Negotiators and Secretary General continue to ignore scientists and public opinion
OTTAWA, Dec. 13, 2014 /CNW/ – “Climate change negotiators in Lima, Peru seemed oblivious to the findings of the UN’s ongoing My World survey about what the people of the world really want the agency to focus on,” said Tom Harris, executive director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC). “The seven million people polled so far indicate that, in comparison with issues such as education, health care, jobs, and energy, they care very little about climate change.”
“Perhaps most out of touch with reality is the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon himself who on Wednesday asserted that climate change remains his ‘top priority’,” continued Harris.
ICSC chief science advisor, Professor Bob Carter, former Head of the Department of Earth Sciences at James Cook University in Australia explained, “That ‘action taken on climate change’ rates dead last among the 16 priorities the public wants to see action on is not surprising. They understand that the remote possibility of human activity contributing to climate problems decades from now is unimportant in comparison with the very real problems faced by the world’s poor today.
“During the UN Climate Change Conferences in 2007, 2009, and 2012, hundreds of climate experts endorsed open letters (see here) to Mr. Ban explaining his mistakes on the science,” said Carter. “Among the scientific luminaries signing the letters were Dr. Antonio Zichichi, President of the World Federation of Scientists; Freeman J. Dyson of Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies; Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, professor of natural sciences, Warsaw; and Dr.Richard S. Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“The Secretary General did not even acknowledge receipt of our open letters, let alone address any of our points,” concluded Carter.
New Zealand-based Terry Dunleavy, ICSC founding chairman and strategic advisor asked, “How can anyone take Mr. Ban seriously after he asserted on Tuesday that ‘Science has not only spoken – it is shouting from the rooftops. Our planet has a fever – and it is getting hotter every day.’
“Not only is climate science highly uncertain but there has been no statistically significant global warming for 18 years despite a 9% rise in carbon dioxide to a still miniscule 0.04% of our atmosphere,” said Dunleavy. “As the scientists explained in their 2012 open letter to Mr. Ban, ‘Global warming that has not occurred cannot have caused the extreme weather of the past few years.’”
In his 2014 book “The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science“, ICSC science advisory board member and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, Dr. Tim Ball summed up the situation well: “Climate change has happened, is happening and will always happen. Contrary to the message of the last thirty years, current rate of climate change is well within the bounds of natural variability. Thus, a perfectly natural phenomenon became the biggest deception in history.”
“The UN must get out of the climate field entirely,” said Ball. “In particular, their Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Framework Convention on Climate Change have always been biased political instruments and should be immediately disbanded. Then the agency should focus only on issues the people of the world deem important.”