Richard Denniss laments our preference for banks over the climate

Richard Denniss - "If only the climate
was as important as banks".

Want your country to enter the European Union? Want better access to Indian agricultural markets? Want some extra aid funding? Perhaps a seat on the UN Security Council? Which would you like? How can I help you? Step right in. Welcome to the biggest foreign policy swap meet since Copenhagen in 2009.

The Paris climate talks are not just about climate change. Paris isn't full of scientists, engineers or even economists. Its full of trade negotiators and lobbyists, most of whom know little about, and care even less about, what burning fossil fuels is doing to the atmosphere.

Anyone who has ever solved a problem or chaired a meeting knows that it doesn't take 40,000 negotiators and "observers" to break an impasse or solve a problem. Indeed, a cynic might argue that the creation of a process that requires so many participants was designed to ensure that the market for coal and oil continues to grow each year.

In 1992, world leaders first agreed that burning fossil fuels caused climate change, that we needed to burn less fossil fuels, and that rich countries should act first. Fossil fuel consumption and production have risen steadily since.

Read by the comment piece by The Australia Institute chief economist, Richard Denniss in the Canberra Times - “If only the climate was as important as big banks.”