Myths plaguing the 'climate change' debate

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Editor's note: Pieter Cleppe represents the independent think tank Open Europe in Brussels. The article reflects the author's opinion, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

As the UN COP24 Climate Change Conference is being hosted in Poland, I'll take a look at a number of myths plaguing the “climate change” debate.

The scientific consensus is less clear-cut than often presented

We often hear how science would be “settled” about the fact that the climate would be warming due to human activity and that this has all kinds of proven consequences.

COP24 President Michal Kurtyka attends a plenary session at the COP24 UN Climate Change Conference 2018 in Katowice, Poland December 11, 2018. /VCG Photo

Any skeptical attitude about these claims would qualify one as “anti-scientific,” even if skepticism is the very cornerstone of science and to find anti-scientific instincts, it's better to look at the attitude of some “climate activists” instead, as some have adopted a rather religious outlook on things.

In reality, the scientific consensus that humans would be to blame or that the earth would even be warming isn't all that clear-cut, nor is it supported by “97 percent of climate scientists,” as for example claimed by former U.S. President Barack Obama.

Economist Richard Tol, who has been active in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1994, has debunked the research on which this figure was based; amongst others revealing that “most of the papers studied are not about climate change and its causes.”

He nevertheless states that “there is widespread agreement, though, that climate change is real and human-made” but “there is disagreement, of course, particularly on the extent to which humans contributed to the observed warming.”

Last but not least, there is the often-cited claim that there would be more unprecedented weather extremes due to human-made global warming.

Greenpeace environmental activists project words "No hope without climate action" on the roof of the venue of the COP24 UN Climate Change Conference 2018 in Katowice, Poland December 9, 2018. /VCG Photo

This is simply contradicted by the latest U.S. government report, which finds that “drought statistics over the entire contiguous U.S. have declined.” The IPCC itself has also stated that increased floodings were “not” due to human influence.

The real cost of climate change isn't as catastrophic as presented

A brand new U.S. government study was reported as concluding that global warming would shrink the U.S. economy by 10 percent.

However, a closer look by “skeptical environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg reveals that this 10 percent reduction by the end of this century would come from an economy that's 300 percent larger than it is today.

What's more, that 10 percent off the 300 percent bonanza should actually only be maximum 5 percent.

That's because the "10 percent" figure is based on the assumption that temperatures will increase by about 14 degrees Fahrenheit, which is almost twice as high as figures coming from the U.S. climate assessment.

Lastly, two-thirds of the estimated damage to the economy would result from people dying from heat, which he considers being an excessive estimate as people tend to adapt very quickly.

Demonstrations erupted at COP24 after Wells Griffith said the U.S. will not be rejecting coal mining or fossil fuel use in Katowice, Poland, December 10, 2018. /VCG Photo

In a nutshell: the massive economic growth we can expect by the end of this century will only be hit marginally by climate change even if the direst predictions turn out to be correct.

In this regard, it should also be mentioned that political action only has a modest effect on limiting global warming, and that is assuming global coordination would be possible, according to calculations made by climate economist William Nordhaus, the winner of this year's Nobel Prize.

Many climate policies aren't necessarily good for the climate only because they carry the 'climate' label

The EU's “emission trading system” (ETS), which was meant to force companies that emit CO2 to provide compensation but at the same time allow them to buy the right to emit, so to optimize this process, has ended up supporting big manufacturers that emit a lot of CO2.

Those big companies simply convinced policymakers they needed to receive free emission rights or would have to cut jobs. This distorted fair competition.

In Paris, the March for the Climate brings 25,000 people together, December 8, 2018. / VCG Photo

On top of that, many technologies that are bad for emission levels or that hurt the environment have been receiving distorting state subsidies. That's the case for diesel-fueled cars, once thought to emit less CO2, or electric cars, that according to the International Energy Agency may even increase pollution levels.

Also, biofuels were originally seen as blissful before they were seen to be damaging.

Hazardous materials are needed to produce solar panels while the environmental downsides of wind turbines have also been documented.

Meanwhile, nuclear energy is enjoying some renewed support, and not only from certain environmentalists, such as George Monbiot. One prominent climate scientist, Valerie Trouet, recently even said that it is “too late” to try to develop wind and solar energy, and we better double down on nuclear energy, which has a low carbon footprint.

Then politicians, like for example German Chancellor Angela Merkel, stand in the way of this, as they have associated themselves with an anti-nuclear stance.

Renewable technology holds great promise, but how responsible is it to exclusively rely on it while ignoring very real downsides?

Renewables have made great headway and are a more “decentralized” way of energy production, in contrast to old, often crony energy sources, with their more “centralized” structures, so they shouldn't fearsome open market competition, without subsidies and political distortions, as long as external costs are born by the polluter.

Financial transfers between states cannot be assumed to be implemented well, on the contrary

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world's wealthy countries have pledged to provide developing states with at least 100 billion U.S dollars a year to ease the latter's transition to renewable energy and mitigate the harms of climate change.

U.S. President Donald Trump announces that he would withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement, June 1, 2017. /VCG Photo‍

The idea behind this is that developing countries will need to forswear fossil fuels, at some potential economic cost.

Past experiences, for example with the UN's 1997 carbon credit scheme, which – due to the fact it trusted countries themselves with oversight – gave companies in Russia and Ukraine an incentive to increase emissions, suggests we should assume that such “climate transfers” of money between governments will not happen according to the rules.

The U.S., which is opposed to the Paris climate agreement, is trying to undermine this, by suggesting developed countries should be able to count commercial loans as transfers and by disputing the definition between “developed” and “non-developed.”

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com.)