Pope and UN Sabotaging Development goals by focus on climate mitigation

OTTAWA, Sept. 25, 2015 /CNW/ - "By promoting the unfounded idea that humanity controls Earth's climate, Pope Francis and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon are sabotaging many of the most important goals of today's UN Sustainable Development Summit," said Tom Harris, Executive Director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC). "As described in yesterday's ICSC news release, "Pope on wrong side of history on climate change," (click here to view), efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 'stop global warming' cause unintended consequences that counter the social justice and environmental protection efforts of the UN and the Catholic Church."

ICSC Strategic Advisor and Founding Chairman Terry Dunleavy of New Zealand advised, "Pope Francis and Mr. Ban should pay more attention to the UN's My World survey that shows what the public consider important.

"The 8.4 million people polled to date say that, in comparison with most of the other UN post-2015 development agenda—issues such as health promotion, hunger alleviation and access to clean water, sanitation, and affordable energy—they care little about climate change," said Dunleavy.

Dr. Tim Ball, former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg explains, "Most of the public, especially the poor, recognize that solving the problems we face today is vastly more important than trying to affect future climate.

"The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change reports demonstrate that much of what we thought we knew about climate change is either wrong or highly debateable," said Ball, an ICSC science advisor and author of the 2014 book The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science. "Yet, based on the assumption that climate science is 'settled', politicians foolishly want to phase out the use of inexpensive coal for generating electricity in developed nations and prevent poor Africans from using this resource to produce the electricity they need for poverty alleviation."

Ball concluded, "World leaders attending today's Summit must insist that climate mitigation be completely removed from the UN's post-2015 development agenda."

Tom Harris  International Climate Science Coalition  Ottawa September 2015