A Typo Almost Derailed Paris Climate Deal (nytimes.com)

An anonymous reader writes: On Saturday, world leaders completed an ambitious international agreement to address climate change. But when the officials received the first copy of what was supposed to be the final draft, a one-word mistake threatened to derail their progress. Part of the agreement involved language that encouraged wealthy nations to provide monetary aid to poorer nations in order to help transition to more sustainable systems. But the draft used the word "shall," which would have made it a legally-binding requirement. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pushed back on the change, noting that previous versions of the document had used the word "should" instead. Officials tried to quickly figure out whether the swap had been made intentionally. Ultimately, they classified it as a typo, and hurriedly prepared a corrected version of the document, which was adopted without incident.

Comments

It's Happening

[p0p0]

Worldwide communism. It's finally happening. What a time to be alive!

Re: Sad to see Kerry...

[MightyMartian]

The universe doesn't give a fuck about your psuedo-skepticism. CO2 traps solar energy. Period. That isn't even the least bit controversial. That you're too stupid and infantile, and frankly just plain cowardly, to admit that vomiting hundreds of millions of years worth of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere in the space of three centuries is irrelevant to the effects of such actions. You can hide your head in the sand, imagine that it's a grand conspiracy, but it's irrelevant. The laws of nature don't give a fuck about you, your ideology, your shortsightedness or stupidity. The universe doesn't owe you or the global economy even the tiniest favor.