If you set the bar low enough...

I appreciate where the comments of Martin Chavez (Executive Director of ICLEI in the USA) are coming from but I think it is just too much to have yet more absurdly optimistic views of what was achieved at Cancun.

Talking about "this year’s remarkable achievement" just distracts from the total failure of Copenhagen and onwards to develop a legally enforceable mechanism to reduce carbon. And please save us all from the notion that this sets the scene for "the prospects for further climate action during next year’s Climate Summit in Durban, South Africa"! Those of us who have been long-term travelers on the COP road have heard that one far too many times.


This is not to say that diplomacy does not inch forward or that the recognition of local governments in a new way is not of note. Great! We have been battling for that for many years! And so...well, frankly, he ends his piece with "We simply don’t have much time to waste". If I had a dollar for every time I have heard that phrase at the end of similarly over-spun COP summaries, then I would be a wealthy man.

So, what are we supposed to do with "indications of risk"?

An ABC report on a series of maps released by the Federal Government showing parts of Bass Coast Shire could be inundated if sea levels rise by 1.1 metres shows how this is always a scary exercise.

I am not sure about the spin that we then have to face from the council's planning and environment director, Hannah Duncan-Jones:

"It accords with what we expected and I guess that certainly when you look at them they can look quite dramatic and it's important to consider that what they're doing is providing a representation and that these are not maps that should be utilised for detailed planning purposes, they're to provide an indication of risk," she said