CLIMATE CHANGE: what does it mean?

The Agreement in Brief

Article 1 – definitions

Article 2 – establishes the key objective of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5C, or at most 2C

Article 3 – need for nations to declare their contributions for achieving the goal set in Article 2, as defined in Articles 4, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 13

Article 4 – need to undertake rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions

Article 5 – need to conserve and enhance sinks of greenhouse gases

Article 6 – recognition for those with more ambitious goals by allowing transfer of credits

Article 7 – adaptation rules

Article 8 – averting, minimizing, and compensating for loss and damage due to climatic events

Article 9 – assistance to poor countries

Article 10 – development and transfer of climate-change technology

Article 11 – enhance capacity building in poor countries

Article 12 – cooperation objective

Article 13 – transparent framework for action and support

Article 14 – reporting of progress

Article 15 – mechanism to aid implementation and compliance

Article 16 – designation of the Conference of the Parties as supreme body of the Convention

Article 17 – establishment of secretariat of the Convention

Article 18 – designation of advisory bodies

Article 19 – subsidiary bodies serve at the discretion of the Convention

Article 20 – ratification and approval of the agreement by national governments

Article 21 – entering into force of the agreement

Articles 22-29 – administrative matters

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I choose to focus on Articles 6 and 10 because I find them to be the most pernicious of them all. But, please keep in mind that I'm a climate-change sceptic. Despite this I'm an environmentalist and have been since my university days.

Article 6

Climate change has been sold to us as must - a do or die thing. We've all heard the following proclamations: we need to act now or we'll be doomed forever; keeping temperature rises to less than 1.5C above the pre-industrial era is essential, and may not even be enough. We heard these claims over and over until most people took them for granted.

If they are true, then why do we allow trading of credits, which means that polluters that can afford to buy them won't have to make any reductions? If we are at the edge of the abyss, shouldn't we all be fighting with everything we have? And those that can do more should, out of moral obligation and not profit?

On the other hand, if we had focused on the more immediate problem of air pollution from burning fossil fuels, we wouldn't be trading greenhouse gas credits because greenhouse gases are not toxic or carcinogenic so they don't contribute to the health hazards that arise from normal breathing. According to the World Health Organization, the air we breathe is harmful to our health and contributes to countless suffering and deaths every year! Unfortunately, we need to breathe to keep alive!

Article 10

This agreement demands governments to invest in new technologies for removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. This simply creates another profit opportunity for big business, which will be seen in the public eye as the saviours of Mother Earth. Their technologies will avoid the doomsday scenarios that we all have heard repeatedly over the last decade, and saving us from certain disaster. The reality is it's another scheme to enrich the multinational corporations that are so used to living off government handouts. It's another transfer of money from the masses to the one percent. Of course, the corporate titans will pursue new technologies that will eventually pay handsome profits and bonuses to themselves. History repeats itself over and over ad nauseam.

The Real Solution: a missed opportunity

The cause of air pollution, or greenhouse gas emissions if you prefer, is overconsumption; and the solution is simply less consumption for those who are overconsuming, which are typically the members of the OECD – the club of rich countries.

The agreement doesn't challenge OECD nations, or us individually, to consume less energy and less of everything because everything we use, or consume, requires energy in its manufacture shipping and other stages in the long process from raw materials to finished product. Big corporations don't want us to consume less: they want us to consume more. And that's why we will not hear a call to reduce national or individual consumption: it would be anathema to them. 

However, we don't need governments to tell us what to do. If we want to leave a better world to our children and theirs, we have to consume less. It's our moral obligation to those that come after us!