Trillions for Tuvalu (Bakken Oil Business Journal, Chris Bischof) USofA

TRILLIONS for TUVALU

By CHRIS BISCHOF

At the beginning of December 2015, leaders from almost every nation in the world met in Paris to discuss Climate Change and to create plans aimed at reducing the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. They believe the failure to cut back on carbon emissions – greenhouse gases – will lead to a global temperature increase that would unleash an existential crisis upon humanity. In their view, the crisis point would be reached if global temperatures rise two degrees Celsius. The calamity they foresee includes devastating weather patterns, including seas that rise as polar ice melts. Nothing short of an apocalypse of Biblical proportions.

In their more restrained moments, perhaps they recall something Mark Twain was supposed to have said, “Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it.”

No longer. This time some people have gotten serious. Leaders everywhere are alarming the public by claiming the future of mankind is threatened by certain human activities involving the combustion of fossil fuels, activities including driving cars, flying planes, generating electricity, manufacturing goods, constructing roads and buildings, growing food, warming ourselves when temperatures are low, cooling ourselves when temperatures are high and much more.

In short, all the activities that propel and define a modern economy. They say if we continue living as we’ve lived we’ll soon perish, victims of our own success, victims of our own excess.

Therefore, they believe we have to take some strong medicine to save ourselves.

Their remedy? The people who have declared the climate is in peril want us to

return to an earlier time, a time when we used far less energy, when we didn’t burn coal, oil and natural gas. With that in mind, they issued edicts, proclamations, deadlines and more as they urge the world to start the process of “de-carbonizing.”

They have put a lot of effort into their work. Thus, when the Paris Conference of Parties, known as COP21, was over, the participants congratulated themselves as though it was July 1969 and they had just landed Neil Armstrong on the moon and watched him say “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

movies have ended with those words?

To be more specific, Frye, and representatives of about 195 other nations, believe the adoption of the agreements made at the Paris Climate Conference would stop the melting of ice in Antarctica and Greenland that would otherwise release enough water to submerge Tuvalu and other low-lying areas.

However, it should surprise no one that such ambitious plans are expensive.

How expensive? Meanwhile, is keeping the island above sea-level worth it?

One more point. It appears that fighting climate change requires the creation of many committees and other

However, putting a man on the moon is a breeze compared to controlling the Access Control • Intrusion Alarm climate on Earth.

Controlling the climate is a challenge best characterized by the triumphant words of one relieved COP21 participant.

Ian Frye, lead negotiator for the tiny Pacific island of Tuvalu said, “We firmly believe we have saved Tuvalu, and in doing so, believe we have saved the world.”

Save Tuvalu and save the world?

Wow. Cue Hollywood. How many

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TRILLIONS for TUVALU

entities bearing compelling names. The multitude of names has led to a long list of acronyms. So many it’s hard to keep track.

the COST

First, the conference attendees agreed that contributions to the total cost for combatting the predicted threats would vary from one country to the next.

Those nations with more resources would contribute more than poorer nations. Or, to put things in terms that have been stated before: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

To expedite this, the convention-goers developed a strategy to channel funds from rich to poor countries.

The strategy involves something called the Global Environmental Facility (GEF)

and the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

Within those two entities are three other funds: the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF), the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) and the Adaptation Fund (AF).

Moreover, to move the process along, there is the Standing Committee on Finance (SCF), which is there to assist the COP as it distributes cash according to the assessments made by the various groups. If the funds fall short, additional money for climate change activities would become available through “bilateral, regional and multilateral channels”, whatever that means.

If the plans seem complex, that’s because they are. Is it possible the participants believe it’s necessary to generate complexity because they want to hide something? That seems to be the case.

It looks like they want to bury the important information where it won’t be found.

Which information? The estimate. The

big number. It seems to have been buried so deep it may take financial archeologists to find it. Where is it? It’s hidden somewhere in the outpourings of documents produced by the convoluted list of groups, committees and funds. The elusive figure seems to be the financial equivalent of a Heffalump, which can be found, or not found, in the children’s book, Winnie-the-Pooh.

In the book, Pooh and Piglet attempt to capture the elephant-like Heffalump.

However, none are caught. None are even seen. The only appearance of the beast occurs as Pooh tries to put himself to sleep: “He tried counting Heffalumps, but every Heffalump that he counted was making straight for a pot of Pooh’s honey ... and when the five hundred and eightyseventh Heffalump was licking its jaws, and saying to itself, ‘Very good honey this, I don’t know when I’ve tasted better’, Pooh could bear it no longer.”

CHART SHOWING FLOWS OF FUNDS

INTERACTIVE MAP http://www3.unfccc.int/pls/apex/f?p=116:4:19164193200773::NO::: Map shows which countries pay and which receive.

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However, after considerable digging, the Heffalumpian number was finally unearthed. As these things go, this one set a record. The tally, provided by the International Energy Agency (IEA), put the bill at an eye-popping $44 Trillion. Said another way, that figure equals almost three years of America’s Gross Domestic Product.

holding back THE TIDE Now that we know the cost of compliance with COP21, what exactly would the outlay achieve? Tuvalu is a chain of nine tiny islands sitting in the Pacific Ocean about 2,500 miles northeast of Sydney, Australia. The main island covers about 10 square miles. Its highest point stands about 15 feet above sea level. The island is home to about 10,000 Tuvaluans whose per-capita GDP is a little less than $4,000.

