Pirate's Cove

Pretty much everyone agrees that nothing of substance happened (which is actually a good thing in my mind), though many enjoyed a taxpayer funded vacation in exotic Rio, though they agree that those unnecessary fossil fueled flights were rather long

(Telegraph) Even the skies wept. Glorious weather bathed Rio de Janeiro for the week running up to the Earth Summit, while some hope remained that it might produce even minor measures to tackle the world’s escalating environmental crises. But when the leaders flew in on Wednesday to rubber-stamp an agreement shorn of commitments to action, the rain started falling – and didn’t let up, culminating in a thunderstorm on the final morning.

It is always a bad sign when a UN conference ends on time: if anything substantive is at stake, these unwieldy gatherings of 190 governments invariably overrun, only reaching resolution in the early hours of the morning. So it says much about the inconsequentiality of the agreement in Rio that it was finalised even before the meeting began.

Most of the NGO (non-governmental groups) and individuals, celebrities, etc, who added massive amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere in order to save the planet from developing a fever (it could happen!!!!!!!1!!!! Computer models tell us!!!!1!!) were upset at the results being even worse than Copenhagen

Brazil, as host country, was desperate to avoid a repeat of the Copenhagen climate summit, where the leaders found little agreed when they arrived and had to try to do the job themselves. Confronted with the failure of two years of negotiations to agree even an anodyne and non‑binding accord, Brazil watered it down even further and rammed it through: the 100 or so presidents and prime ministers were effectively confined to self-congratulatory speeches and public relations photo-calls.

But, they had a nice vacation.

The UN retorts that the agreement provides a “platform” for further action, that “it is a base, not a ceiling”. And it does indeed strengthen the United Nations Environment Programme – while not replacing it, as many wanted, with a more powerful World Environment Organisation – and is expected to make it easier for organisations like the outstanding European Environment Agency to operate.

So, essentially nothing happen, just some backslapping that in some future year they will Do Something, all while somewhat giving the UN more power over people’s lives. All we ended up with is another attempt at world governance.

Really, how worthless was this conference (except for those who enjoyed a nice working vacation in Rio)? Tim Hall tweets that they took away the toilet paper so the media would leave before writing editorials. Even hyper-warmist George Monbiot writes

Rio+20 draft text is 283 paragraphs of fluff: It could be illustrated with rainbows and psychedelic unicorns and stuck on the door of your toilet.

Heh! Links via Marc Morano, who had a few choice quotes while speaking at the summit. Picture from Guardian via Tom Nelson, who noticed the evil plastic water bottle being used by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.