The Pope and I agree on something!

I have not been able to blog much over the past week - life has taken over! There are many topics that I could write about but today I thought I'd mention something unique - the Pope and I agree about something. Let me give some context.

It may have escaped your notice but the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference is taking place in Durban at the moment (it runs from 28th November to 9th December). The theme for the conference is "Working Together - Saving Tomorrow Today". Pretty impressive, eh?

The devil is in the detail and here's what lies under the grand theme: A primary focus of the conference is to secure a global climate agreement as the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period (2008–2012) is about to end. It is also expected to focus on "finalising at least some of the Cancun Agreements", reached at the 2010 Conference, such as "co-operation on clean technology", as well as "forest protection, adaptation to climate impacts, and finance - the promised transfer of funds from rich countries to poor in order to help them protect forests, adapt to climate impacts, and "green" their economies.

Not quite so impressive, eh? "Finalising at least some of the Cancun Agreements"! How ambitious our politicians are. Well, we all know how successful the agreements made at Kyoto and Cancun have been and this lamentable performance suggests that we should not expect anything too revolutionary (or meaningful) to come out of the meeting. But I always travel with optimism and, going right back to my opening paragraph, I agree with Pope Benedict's message for the delegates attending the conference: "I hope that all members of the international community agree on a responsible and credible response to this worrisome and complex phenomenon, taking into account the needs of the poorest and future generations."

If any delegates are readers of this blog, how can you possibly ignore Benny and I?