Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering.

The German-born Pontiff said that while some concerns may be valid it was vital that the international community based its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement.

His remarks will be made in his annual message for World Peace Day on January 1, but they were released as delegates from all over the world convened on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali for UN climate change talks.

The 80-year-old Pope said the world needed …

AUSTRALIA, the US, Japan and Canada are resisting pressure from the UN and developing countries to adopt dramatic targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions as a major split emerges at the Bali conference on climate change.

As business and industry warn of catastrophic economic effects if the ambit claims of 25-40 per cent emission cuts by 2020 are adopted at the conference, Kevin Rudd and his Climate Change Minister Penny Wong have declared Australia will not budge until it knows the full cost of adopting any targets.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22910382-5013871,00.html

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Australia, after its warm reception at Bali because of its ratification of the symbolically important Kyoto Protocol, is now getting a cooler welcome from the UN and environmental groups for not adopting the 25-40 per cent figures.

Australia, always the recalcitrant under the Howard government, is now being lumped with …

All the talk in Bali about cutting carbon means nothing while ever more oil and coal is being extracted and burned

George Monbiot
Tuesday December 11, 2007
The Guardian

[...] Most of the governments of the rich world now exhort their citizens to use less carbon. They encourage us to change our lightbulbs, insulate our lofts, turn our televisions off at the wall. In other words, they have a demand-side policy for tackling climate change. But as far as I can determine, not one of them has a supply-side policy. None seeks to reduce the supply of fossil fuel. So the demand-side policy will fail. Every barrel of oil and tonne of coal that comes to the surface will be burned.

Or perhaps I should say that they do have a supply-side policy: to extract as much as they can. …

“… the scientists’ mask of optimism is beginning to slip.” (Roger Harrabin, BBC Environment Analyst, Bali, December 10)

As predicted many times on ‘Global Warming Politics’ (e.g. ‘The Battle of Bali Begins’, December 4), the Bali Conference is ascending into a confusion of noise and babble, a veritable ‘Tower of Bali’ [see: ‘No unity yet at UN climate talks’, BBC Online Science/Nature News, December 10]:

“Disagreements over responsibility for tackling climate change remain much in evidence as UN climate negotiations enter their second week.

The EU and developing countries want industrialised nations to start talks on a further set of emissions targets. But this is being resisted by a number of parties led by Canada.

Trade ministers, meeting for the first time at UN climate talks, advocated lowering trade barriers on low-carbon energy products. …

One would think that countries that signed the Kyoto treaty are doing a better job of curtailing carbon emissions.  One would also think that the United States, the only country that does not even intend to sign, keeps on emitting carbon dioxide at growth levels much higher than those who signed.

And one would be wrong.

The Kyoto treaty was agreed upon in late 1997 and countries started signing and ratifying it in 1998. A list of countries and their carbon dioxide emissions due to consumption of fossil fuels is available from the U.S. government.  If we look at that data and compare 2004 (latest year for which data is available) to 1997 (last year before the Kyoto treaty was signed), we find the following.

Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.
Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1%.
Emissions from …

Als «falschen Alarmismus» und Gefahr für die Freiheit hat der tschechische Präsident Vaclav Klaus die aktuelle Klimadebatte kritisiert. Sein Buch «Blauer Planet in grünen Fesseln» sei die Antwort auf den ehemaligen US-Vizepräsidenten Al Gore und die UN-Umweltkonferenz auf Bali, sagte Klaus am Montag bei der Vorstellung der deutschen Fassung seines Werkes in Berlin.

Die «Ideologie der globalen Erwärmung» münde in eine Steuerung der Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft, kritisierte er. Sie führe «uns in eine neue Unfreiheit, in eine neue, von oben organisierte und dirigierte Gesellschaft, wo der Mensch nur am Rande stehen wird». Der tschechische Konservative verurteilte die Bemühungen, eine Klimakatastrophe abwenden zu wollen, als nutzlos und als Verschwendung ohnehin knapper Mittel. Vorstellbare und wahrscheinliche Klimaänderungen «in der relevanten Zukunft» seien nicht so groß, dass sie die Menschheit bedrohten.

(Vaclav Klaus, Blauer Planet in grünen Fesseln», Carl Gerold’s Sohn Verlagsbuchhandlung, Wien, ISBN:978-3-900812-15-7 http://www.pr-inside.com/de/vaclav-klaus-nennt-klimadebatte-gefahr-r339958.htm

Al Gore und Rajendra Pachauri, der Chef des Weltklimarates (IPCC), haben heute in Stockholm den Friedensnobelpreis entgegengenommen. Eine von mir dieser Tage herausgegebene Sondernummer der wissenschaftlichen Zeitschrift Energy & Environment beschäftig sich recht kritisch mit der Struktur und Politik des umstrittenen Weltklimarates. Eine genau Inhaltsangabe der E&E Sondernummer findet sich am Ende meines editorials:

IPCC: THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN?

Benny Peiser, Liverpool John Moores University, Faculty of Science, Liverpool L3 23ET, UK, …

Al Gore, der grüne Träumer:

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said that he predicted the next U.S. president will shift course and become more involved in the international fight against the climate change issue. According to Gore, whoever is elected to the position will decide to adhere to the international call for the U.S. to cut its carbon emissions.

In an interview with the Associated Press on Monday, Gore said “The new president, whichever party wins the election, is likely to have to change the position on this climate crisis...I do believe the U.S., soon, is to have a more constructive role.” http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7009410633

John Kerry, der grüne Realpolitiker:

If China and other emerging economies don’t contribute to reining in greenhouse gases, “it would be very difficult” to get a new global climate deal through the U.S. Senate, even under a …