Is the future of a tiny island – whose citizens might easily move to Australia

– worth trillions of dollars on the off chance that spending massive sums would actually stop the seas from rising?

And by the way, how much are the seas predicted to rise? According to the experts attending COP21, global sea levels may rise about one foot by 2065 and another foot by 2100. Even if those estimates are close, do we really need to worry? Do the Tuvaluans need to worry? Consider Holland, New Orleans and Venice.

Perhaps some islands would disappear beneath the waves. But it seems obvious that nations expected to foot the $44 Trillion bill to limit temperature increases would prefer to relocate the residents of those islands to higher ground rather than impose huge costs on taxpayers to keep some ice from melting. In comparison, moving the people of Tuvalu to Australia would cost nothing.

how did we GET HERE? The Paris Climate talks ended in many rounds of self-congratulations. Representatives of almost 200 countries cheered for themselves, suggesting to the world that they had saved it from doom. Their supporters roared in delight. But we’ve heard this before. After the meeting in Kyoto in 1997, in Bali in 2007, in Copenhagen in 2009, in Cancun in 2010, in Durban in 2011, in Doha in 2012, in Warsaw in 2013 and most recently, in Paris.

For those old enough to remember, some of the locations for climate conferences were places where Bob Hope and Bing Crosby ventured in their amusing road movies, establishing a further connection between climate activism and Hollywood. ➤ continued, pg 30

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TRILLIONS for TUVALU

The first World Climate Conference (WCC) was held.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established

IPCC’s first report was released. It called for a global treaty on climate change.

In comparison, it took NASA only 10 years from the start of Project Mercury till Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

It doesn’t hurt to compare costs either.

The cost of the Apollo program was $20 billion in 1970 dollars. Or about $100 billion when adjusted for inflation.

Before Apollo there were the Mercury and Gemini programs. Project Mercury cost $280 million in 1965 dollars, or about $1.6 billion in today’s dollars. The Gemini price tag was about $1.3 billion in 1967 dollars, which is roughly $8 billion today. After those programs came Skylab, the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.

The total for all NASA piloted programs from 1959 to 2015 adds up to $275 billion, or about $500 billion in today’s dollars. Have we gotten our money’s worth?

That’s a debatable question. But most people would agree that we have.

However, the $44 Trillion estimate for putting the brakes on climate change is almost 100 times the cost of our expeditions into space. Do we have any way of knowing if this huge outlay would save the world, as the representative from Tuvalu has declared it would? We do not, and that’s all the reason we need to hold off. Worse, we have no idea if the costly strategies would result in any desirable changes. On top of that, despite the claims of the COP21 attendees, no one knows if reported climate changes are

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The first meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) took place.

The INC approved the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

UNFCCC became effective. Its goal was to prevent “dangerous” human interference in the climate system.

the result of human activity or caused by the sun.

Lastly, COP21 has yielded a plan of action for all nations to follow. How many will comply? Is it rational to think that OPEC nations, which have no source of revenue beyond oil, would cut back on oil production? Based on their current efforts to flood the market, it seems unlikely the OPEC nations would ever willingly impose financial hardship on themselves.

Meanwhile, the COP21 restrictions for China and India are scheduled to take

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The first Conference of the Parties (COP 1) occurred. It was held in Berlin.

1996

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WHEN DID THIS ROAD MOVIE BEGIN? The Time Line of Climate Activism

The UNFCCC Secretariat was established to support the efforts of the Convention.

effect way in the future, in 2030, leaving plenty of time for both nations to develop ways to side-step them. Therefore, it looks as though, once again, a group of zealots have engaged in political theater that seems to recall those lines from Shakespeare’s MacBeth: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” ■ Chris Bischof is the Executive Editor of the Bakken Oil Business Journal. Previously he worked as a securities analyst and financial writer. He lives in New York City.

Chris can be reached at exec.editor@bakkenoilbiz.com.

The IPCC published its third report.

That report embraced the Bonn Agreements, which were based on the Buenos Aires Plan of Action developed in 1998.

The first Meeting of the Parties (MOP 1) to the Kyoto Protocol took place in Montreal.

At that time, the parties discussed the next phase of the KP. The discussions were titled the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties Under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP)

IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report was released.

By then the concept of climate science entered into popular consciousness.

At the meeting – COP13 – the parties established the Bali Road Map, which detailed more climate plans.

The Copenhagen Accord was drafted at COP15.

Countries later submitted pledges to reduce emissions, which were non-binding.

Cancun Agreements were drafted and accepted.

Next, the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action was drafted and accepted.

The Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol was adopted.

2013

2012

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1997 Kyoto Protocol (KP) was adopted in December at COP3.

Initially, 37 industrialized nations and the European Community agreed to cut greenhouse gases (GHG) an average of five percent below 1990 levels. That’s a huge decrease.

Key decisions adopted at COP19 included changes to the Durban Platform, the Green Climate Fund and the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage.

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