One way of looking at this situation is that it is an investment. Yes, we have to spend some of our resources in getting these people together to talk, but the return on our investment (the resources saved as a result) is going to be maaany times greater.
I would think investment is something that most people on this board would understand...
So, in business terms, it's like the venture capitalist flying his private jet out and chartering a limo to meet with a portfolio company to tell them they're pulling the plug the because times are tough and they have to save where they can.
Might still not be the jet and the limo throwing off the balance, but it's still hypocritical. At least he could be direct and say "We don't believe in your business any more, and we're not going to throw good money after bad. So long".
Especially given all the talk about the sacrifices we all have to make, it's curious how politicians, activist leaders and especially public servants can't at all be bothered to make those sacrifices.
Yes, many of us do understand investment. We also seek to maximize our returns by minimizing our "investment". In this analogy, this would just be a crass spend of capital in anticipation of returns that are far from certain (ie it's not certain that we will even get an agreement or that the agreement we get is even enforceable).
You are forgetting about the risk reward. Let's assume there is a 1% chance we will reduce global green houses gas production due to this conference. And let's assume to total benefit was a 1% reduction in global emissions for a single day. If you do the math that's still a better than break even propitiation.
The sad truth is a carbon tax set at 1cent per gallon of gas or that equivalent amount of CO2 produced from any other fossil fuel to directly build wind farms would provide enough money to fund a significant reduction in green house gasses. Start playing around with the numbers and 40 years till zero green house gasses produced by the electric grid or home heating is a reasonable possibility. Transportation is a hard problem, but even if we ignore it we can still do a lot.
One way of looking at this situation is that it is an investment. Yes, we have to spend some of our resources in getting these people together to talk, but the return on our investment (the resources saved as a result) is going to be maaany times greater.
I would think investment is something that most people on this board would understand...