SO the Paris climate conference has been and gone, leaving in its wake a jet-travel fuel bill of monumental proportions, and a 16,500 word agreement “emphasising with serious concern the urgent need” to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
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The document – titled Adoption of the Paris Agreement. Proposal by the President, and published on December 12 – contains lots of emphasising and encouraging, as well as a fair bit of recognising, reiterating, recommending, requesting (and further requesting) as well as some inviting, urging and welcoming.
To make sure nobody is left out, paragraph five of article seven has the parties “acknowledge that adaption 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”.
Now I’m the first to admit that poking fun at the language of diplomacy is a cheap shot in the context, given the importance of the issue, and the enormous effort it’s taken the world’s political leaders to gather on the one stage, even without the memory of the Paris massacres as a backdrop.
But at the same time, when I went to the document, to see what it meant in practical terms, I was somewhat surprised to find no mention of the very thing that brought everyone together in the first place: the burning of fossil fuels.
Actually, the four letters “coal” do appear twice, but as part of the word “coalition”.
No mention of oil, or fossil fuel. Gas gets 23 mentions, but all in the context of greenhouse gases, rather than the methane-based products that the scientists say are adding to our problems.
The word “energy” appears three times: twice in the context of sustainable energy, and once in paragraph eight of article 16, giving the International Atomic Energy Agency the right to be an observer to proceedings.
As to what it all means, the United Nations described the Paris meeting as a “monumental triumph”.
On the extreme sceptic front, the US libertarian think-tank, the Cato Institute, has lashed out at what it calls “the irrational legacy of COP21”: the idea that “climate Armageddon” will result if average global temperatures rise by another 0.75°C above 2015 levels.
But the reality of the Paris agreement is that for all the fine words, the eventual document is non-binding and “country-driven”. As Environment Minister Greg Hunt acknowledged, the agreement contains “no sanctions or penalties if a country falls short of its target”. Hence the two dozen or so references to urging and encouraging, with no talk of demanding.
And hence, presumably, why the Minerals Council of Australia was happy to “welcome” the Paris agreement as one that will “support and accelerate the further roll-out of low emissions coal technologies”.
The council says hundreds of “high efficiency low emission” coal-fired power stations are either being planned or built in South East Asia – ideal markets for Australia’s “high energy, low impurity coal”.
Wishful thinking, or indication that little will change in life after Paris?
