We might think that a semi-secret,
international conference of top judges, held in the highest courtroom in
Britain, to propose that it should be made illegal for anyone to
question the scientific evidence for man-made global warming, was odd
enough to be worthy of front-page coverage.
Last week I mentioned that the Prince of Wales had sent a message to
this conference calling for the UN’s forthcoming climate meeting in
Paris to agree on “a Magna Carta for the Earth”. But only a series of
startling posts by a sharp-eyed Canadian blogger, Donna Laframboise (on Nofrakkingconsensus),
have alerted us to what a bizarre event this judicial gathering turned
out to be (the organisers even refused to give her the names of those
who attended).
The purpose of this strange get-together was outlined in a keynote speech (visible on YouTube) by Philippe Sands, a QC from Cherie Blair’s Matrix Chambers and professor of law at University College, London. Since it is now unlikely that the world will agree in Paris to a legally binding treaty to limit the rise in global temperatures to no more than 2 degrees C from pre-industrial levels, his theme was that it is now time for the courts to step in, to enforce this as worldwide law."
Including senior judges and lawyers from
across the world, the three-day conference on “Climate Change and the
Law” was staged in London’s Supreme Court. It was funded, inter alia, by
the Supreme Court itself, the UK government and the United Nations
Environment Program (UNEP).
As one of
the two UN sponsors of its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
UNEP has been one of the main drivers of alarm over global warming for
40 years. The organiser and chairman of the conference was the Supreme
Court judge Lord Carnwath, a fervent believer in man-made climate
change, who has worked with the Prince of Wales for more than 20 years,
and with UNEP since 2002. The purpose of this strange get-together was outlined in a keynote speech (visible on YouTube) by Philippe Sands, a QC from Cherie Blair’s Matrix Chambers and professor of law at University College, London. Since it is now unlikely that the world will agree in Paris to a legally binding treaty to limit the rise in global temperatures to no more than 2 degrees C from pre-industrial levels, his theme was that it is now time for the courts to step in, to enforce this as worldwide law."
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