The planet won't wait

What was Hillary Clinton even doing there? I guess there was never any shame in empire. “No case” says Ramesh, and no wonder he sounds so morally confident. And no wonder, too, he registers the conclusion he does:

"… international capital is going to be the key." Sharing, this is what is making the rich choke. Many would rather die … and, on this issue, they may again have their way.

It is true that New York has just witnessed more promising declarations of good intent on the part of both India and China. But no specifics demonstrating serious strategic changes were in evidence. We will have to wait and see. Image and PR count for them too. And the more reasonable they sound - well, the more unreasonable their opponents sound. If only the negotiations encompassed more than strategic positioning and impression management.

What could Rudd do here if he were another man? What could enlightened political leadership do more generally? It needs to start talking to its constituents about the exceptional nature of the times and the exceptional historical obligations of wealth in times of crises like these. These are not obligations to self - though they are to one’s children and grandchildren. Leaders should also cease the insane pretence that the planet will be kind as long we try hard or, worse, just pretend to. These are the lines that Penny Wong falls back on when there’s nothing else: “We’re doing our best.” This is stunning human conceit.

The planet doesn’t care, it isn’t capable of care, it’s indifferent. Let’s say benignly indifferent. If it spoke in words rather than in biochemical processes, it would say: “These carbon emissions are compatible with human life and abundance and these others are not. Take it or leave it. Take it and prosper; leave it, and it’s all over.” But it’s not malicious. It’s not Gaia’s revenge in a personalised sense as James Lovelock might suggest.

I just see biophysics and biochemistry confirming that the world is an integrated whole. How else would you want it? An unreliable law of gravity? Or: “Penny, Kevin, as you have both been good, I’ll vary the laws of carbon chemistry today. Australia can keep burning as much coal as it likes.”

If the developed world was not obsessing fitfully about its comparative advantage or its 40 or so national interests, it could easily pay the premiums for a global refit. That’s for carbon neutral infrastructure for its own economies and for those of the developing world over the next four or five decades. Also, at the end of that time, we would have the level playing field everyone is so anxious about losing now - with one difference. It would be pitched at a higher and cleaner altitude. No one would be grimly hanging on to dirty comparative or competitive advantage in the pathetic and criminal ways we do at the moment.

These positions were staked out in the foundational documents of Australian climate policy, The Garnaut Review and the Treasury’s White Paper and they are false in several ways. They are false, first, in the sense that we can afford higher carbon prices than these documents say. They are built on phony accounting. Let me explain how this works in very quick and simple terms.

You have two compartments in your wallet: one for coins and one for serious money. You “ignore” or hide the serious money and, eventually, everyone, especially the critical journalist, forgets about it. Climate change is only brought into contact with small change. Of course, it’s a huge struggle. Of course when you empty it right out you appear generous - yes, this is the trick.

Then there’s the other falsehood already noted: the “doing your best” case. It is only ever intimated, it oozes, as a kind absurd earnestness from between every line of the documents noted above and it says: “Hey, we’re turning ourselves inside out here (paper money all hidden away) and just haven’t got any more to give. It’s got to be enough.”

Yet Professor Garnaut wrings his hands and intones the word “diabolical” for the 500th time. This is the theatre of trying hard: “The 5 per cent we are offering must be enough!” This is “sound and fury” taken to the level high art: this is just so much manipulative claptrap.

The planet has its limits and thresholds and they are not negotiable and it does not care about the Professor’s hand wringing, or about Penny Wong’s or the PM’s sincere testimonials.