Paris Climate Talks Called a 'Fraud' By the Father of Climate Science as Nations Make a Deal
As the climate negotiations in Paris—the ones that are pretty much the last-ditch effort to save the world as we know it—draw to a close, scientists are already seeing major flaws in the Band-Aid to fix Earth.
On Saturday, a final draft of the agreement was released for the representatives of 195 countries to pore over. The document sets a goal of halting warming at 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)—though it doesn’t mandate how much each country must reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions.
When asked for his take on the negotiations, James Hansen, formerly NASA’s chief climatologist and arguably the most famous climate scientist on Earth, called it all one big fraud. From the Guardian:
“It’s a fraud really, a fake,” he says, rubbing his head. “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.”
Hansen has called for a climate “fee,” similar to a carbon tax, to be levied on countries that are major emitters—an idea that has failed to gain mainstream traction.
Meanwhile, lawmakers and leaders in Paris are working on more important things, like creating ludicrous acronyms, as The Atlantic points out.
Yet CBDRILONCWRC turns out to be pretty important. According to Ryan Mearns, a Kiwi university student who has become one of the conference’s most important (if unofficial) scribes, it stands for “Common But DifferentiatedResponsibility In Light Of National Circumstances With Respective Capability.”
The climate negotiations in summation: no to binding emissions tax, yes to CBDRILONCWRC.
