Hopefully climate talks aren't hot air

Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet. Photo / Warren Buckland

With just a few weeks to go until the big pow-wow in Paris, there's some good news on the climate change front: the politicians are finally beginning to "get" it.

Some 149 nations have now produced Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to say what they will do to limit human influence on the planet's climate. Combined, these countries produce 90 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions; this compares with 14 per cent of emissions produced by the 36 countries who were signatories to the original Kyoto Protocol.

That's a significant step forward in the political buy-in stakes. Of course, it has taken 24 years since Kyoto to reach, and it's nowhere near enough, but hey, it's progress.

It's sufficient commitment, so INDC analysts are saying, for the world to experience only about a 3C increase in temperature; maybe 3.7C if the intentions aren't fully translated into action.

That compares to the 2C scientists say is the limit we should strive to cap it at if we're to avoid major ongoing upheaval.

Bear in mind these INDCs are all about limiting emissions - not cutting them. Peak Emit (to coin a phrase) won't occur until some time around 2040, or even 2050.

Nor does what one nation does have anything necessarily to do with what others are doing. This is not a co-operative exercise. Critics - most of the scientific community - are slamming it for that reason, arguing that unless everyone commits to similar targets so the "I will if you will" incentive principle kicks in, then it's a doomed process.

"You'd be forgiven for thinking things were going well."

I'd like to take a rosier view, and credit the politicians with at least coming up with a formula for what their own nations might do. Expecting them to co-operate as well is a storm too wild.

Unfortunately Australia and New Zealand are among those criticised for their underwhelming response.

Australia (the largest per capita emitter) has essentially opted to do nothing. New Zealand (admittedly, merely a blip in the overall picture) has committed to do slightly more than nothing.

Nice to be such progressive morally upright team players, eh? Aw, gee, and here I started out to write some positive good-news spin, and look where we've ended up. You'd be forgiven, though, for thinking things were in fact going well, by the lack of news on the subject lately.

There's an argument for mainstream media actively repressing the topic, judged by the lack of coverage of a multitude of alarming scientific reports. Take the BBC. That pillar of balanced journalese used to have a very good environmental section, where I for one often sourced robust material on climate change.

Under new management accused of being climate-sceptical, said section has effectively vanished.

From being prominent on the online site's masthead, now it has been melded together with science in general and buried three tiers into the website.

You won't find it unless you dig, and it's nowhere near as comprehensive.

Active repression? It looks that way.

Sure, it isn't comforting to read about a looming ecosystem disaster that no one seems able to seriously address, but hiding it away and pretending it won't happen will not stop it happening.

Personally, I'd rather be well-enough informed that when my local politician spins a few platitudes encouraging me to believe they have it well in hand, I can tell them they just lost my vote.

They may give away the future but, if there's one thing politicians don't want to lose, its votes. So maybe if we all did that, they might do more than merely "intend". That's the right of it.