A LARGE CITY WE DIDN’T BOTHER TO LOOK UP ― World leaders are once again convening to draw up a set of ambitious promises they definitely won’t fulfill, toothless goals which wouldn’t do much anyway, or, most likely of all, a pointless mixture of both.
COPn (where n is defined as a natural number only known to delusional optimists who still believe the planet might be saved, and probably also in the existence of leprechauns) follows some equally common and equally inconsequential report from the UN about how our demise will soon go from merely impending to inevitable.
“The future of our children and our children’s children will be determined by our present actions,” stated Justin Trudeau, correctly, to the assembled heads of government. “And that is why Canada is committing to a 50% reduction in emissions by 2027 and to reach net-zero by 2030,” he continued, incorrectly.
Despite the dismal outlook, analysts were heartened to see that China has once again upped their target, noting that they usually do more than other countries to at least kind of somewhat meet climate goals, in a resolute and unnecessary effort to make the Americans look stupid and lazy.
An international poll found that the response to the conference was largely consistent across borders, with 88.2% of 11 000 respondents in 43 countries answering, “Oh, is that happening again?” The particular reasons for this public apathy were more varied, however. Popular choices included focusing on education for a future that will be wiped away by a wildfire (23%), being busy raising children who will resent being brought into an irrevocably damaged world (36%), and a debilitating phobia of newspapers that developed sometime around 2016 (27%).
At press time, a raccoon digging its dinner out of a trash can had just cleaned up more plastic than any of the agreements reached at the conference ever will.
