Triumphal Facade

The largest, most ambitious, most ballyhooed event ever sponsored by the United Nations has just concluded. It has concluded with an agreement whose contents are evasive, opaque, irrelevant, cowardly and hypocritical. It could hardly be otherwise, considering all the competing, self-interested, belligerent, entitled interests involved.

Considering also the aura of suspicion that surrounds the legitimacy of the science that accords with the UN-approved IPCC belief of anthropomorphic responsibility in global warming, little wonder.

It might have been far more intelligent to attend to the reality of climate change, not global warming, since there is really no true scientific consensus on the latter. Greenhouse gases caused by carbon dioxide and particulate emissions are another thing; they do, most assuredly, add to climate change, but to what degree that might conceivably be in reality, is anyone's guess.

Guess, because much of what is being discussed is hypothesis.

The real issue here is the vulnerability of third-world, or emerging countries in the face of climate change. Those countries whose frailty due to their lack of opportunity to emerge from their indigent state, partially caused by their unscrupulous tyrannical leaders; those countries whose low-lying position along coastal waters of the world's great oceans render them particularly susceptible to inundation, flooding, tidal and storm events.

There is general, non-binding agreement that temperatures should be maintained below two degrees Celsius, no more, to avoid global catastrophe, but no firm pledges for curbing carbon emissions and above all other considerations, that the wealthy countries of the world pledge to hand over bulging treasuries to assist poor countries in their attempts to prepare for climate change.

Venezuela's representative thundered against the last-minute 'agreement' while India's prime minister emphasized the "glaring injustice; to the countries of Africa, to the least developed countries and to the small island states whose very survival as viable nations is in jeopardy". Human beings never learn; municipal authorities in developed countries are supposed to refuse building permits on wetlands, floodplains, friable earthworks.

Sudan blasted the unconcern of Western nations for the well-being of the undeveloped countries. And Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, set out to teach humility and respect for the Divine to the gathering: "We think the environment is the greatest blessing of God to human beings ... If somebody cuts a tree without a reason, it is as if he cut the wings of an angel. If someone pollutes the environment, he commits an arch sin."

Is he not the very embodiment of arch righteousness? At least Fidel Castro is content to subjugate and oppress his own people. The Islamic Republic of Iran, so faithful to God, represses its own population, and goes on to threaten the very existence of other countries through its need to develop nuclear weaponry to be wielded by a narcissistic, belligerent clergy that hears God's voice in the promise that Israel should be 'wiped from the map'.

The climate change conference concluded with its 193 UN-member countries agreeing to 'take note' of the Copenhagen Accord. With countries tasked to list their emission reduction targets, and above all begin the process of assembling billions of dollars in hand-overs to poor nations. The proceedings were well summed up by the UN's climate chief Yvo de Boer in describing the state of 'taking note'.

"...a way of recognizing that something is there, but not going so far as to directly associate yourself with it." Something akin to handling a distinctly offensive object with the proverbial ten-foot pole?

Take note.