It would be one thing if I thought these people were saying what they’re saying and doing what they’re doing because that is where the votes are. What amazes me more than anything is that these people really believe it. From The Oz just now: Paris Climate Deal: Turnbull government stares down dissenters, from which:

Environment Minister Greg Hunt has defended the non-binding nature of the Paris climate agreement, as the Turnbull government stares down climate change dissenters within its own ranks.

Liberal MP Dennis Jensen, an outspoken climate change sceptic, warned the agreement was “essentially meaningless” and Australia should avoid “metaphorically burning our economy just to appear good on the global stage”.

“Basically countries set their own targets and there’s no enforcement strategy. It provides flexibility to do anything essentially,” he told ABC Radio.

“The entire globe needs to have similar commitments and be similarly achieving those goals.” . . .

Mr Hunt regretted there would be “no sanctions or penalties if a country falls short of its target”.

“Our preference would have been for that. That’s probably the only real and significant element that we would have wanted, but we all knew that that wasn’t possible for the United States, it wasn’t on China’s agenda,” he told Macquarie Radio.

“Others haven’t always honoured their agreements in the past, that is true. But the difference this time is everybody’s in the cart, everybody’s made their commitment; if countries fall short of that or indeed they renege on it I think there would be enormous internal and external pressure and criticism.”

There is such a thing as a high-IQ idiot and there are plenty of them around.

IN ADDITION: I was reminded by Old School Conservative in the comments of the reaction by the journalists in Paris which is useful in understanding the kinds of media coverage these meetings and agreements get. More HIQI in action as may be seen in their incredible reaction.