The first is that it is quietly admitted that there will be no legally binding agreement. The developing countries will not submit themselves, by law, to the hairshirt which Western powers love wearing. They will promise to cut emissions, and we know that they won’t. We shall promise to pay them $100 billion a year to assist greener energy, and they know that we won’t. The objective, rather than the rhetorical effect, will therefore be to make the idea of legally binding targets die. If the EU, including Britain, tries to persist with them alone, we shall turn our continent into a retirement home and leave the rest of world history to others.