Environment Magazine

Copenhagen was a disappointment but to those that have taken a practical view of climate change and climate politics it came as no surprise.  In the hands of the UN, climate change politics has always been about aid, not climate.  National positions have always been taken and targets set against the demands for compensation or if you like aid.  The assumptions that put Kyoto in place, no longer apply, simply because the world has changed since Kyoto.  The population and immigration have increased, pollution has increased and the balance of power has moved away from the developed world.  The real threat to the environment is in the developing world, not the developed world because it is there that there is the pressure of populltion, corruption (yes a big intangible contributor) and lack of  measurement and infrastruture to commit to clean energy projects.  As the climate knows no boundaries, so any international agreement should show no lnational boundaries and this idea that one nation has a right to pollute and the other a greater right to pollute because of its past is a nonsense. 

Climategate is a very good illustration of the morality of our times.  The reaction to it across the community illustrates how partisan the debate has become and how as we progress facts and science are being distorted. The debate about climate change is not a debate at all.  The climate has always changed, always will change and there is nothing a clever human being can do to stop that.  Nothing.

The debate is what is mankind's contribution to climate change, if any, and what is its impact, if any?  Further, if there is an impact, does it really matter?  If it does, what do we do to mitigate it and how do we as a world mitigate it fairly?