Forgive my scepticism, but I shall not spend my Christmas celebrating the climate-change deal agreed in Paris. Any conference that lasts more than a day draws the participants into a bubble within which they become oblivious to the inertial nature of the outside world. I remember this from education conferences, during which everybody (including me, who usually attended as a supposedly detached journalist) became convinced that, if some new form of school organisation or new teaching techniques were adopted, we would nurture a race of Einsteins.
Not being a scientist, I have no idea of how the carbon emissions targets agreed in Paris are to be enforced. Nor do I really understand how each country’s emissions will be measured. After all, China’s coal-burning emissions do not appear in the stratosphere with a “Made in China” label on them. Is there anything to stop the Chinese from waiting for a favourable wind so that the effects can be blamed on, say, Taiwan or South Korea? I wonder how many of the politicians who slapped each other’s backs in Paris are as ignorant as I am.
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