Organisers of the UN-sponsored Cop21 climate conference in Paris have less than a month left to prepare for an event they confidently claim will produce a new roadmap to stop “catastrophic global warming”.
They must welcome tens of thousands of participants to a site near the French capital all the while acknowledging the world is no closer today to agreement on the subject than it was when the first round of meetings opened 20 years ago.
Just weeks ahead of the 30 November-11 December meeting in Paris, nations cannot even agree on the scientific meaning of the term “decarbonisation” and whether it applies only to CO2 or other so-called greenhouse gases too.
The term has been in and out of various versions of a draft agreement to be presented to ministers and heads of state in the French capital.
Green groups pushing for a 100 per cent renewable economy by 2050 hailed the word’s reappearance, following a minor rebellion by developing nations, in a revised text unveiled in Bonn last week.
There is still no certainty it will be included when U.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping join more than 80 world leaders to play their part in the biggest international meet in France since the Universal Declaration of Human rights was drawn up in 1948.
What is more certain is that the conference is striving to appear as ecologically exemplary as possible.
COP21 is “exceptional in every way, because of its duration (two weeks), the seriousness of what is at stake which affects us all, and because it brings together a great number of participants,” the official in charge, Pierre-Henri Guignard, told AFP.
The Local reports that preparations are indeed exceptional in every way. A temporary town is being built at Le Bourget near Paris to host the event, with organisers claiming it has been planned according to the principles of sustainable development.
The 40-acre site includes 60 buildings that house meeting rooms, restaurants, shops, a bank, a post office, a 24-hour press centre for 3,000 journalists and medical facilities.
The estimated 21,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases expected to be produced by the site will be offset after the conference by projects in the Southern Hemisphere, the French government says.
Ultimately the conference will rise or fall on the matter of money; who pays it and who gets it.
Developing countries say they had done least to create the perceived problems associated with more Co2 in the atmosphere so they would like compensation.
In Copenhagen in 2009, as countries tried to put together a comprehensive agreement, the richer nations promised to provide $100bn a year in climate finance from 2020 to lower CO2 levels.
That deal ultimately failed, but countries are hoping to conclude a more ambitious agreement in Paris although there are plenty of scientists who readily argue the entire project is nothing but a wealth redistribution project.
Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace and now proud climate sceptic, believes climate alarmist Barack Obama would be better advised to stick to topics he is vaguely on top of rather than trying to scare the world into believing that the end days is near due to the amount of man-made CO2 in the atmosphere.
“Barack Obama has found a fad he can vaguely agree with – and espouse the merits of – and that’s pretty well it,” Dr. Moore said in an exclusive interview with Breitbart London last month. “Too often we see him stand behind a lectern somewhere and earnestly repeat a whole lot of pseudo scientific waffle in the vague hope that he will be believed.
“But he is wrong. Really, really wrong. I am proudly sceptical humans are the main cause of climate change and that it will somehow be catastrophic in the near future. There is no scientific proof of this hypothesis, yet we are told constantly that ‘the science is settled’, ‘the debate must end’ and more ominously, ‘something must be done.’
“Well, I think the thing that should be done is for everyone to just give all the blathering hysteria a rest.”
Unfortunately for Dr. Moore, the “blathering hysteria” he warns against will all be on show in Paris next month.
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