Apropos of this post yesterday, a remarkable story has come out about the Kyoto Protocol. Apparently, check-out time is 2012, but you can never leave.
So sayeth the Kyoto powers that be, reminding us yet again to not enter agreements, or even negotiations with people — which so cutely hanging in agony and extend into extra hours each session over wording and nuance — to whom terms and agreements mean absolutely nothing.
Before you read the following from today’s “ClimateWire”, consider this language from the Kyoto Protocol:
There is, as the treaty serially says, a “first commitment period”, and it is “2008 to 2012”. And Kyoto is the commitments, and nothing else. If the commitment period 2008-2012 doesn’t end when 2012 ends, then words and numbers no longer have meaning.
Now read what the people in charge of that mess say:
NEGOTIATIONS: Kyoto Protocol will continue despite climate talks
The Kyoto Protocol will not end in 2012, or in any other year, no matter what happens in future climate change talks among nations, the executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change said Wednesday.
Speaking in India, Christiana Figueres said that the protocol does not have a “sunset clause,” meaning that it will continue indefinitely even if climate talks fail or if nations come up with new goals for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Countries are set to meet in Cancun, Mexico, later this year for another round of negotiations on nations’ second commitment period for emissions reductions.
Put aside just for the moment the merits of the very idea of negotiating a climate change treaty. You do. Not. Even. Negotiate. With. Such. People.
