our flyer round the Press tent, a “development journalist” angrily said: “How dare you criticize the IPCC’s scientists?” I sat down and said: “I don’t attack the scientists, though they certainly attack me. I attack the bad science.”From Dr Vincent Grey:
“Well, then,” he said, “how dare you substitute your judgment for that of thousands of climate scientists?” I said that the crucial chapter in the Holy Book attributing rising temperatures to Siotu had been written by only 53 people, not all of whom were scientists, and that – by coincidence – 53% of the comments by 60 reviewers had been rejected by the authors of the chapter. Not exactly the 2,500 scientists claimed by the high priests, and not exactly a consensus either.
I explained that I was an old-fashioned scribbler who had been taught to be sceptical of all sides of every debate, and that the authors of the Holy Book were obviously not good at sums. “Give me an example,” he said. So I did.
The Holy Book saith: “The CO2 radiative forcing increased by 20% during the last 10 years (1995-2005).” Radiative forcing quantifies increases in radiant energy in the atmosphere, and hence in temperature. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 in 1995 was 360 parts per million. In 2005 it was just 5% higher, at 378 ppm. But each additional molecule of CO2 in the air causes a smaller radiant-energy increase than its predecessor. So the true increase in radiative forcing was 1%, not 20%. The high priests have exaggerated the CO2 effect 20-fold.
“So how are you so nauseatingly certain that you’re right?” he asked. “Well,” I said, “because I worked out that the proportionate increase in CO2 between 1995 and 2005 was 5%, not 20%, and then did a simple calculation from this to work out the radiative forcing. It’s called ‘checking’.” He looked baffled. Voodoo has indeed replaced science, and the paradox is that the new religion claims to worship science.
Almost everybody seemed to be greenwashed with the view that science has proved that emissions of carbon dioxide are harming the climate and need to be reduced, but there are many reservations about the sort of measures that are being so frequently trumpeted as necessary by every leaflet, newspaper, radio and TV programme.Check out the qualifications of the Climate Blasphemers who signed a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and their letter opposing support of the so-called climate consensus.
When I first entered the place on Monday I was issued a leaflet by Oxfam headed "Stop Climate Poverty". They, and many other organisations present were frightened that the sort of climate mitigation measures which are being so loudly demanded will increase poverty in most underdeveloped countries.
Slogans like "Climate Justice Now" are on many stalls. They argued that the first priority for poorer countries is to encourage economic progress before they could be made to spend their limited resources on climate mitigation.
When I first entered the main conference hall I found leaflets on every seat attacking Greenpeace for discouraging the planting of forests and over-exaggerating "tropical deforestation" which accounts only for 17% of world timber production.
There is also concern about the proposal, (called REDD) to bribe Indonesian forest interests with "Carbon Credits" paid by you and me, so that instead of working they can live on charity. Many people are certain that the money would never reach the actual forestry workers, but would end up in Swiss bank accounts.
Another organisation with similar sceptical feelings about this conference as ourselves actually had a seat in the conference chamber. This was the Civil Society Climate Change Coalition which is an international body consisting of 41 member organisations in many countries. Our own Business Roundtable is a member and they have many from the USA and two in China.
They are non-scientists, mainly economists and sociologists, and they are prepared to believe that perhaps emissions of carbon dioxide might be a problem, but they are horrified by the economic and social consequences of the measures being proposed which are usually opposed to the most obvious and necessary ways of tackling the many problems of underdeveloped countries
Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports: - Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability. - The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years. - Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.There are more highly qualified, science achievers than the entire 2,500 'scientists' that the IPCC bases its reports on.