It's ironic that all that the Paris climate talks produced is a load of hot air.
International Law is a unique beast. As of now, there's no "world police". If something is broken, there's no all-powerful entity to enforce order. It all depends on who can back up his word with action. The powerful do what they want, the weak suffer what they must. You can't really bind a country like, say, China into committing to a plan to handicap its own economy to "save the planet". Who's gonna make 'em? Nothing in the agreement is binding.
It's interesting though; the idea of rich countries paying off developing countries reparations for climate change. The idea being that the rich countries prospered by exploiting the planet and the poor countries are the ones most affected by it. Hey, whatever makes the rich feel less guilty.
I have my doubts with the whole concept until I realized that, as it happens, I'm living in a poor developing country. Whatever I feel about the whole climate shebang, it would be nice to have some dosh sent our way even if there is little chance the people will get to see any of it. It'll probably be filtered into some random bureaucratic organ.
Still, who doesn't like the idea of free money?
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