Telegraph, Christopher Booker
In the run-up to Paris, every country was asked to provide its plans
for the next 15 years. China, already now responsible for half the
world’s “carbon emissions”, said it plans to build so many more
coal-fired power stations that by 2030 its CO2 output will double.
India, now the world’s third-largest emitter, said its emissions will
triple. There are currently plans across the world to build 2,500 more
coal plants, because coal is easily the cheapest source of energy.
It is this which has been the scarcely noticed elephant in the room in Paris.
Whatever clever words are devised to hide the reality of what emerges
from this conference, there is no way the world as a whole is going to
reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
Equally contentious behind
the scenes, prompting the US Secretary of State John Kerry at one point
to threaten to walk out altogether, was the idea that the rich countries
of the West are genuinely prepared to shell out $100 billion every year
after 2020 to help poorer nations rely only on wind and sun for their
energy.
So does this matter? Few pleas were heard more often in
Paris than those from “small island nations” such as Kiribati in the
Pacific, whose president insisted that, unless the rise in world
temperatures was kept below 1.5 degrees, his country would soon be
“underwater” from rising seas. In fact, far from being inundated, the
latest study shows that its area has in recent decades been expanding."
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