<div class="buynow"><a title="Back issue of Monthly Review, February 2016 (Volume 67, Number 9)" href="http://monthlyreview.org/product/mr-067-09-2016-02/">buy this issue</a></div>From mainstream news reports, one might easily conclude that the Paris climate agreement, presented to the world on December 12, 2015, was a complete triumph. <em>The Guardian</em> headlined it as "<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/13/paris-climate-deal-cop-diplomacy-developing-united-nations" target="_blank">The World's Greatest Diplomatic Success</a>." However, by any meaningful criteria, the Paris climate change agreement was fraudulent, based on a fabric of illusion. Moreover, the distorted media coverage of the climate deal, presenting it as a historical agreement virtually without shortcomings, was made possible in large part by the French government's banning of the mass climate protests, following the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. With radical protestors silenced and their demands marginalized, the global power elite could make virtually any public claims it wished, without acknowledging any other public voice or alternative view.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-67-number-9" title="Vol. 67, No. 9: February 2016" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>
Giants: The Global Power Elite