Sorry to disappoint, but the Paris deal is bull****
COP21 UN climate change conference in Paris. Whatever happens now, we will not be viewed kindly by succeeding generations [Image: Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA].
By comparison to what it could have been, it’s a miracle. By comparison to what it should have been, it’s a disaster.
Inside the narrow frame within which the talks have taken place, the draft agreement at the UN climate talks in Paris is a great success. The relief and self-congratulation with which the final text was greeted, acknowledges the failure at Copenhagen six years ago, where the negotiations ran wildly over time before collapsing. The Paris agreement is still awaiting formal adoption, but its aspirational limit of 1.5C of global warming, after the rejection of this demand for so many years, can be seen within this frame as a resounding victory. In this respect and others, the final text is stronger than most people anticipated.
Outside the frame it looks like something else. I doubt any of the negotiators believe that there will be no more than 1.5C of global warming as a result of these talks. As the preamble to the agreement acknowledges, even 2C, in view of the weak promises governments brought to Paris, is wildly ambitious. Though negotiated by some nations in good faith, the real outcomes are likely to commit us to levels of climate breakdown that will be dangerous to all and lethal to some. Our governments talk of not burdening future generations with debt. But they have just agreed to burden our successors with a far more dangerous legacy: the carbon dioxide produced by the continued burning of fossil fuels, and the long-running impacts this will exert on the global climate.
Source: Grand promises of Paris climate deal undermined by squalid retrenchments | Opinion | The Guardian
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When a tory apparatchic comments the’this is aspirational’ and borneo is burning and American companies are blowing the tops off mountains for coal, then I see only a smog and disease ridden future. Must admit to wondering why companies and billionairs think they would be immune to these effects!
I suspect psychiatrists would have a field day trying to fathom out the mind set of these people. Perhaps they believe that money can buy them literally anything. Perhaps they ought to be reminded that, however wealthy one is, there are no pockets in shrouds.
ChrisTine Bergin – Easy as to why they think they ‘would be immune’ – although often giving a good impression appearance of being in total control, they don’t think straight! These alpha-type captains of industry and politicians are well-known to suffer cognitive deficits (as well as delusions of grandeur and invincibility) so, as psychopaths, they are unable to see the harm they inflict on others and should therefore be locked up (or put to sleep) for their own, and especially everyone else’s, protection.