A lot has been written on the Paris international agreement on climate change. To try and cut through all those words to the essential issues, here is our very brief analytic summary. **The good** * Aspiration of no more than 1.5ºC warming. * All countries endorsing. * Both historically industrial and new industrial countries beginning to commit to mitigation. * 5 yearly reviews. **The bad** * No delivery mechanism. * Country pledges amount to at least 3ºC warming. * Pitiful funding for poorest countries. * China and India emissions to continue rising til at least 2030. * Targets are not mandatory. * No challenge to the model of continued expansion of the economy. * It doesn’t start until 2020. * Nothing on food. **The ugly** * No cap on fossil fuel extraction, nor a carbon tax. * Carbon trading for “net-zero” means the polluters continue to pollute. * Shipping and aviation left out. Mark H Burton ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Attached: 1 image @marjolica@social.linux.pizza @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us Yes, that's it. For that as an extended argument, outlining a suite of policies, see our https://gettingreal.org.uk

_CND Chair Tom Unterrainer assesses the UK government’s likely response to peace proposals to end the war in Ukraine._ CND has consistently called for an end to the war in Ukraine. We do so because – yes – we are opposed to war in general, but we are particularly concerned about the stark increase in nuclear tensions that accompanies the war. In fact, we have been warning for some decades now that the expansion of a nuclear-armed alliance – NATO – to the borders of a nuclear-armed state – Russia – could spill over into something like the war in Ukraine and that the potential consequences could be terrible. As such, when successive British governments, rather than seeking or supporting swift, peaceful solutions, instead act to hamper such solutions, double-down on rhetoric, accelerate re-armament and boost the arms trade, we oppose them and warn of the ever-sharpening nuclear dangers. There is now a large amount of information in public circulation that strongly indicates that just a month after Russia’s invasion in February 2022 – before the years of grinding, murderous and destructive war reached a peak – Ukraine and Russia were prepared to reach agreement. _Foreign Affairs_ , the house journal of the US foreign policy elite, described the outline of the deal as follows. The deal, they report, would “have ended the war and provided Ukraine with multilateral security guarantees, paving the way to its permanent neutrality and, down the road, its membership in the EU.” Such an agreement existed in March 2022 and reports indicate that both sides were close to agreement. In that same month, NATO member states met in Brussels and agreed to oppose any peace plan until Russia had fully withdrawn. In short, NATO thought it better that Ukrainians kept dying rather than concede anything at all to Russia. By early April, 2022, then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared, unannounced, in Kyiv, to – in the words of Simon Jenkins in _The Guardian_ – “instruct” Ukraine President Zelensky not to make any concessions. The possible peace proposals ended in ruin. This set a pattern that has been followed by successive British Prime Ministers up until today. Now, more than three-and-a-half years on, following an estimated million casualties, and worse, following nuclear tensions that – by all reckonings – have taken us closer to nuclear war than at any point since the dawn of the atomic age, a deal is on the table that could end the war, provide Ukraine with security guarantees and promise entry into the European Union. All of which sounds familiar from the February 2022 proposals. How is the British government going to react to this proposal? What will the reaction say about British policy since February 2022? What will it indicate about the current posture of the British government? Britain’s rejection of previous proposals has been accompanied by massively increased militaristic rhetoric, significantly increased military spending – including eye-watering state subsidies for the arms industry, the peddling of the fantasy that such spending will be to all our benefit, closer integration into NATO nuclear-sharing arrangements, and a state of affairs that looks – when combined with similar attitudes taken across Europe – like preparation for war. Lastly, how will Britain’s attitude relate to US President Trump’s new National Security Strategy and the likely trajectory of politics across Europe? Will the government seek a change of course or will all this war preparation – this war-drive, because that’s what it looks like – endure? And if it does, what are the implications? It is in this context that CND will continue to oppose rearmament, continue to demand not only that Trump’s nuclear weapons are removed from the UK but the whole of Europe, and continue to promote and develop the call for common security.

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