RUTHFULLY YOURS

Saving the planet has never been so easy.

The Paris climate talks concluded in a rousing round of self-congratulation over an agreement that, we are told, is the first step toward keeping Earth habitable. If generating headlines and press releases about making history were the metric for anything, Paris might be as consequential — if misbegotten — as advertised.

The fact is that Paris is very meta. The agreement is about the agreement, never mind what’s in it or what its true legal force is — namely, nil. Paris is a legally binding agreement not to have legally binding limits on emissions. It might be the most worthless piece of paper since the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawed war — about a decade prior to the outbreak of World War II.

Politico reported that the talks were almost derailed at the last minute by the accidental insertion of the word “shall” deep in the text, which, by implying a legal obligation, was to be avoided at all costs (the U.S. Senate would never give its assent to a legally binding treaty). The U.S. scrambled to change the offending word to “should.”

The Paris summit operated on the principle of CBDRILONCWRC, or “Common but Differentiated Responsibility in Light of National Circumstances With Respective Capability.” That means nothing was actually mandated on anyone because that proved — understandably enough, dealing with all the countries in the world — completely unworkable.

Instead, countries came up with so-called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. That’s climate bureaucratese for “You make up your emissions target, whatever it is, and we will pretend to take it seriously.” Thus, do the waters recede and Earth is saved from looming climate catastrophe.

Even if you believe the extremely dubious proposition that somehow the climate “consensus” perfectly understands perhaps the most complicated system on the planet, and can forecast with certitude and in detail what the global temperature will be a century from now, Paris is a charade. The best estimates are that, accepting the premises of the consensus, the deal will reduce warming 0.0 to 0.2 degrees Celsius.

This is a pithy comment left by a reader of Standpoint “But Israel’s normal has become Europe’s normal — a fact that is difficult to accept.” Difficult to accept, but easy to understand. Both regions are enriched by the Religion of Peace. That was inevitable in Israel’s case, but came about in Europe because of the treachery of our politicians, media and academics, who ignored the wishes of the electorate and insisted that only ignorant racists and xenophobes could object to huge numbers of people moving to Europe from the Third World. What could possibly go wrong, you plebs?”

This is how it happens these days, isn’t it? Last February it was during an interval at the theatre, turning on my mobile phone to find a text from a friend in Copenhagen saying the bullets had just missed her but that she was alive. A few weeks earlier, it had been a broadcaster asking for reaction on Paris before I had heard anything about it or whether any friends had been killed. This time it was a text from a close family member at a dinner in Paris I had chosen to miss in order to try to finish my book on Islam and Europe. They said there had been shooting nearby but they were fine. I texted back that perhaps they should get the bill and go home. Soon the phone began to ring and snapshots of the horror in Paris began to flood in.

The crazy ring-arounds have become a feature of modern European life. Then the lucky ones have the stories of the near-misses: friends who left before the attack, those who survived because they chose to drop their bag off at home before heading to the restaurant. Facebook has a new feature where people can signal themselves “safe” after a major incident anywhere. There is something comforting and horrifying about this. It’s not a surprise to me because I know this is normal life in Israel. But Israel’s normal has become Europe’s normal — a fact that is difficult to accept.

New York and Washington 2001; Madrid 2004; London 2005; Mumbai 2008; Toulouse 2012; Brussels 2014; Paris 2015; Copenhagen 2015; Sousse 2015; Sinai 2015; Beirut 2015. And now Paris again. Last month’s attack, even more devastating than January’s, has not broken French resistance: reports that Parisians were “gripped with fear” were false. But President Hollande’s declaration of war may be just an escalation in rhetoric.

How much havoc do the jihadis have to wreak before Europe and America resolve to tackle the source of the evil: the ideology of Islamism itself? How many have to die or be maimed — some 500 people in the Paris atrocity alone — before Western leaders recognise that the self-proclaimed Caliph Ibrahim, alias Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and his butchers of Islamic State wish to kill us — all of us, “Jews and crusaders” alike — not because of what we do but because of who we are?