Sunday, December 13, 2015

Another historic agreement!


Talks wrapped up at the climate summit in Paris with an agreement and politicians rushed to congratulate themselves - hailing the 'historic' agreement and (no doubt completely coincidentally!) emphasizing the importance of their specific roles and the actions taken by their governments... (see, for example, Prime Minister David Cameron and President Obama).

OK, so looking at criticisms of what was achieved e.g. here, here, and here, it appears that there is rather less to this agreement than meets the eye, with "the theory" outpacing "the actual." In sum, a very Obama agreement. See this blog entry looking at the trend of "Obama agreements," from Copenhagen 2009 to the 2010 NPT Review Conference, from New START to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1887, and the Honduras "Tegucigalpa/San Jose" agreement.

Speaking of Copenhagen 2009, in his address President Obama also referenced it, claiming "In 2009, we helped salvage a chaotic Copenhagen Summit and established the principle that all countries had a role to play in combating climate change." Back in 2009 I deconstructed the account of Copenhagen 2009 provided by "senior administration officials" and found it patently ridiculous and "incredibly amateurish" at best!

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