Paris might have been convulsed with terrorist attacks a few weeks ago but the bigwigs gathered there right now are
John Englart (Takver) / Foter / CC BY-SA
confabing about …… wait for it!!!…….. global warming. As if that is not ironic enough, consider this: The money that the super-elite group of 12 "leaders" spent just on their opening dinner at the three-Michelin star L'Ambroisie would have offset 340-trees worth of carbon in Kenya.
But what is really hard to take in Paris is the fakery (and I don't mean of the French). Every one is pretending that the conference will prod the world into doing something truly grand and meaningful. But it will not, I note in my column at The Week. Why? Because of the free-rider problem: Paris has just become the latest venue where every polluter tries to shake down the other to secure the global commons. That was the logic of the "coercive" model to cut emissions in Kyoto and Copenhagen. And that's also the logic unfolding in the "cooperative" model in Paris.
I note:
Not a single major polluter has offered anything resembling an adequate plan to slash emissions. In fact, literally every country is busy gaming the process — demonstrating, yet again, the utter folly of an approach that is attempting to save the world by putting it on a collective energy diet. But the good news is that once this "last chance" fails — and fail it will — the world will still have plenty of time to explore workable solutions.
Go here to read the whole thing.
Comentários