The Earth Seems Furious.

On Friday (22/4/16) nations will gather at the United Nations (UN) building in New York City, US to sign the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Otherwise known as the 12/12 Atrocity this is the agreement that was drawn up on December 12 2015 (12/12/15) at the close of the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Paris, France.

So far 130 nations have confirmed that they will be attending Friday's signing ceremony. With the European Union (EU) being amongst them these signatories will be enough to bring the agreement into force. This will represent one of the greatest environmental crimes ever committed.

If the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) permits then I would like to go through the agreement line-by-line detailing everything that is wrong with it. However the text of the agreement has not changed since COP21. Therefore the fatal flaws I identified at the time have not been resolved.

The main problem with the 12/12 Atrocity is that it requires only the 36 states that ratified the Kyoto Protocol (KP) to take action to reduce their Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. However even this small group will be placed under less of an obligation to take action because unlike the KP this new agreement is not legally binding and contains no enforcement mechanism to punish those who fail to meet their obligations.

Two crucial countries that are not covered by this new agreement as China and India. Based on 2013 figures these are the largest and the fourth largest emitters of GHG's on the planet. With China and India not only being under no obligation to cut their GHG emissions but actually being given permission to increase them the 12/12 Atrocity will do absolutely nothing to stop or in any way mitigate global warming.

It will though create an unlevel playing field distorting the global market place in China and India's favour allowing them to massively expand their economies at the expense of the 36 nations who ratified the KP - essentially the EU.

On Wednesday (13/4/16) a 6.9 magnitude struck northern Myanmar (Burma) right on the border with China. This 'quake was felt across both China and India putting those two nations firmly in the spotlight. Myanmar is one of the extremely oppressive South-East Asian nations that the US opening up as a free trade partner in order to undercut China's growing economic power. Quite how the US reconciles that with the signing of the Paris agreement is beyond me.

On Thursday (14/4/16) a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck Japan. This was quickly followed by a 6.5 magnitude 'quake. However these were just foreshocks for the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan on Friday (15/4/16).

With the Kyoto Protocol being named after Kyoto, Japan where is was drawn up it almost goes without saying that Japan was one the first of the 36 nations to ratify it. Given the increasing tensions between Japan and its neighbour China - particularly over the South China Seas - it does seem odd that Japan would hand China a massive economic advantage by ratifying the 12/12 Atrocity.

The other main fatal flaw with the Paris agreement is that it places an unsustainable burden on the least developed nations. Under the agreement they are required to submit new Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) plans every five years. These plans will have to include full inventories of all GHG emission sources and absorption sinks.

For a nation such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) this means completely cataloguing a Rainforest roughly the same size as the nation of Spain or twice the size of the US state of Oregon. This is simply an impossible task for them.

At the same time as placing an undue burden on them the 12/12 Atrocity also massively reduces the funding available for the developing nations to meet even their existing burdens by completely removing the possibility of a global emissions trading scheme. After all if no-one is under any obligation to reduce their GHG emissions there's no market for the carbon credits that the DRC has to sell.

Although they are in no way caused by climate change earthquakes provide a stark contrast in the way that developed and developing nations are able to adapt and respond to environmental hazards.

An environmental hazard that is caused by climate change is the emerging famine in Africa's Sahel Belt. The first warnings about this were issued in the autumn of 2015 and UN Security Council (UNSC) briefings were held in January 2016. However it is only now that we're starting to see the effects of this crisis start to emerge in the form of malnourished people. It will be several months before we will start seeing the large numbers of deaths that we know are coming because it takes at least 6 weeks to starve to death.

By contrast in an earthquake the majority of the death and destruction is caused in an instant meaning we can see it immediately.

The reason why I've taken until now to comment on Japan's earthquakes is because I know they are a rich and technologically advanced nation well used to dealing with earthquakes. So while the 32 people who've died have my empathy I'm not sure of anything I can contribute to help the situation.

By contrast on April 25th 2015 (25/4/15) a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the economically and technologically less developed nation of Nepal. Although only being 60 times more powerful than Friday's (15/4/16) earthquake in Japan this instantly killed around 8,000 people.

Today a 7.8 magnitude earthquake has struck Ecuador which includes the famous - amongst environmentalists - Galapagos Islands. So far this is confirmed to have killed 77 people and I while I mean them no offence I already know that the Ecuadorian governments is going to be no where near as effective as the Japanese governments.

While all this has been going on there have been a series of small, but significant, earthquakes affecting the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) such as Vanuatu in the south Pacific. These are the nations that will be most affected by the rising sea levels brought about by Climate Change.

11:05 on 17/4/16 (UK date).