By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. On the final day of the COP21 meetings in Paris, thousands of people took to the streets to display the urgent need for climate justice. Red lines made with umbrellas, cloth, banners and roses emphasized the point that action is needed now to confront the climate crisis.
The climate agreement was announced and while there was a lot of self congratulations at reaching an agreement and many big greens applauded the result, climate scientist James Hansen gave the bottom line. The Guardian reports: “It’s a fraud really, a fake,” he says, rubbing his head. “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2º C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.” Hansen describes a crisis-level urgency saying that “More than half of the cities of the world are at risk.” He describes the economic costs of the climate crisis as incalculable.There will be hundreds of millions of climate refugees, and he predicts global governance breaking down.