Tuesday 15 December 2015

Paris Climate 'Agreement' - Really Funny

Our longtime commenter Timbo614 chided me over not posting a new 'falling oil-price' piece, it having fallen clean through 40.  And indeed I must - but just now there is something really entertaining to be shared.

Yes friends, the Paris Climate summit came to the predictable conclusion on Sunday, with much triumphant tub-thumping from the podium and much heartfelt weeping from the floor (at least I think it was a pool of tears on the floor).  Immediate green reactions were close to ecstatic - you see, we knew we could do it ... and now, three days on, they've noticed that *ahem* the Paris Agreement contains two-tenths of bugger-all.

As I trawled page after online page of wailing and gnashing of teeth ... well, you'd need a heart of stone etc etc.  But fellahs, it was always going to be an empty Agreement!  If it wasn't empty, it wouldn't have been agreed.  As predicted, George Osborne won't need to trouble himself with any commitments we can't comfortably achieve.  Or indeed any at all, it seems.

Anyhow, as part of the usual service to readers I have read the turgid Paris Agreement from end to end, and thought you might like to share these gems:
Parties should, when taking action to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights, the right to health, the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity
(What about transgender, eh ?  Presumably the African delegations had a red line on that one.) 
Parties acknowledge that adaptation action should follow a country-driven, gender-responsive, participatory and fully transparent approach, taking into consideration vulnerable groups, communities and ecosystems, and should be based on and guided by the best available science and, as appropriate, traditional knowledge, knowledge of indigenous peoples and local knowledge systems, with a view to integrating adaptation into relevant socioeconomic and environmental policies and actions, where appropriate
I really like the sound of "best available science and traditional knowledge ..."   Including Aristotelian physics, perhaps, and a bit of voodoo?  Well why not indeed?  As appropriate!

ND

11 comments:

lilith said...

"Gender-responsive" ?

CityUnslicker said...

it is amazing that the eco-communists can be both at once so menacing and also so impotent. Defeated by their own pc logic.

dustybloke said...

I've read science fiction since I was knee high to something not very tall, so I have read of many types of dystopian futures, stories where humankind blasts itself out of existence, predictions of aliens devastating earth.

But, strangely, I've never read of a future where the human race, quite voluntarily, collectively disappears up its own arsehole.

I guess none of us saw it coming...

Nick Drew said...

the eco-arseholes have been coming for quite a while ... they're where the green crap comes from

James Higham said...

What was the total cost of that lunacy?

Antisthenes said...

" George Osborne won't need to trouble himself with any commitments we can't comfortably achieve"

Not so. The EU and the mad men of Brussels have said that they intend to vigorously pursue the below 2 degree target. As they are our masters now Osborn will bloody well have to spend what ever the EU tells him to and you can be sure it will be mind boggling amounts

The rest of the world of course will be laughing all the way to the bank as they ignore COP21 and become richer while we continue to impoverish ourselves.

A Non said...

Yeah, 'cos there is so much lucre in iron-smelting.

Climate stuff is irrelevant to the UK, we need to be going clean and high-tech *anyway*. We've lost interest in burning coal because of the pollution, importing gas in sufficient volumes is leaving a hostage to fortune, and nuclear is too damned expensive.

What George needs to do is set up a framework to ensure we get the cheapest and most reliable of the next-gen generators. By letting the market decide. I get the impression that this is the direction we are moving in. Apart from the EDF deal, but that is relatively small fry.

If we want to stay rich, we need to concentrate on making sure the UK is the best bloomin' place to Get Stuff Done.

dearieme said...

There's nothing wrong with Aristotelian physics, matey. Except that it is all wrong, but then people don't seem to mind about that these days.

Jan said...

...but I bet Polly Toynbee loves it.....

dustybloke said...

Yes, the point about "where appropriate" is a real giveaway, isn't it?

It would never appear in a commercial agreement about anything significant.

"I agree to pay the vendor the market value of the property on 15 June 2016, where appropriate".

Oh yes.

I can't see any wriggle room there for any politician at all.

A Non said...

Good to see AEP agrees with my earlier comment.