Articles Tagged "Bryan Leyland"

Press Release: New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

The New Zealand
Climate Science Coalition

28 November 2011 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wind energy report riddled with flaws

The report issued by the New Zealand Wind Energy Association claiming that New Zealanders could be $390 per annum better off with 20% wind energy is riddled with flaws and makes a number of very dubious assumptions, says Bryan Leyland, energy commentator and member of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.

“The most dubious assumption is that carbon dioxide will be costed at $50 or $100 per tonne. This is a key assumption and without it, their whole economic argument collapses. In Europe, the current carbon price is about €7.5 per tonne and falling rapidly. Everyone agrees that there is now no chance that Kyoto will be extended or that a new agreement will occur before 2020 - if ever. At the same time, more revelations are coming out about the dubious science behind the whole global warming myth and, with economies all over the world in serious trouble, the prospect of them saddling their consumers and industries with carbon charges is decreasing rapidly. The world has not warmed the last 10 to 15 years and it is almost certain that the world has entered a sunspot driven cooling period.

"Climate change" has suffered significant setbacks in the past year. First there was Climategate. Then the Copenhagen conference ended without binding agreements on either mitigation or adaptation. This was followed quickly by Glaciergate, Amazongate, Kiwigate and serious challenges to the credibility of Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Next, professor Phil Jones of the United Kingdom's Climatic Research Unit (and lead author of the IPCC chapter on temperatures) admitted that there has been no statistically significant warming for 15 years. Then "hockey stick" promoters finally acknowledged that there indeed was a Medieval Warm Period.

These events, coupled with the economic downturn and the education efforts of climate realists - those who take a balanced perspective of climate change - have impacted public opinion. Now, a significant fraction of the public regards the past century's warming as primarily natural and a human-induced global-warming catastrophe as improbable. So public support for expensive greenhouse-gas-reduction policies has eroded.

Republican climate skeptics have taken control of the U.S. House of Representatives, thereby killing any chance of federal "cap-and-trade" legislation for now. Republican congressional leaders also have vowed to use every trick in the book to block Environmental Protection Agency carbon-dioxide (CO2) regulations scheduled to start on Jan. 2. And, not surprisingly, the United Nations' 2010 Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, is failing, with Mother Nature helping to dampen warming fears as an early winter sets in across the Northern Hemisphere.

With IPCC Chair now off the hot seat, UN Chief must be held responsible

“The authority of the United Nations is being undermined by the incompetence exposed within its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], and ultimately the buck has to stop with UN Secretary General,” asserted International Climate Science Coalition Chief Science Adviser Professor Bob Carter of James Cook University in Australia.

Observers may be tempted to forgive Secretary General Ban ki-Moon for his failure to properly oversee the IPCC, only one of dozens of UN agencies. However, it seems strange that Mr. Ban has received no criticism whatsoever for years of damaging bias within an influential UN panel for which he is ultimately responsible. Instead, the IPCC Chairman, Indian economist Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, has taken all the heat.

Going into the IPCC meeting in South Korea earlier this month, there was worldwide pressure to dismiss Pachauri since many people considered him to have biases and conflicts of interest inappropriate for the IPCC Chair. Citing a loss in credibility on Pachauri’s part, Tim Yeo, chairman of the UK House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, said point blank, “… I think Dr. Pachauri should resign.” The eminent British climatologist Professor Sir Brian Hoskins said that he too believed that the IPCC Chair had to step down. Even John Sauven, director of Greenpeace UK, joined in the calls for Pachauri to be replaced for the sake of the UN’s climate change body’s credibility.