COP21: So Repetitive.

The COP21 Summit is continuing in Paris, France. Rather like a ghost ship that has been cursed to aimlessly wander the high seas for all eternity.

Things have become so utterly devoid of hope it's becoming increasingly difficult to motivate myself to follow proceedings in detail.

The only person seeming to cling on to any level of enthusiasm is US President Barack Obama. Or more accurately one of his Twitter monkeys (@BarackObama).

Last night they sent out a message about how American leadership had caused 180 nations to commit to action on climate change.

This was a reference to the INDC submissions.

The deadline for those submissions was 6 months prior to the summit where the agreement they were set to serve was scheduled to be agreed. It was also more then 5 years prior to that agreement coming into force.

Obviously I can't speak for anyone but myself but I've never viewed those INDC's to be genuine commitments to action. Instead they are a way for parties to communicate how they envision the agreement to function in order to help the agreement take shape.

Take for example the technical annex I drew up defining the format for INDC's. Although I like to think that I added some value that is clearly not my own, original work. Instead I have simply cut and pasted the common elements from the INDC submissions. 

The idea being that after the agreement had been signed but before implementation the current submissions would then be replaced by the actual commitments.

If you've read my views on the peer review process you would know that due to numerous legal challenges over the application of the Environmental Protection Act(s) (EPA) the US INDC in particular is non-deliverable.

Therefore what should have happened between the June meeting and the end of COP21 is a sort of dual path negotiation where discussion of the INDC's helped to resolve issues within the text.

For example comparison between the INDC's of nations with large, free-market economies and nations with small, centrally planned economies has already helped to reveal why some of the things to smaller nations are demanding in the text would actually prevent the larger nations from taking action.

Unfortunately in October Obama introduced his death text and we were robbed of that opportunity for progress.

Last night the French Foreign Minister and President of COP21 Laurent Fabius complained that the negotiation had become too repetitive. I agree.

The fundamental problem is that the text being negotiated is simply awful. Until parties acknowledge that and allow work on a viable text to resume all I can offer by way of analysis is to constantly re-state just how awful the text is.

I suppose I could spend my time thinking up more elaborate ways to say that.

For example on Saturday (5/12/15) I likened Obama and the US to still being in Climate Kindergarten while the rest of the World is collecting their diplomas.

I suppose I could recommend that for story-time that Kindergarten teacher reads the class the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale "The Emperor's New Clothes."

13:50 on 10/12/15 (UK date).