OUR REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT WAS THE ONLY THING STANDING BETWEEN US AND A REAL AGREEMENT:

The Paris climate talks concluded in a rousing round of self-congratulation over an agreement that, we are told, is the first step toward keeping Earth habitable. If generating headlines and press releases about making history were the metric for anything, Paris might be as consequential -- if misbegotten -- as advertised.

The fact is that Paris is very meta. The agreement is about the agreement, never mind what's in it or what its true legal force is -- namely, nil. Paris is a legally binding agreement not to have legally binding limits on emissions. It might be the most worthless piece of paper since the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawed war -- about a decade prior to the outbreak of World War II.

Politico reported that the talks were almost derailed at the last minute by the accidental insertion of the word "shall" deep in the text, which, by implying a legal obligation, was to be avoided at all costs (the U.S. Senate would never give its assent to a legally binding treaty). The U.S. scrambled to change the offending word to "should."

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