Climate change; agreement to make an agreement?

Cartoon: By Lisa Benson.

At this stage it is unknown whether the rest of the world is also carrying on with the “Oh joy, Oh rapture,” warblings the Australian government is carrying on with over the last minute pseudo agreement that has come out of Durban. It seems little more than a rehash of the standard last minute agreements that have come out of Copenhagen and Cancun before it.

But according to our government it is a breakthrough of epic proportions like to pave the way to a binding …. (Add the accolades of your choice here) they’re pretty standard as well. According to the climate change minister and the rest of the climate frantic club, its just what they have been having wet dreams about all these years:

CLIMATE Change Minister Greg Combet has praised the outcome of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Duban as a significant breakthrough in tackling global warming.

The conference has agreed to begin negotiations on a new accord which would put all nations under the same legal regime.

Representatives of 194 countries agreed to move towards a new agreement to replace the existing Kyoto Protocol. Mr Combet said the outcomes in the South African city are good news for the environment. (You just have to be feeling that warm cool inner glow.)

Gillard and her government, fresh from bringing down a carbon tax on the heads of Australians are desperate to see signs, any signs, that the rest of the world will be stampeded into following suit the way the PM and Brown assured us they would. For this reason anything not totally negative coming out of this conference is good news for them.

It is difficult to read anything more into this other than the countries represented there, have managed to avoid the total embarrassment of failing to reach any agreement, by coming to an agreement that is little more than an agreement to work toward an agreement. If such an agreement occurs and what it might be is very much up in the air. There is little reason to believe that the nations that have resisted subjecting their industry to unsustainability in order to have a new tax are likely to play ball this time.

What is clear though is that there is an intent to establish a $100 billion-a-year Green Climate Fund will also be established to finance climate change adaptation for developing countries, of which we will be expected to contribute around $2 to 4 Billion. This is on top of the carbon tax. If history is anything to go by, the money that doesn’t go directly into Swiss bank accounts, will be spent on more environmentally friendly palaces for the leaders of those nations, and better armaments for the soldiers of those nations to more efficiently keep their people under control.