Petrostates Seized the Initiative on Combatting Climate Change?
After the debacle in the Emirates, COP29 will be in Azerbaijan - another big oil producer
The joke at the COP meetings, held in round rooms, is that everyone against letting petro states lead the COP climate conferences should meet in the corner. Check the image above. It’s a round room.
Just days after the COP28 communique came out offering no commitment to cutting the use of fossil fuels — it said something like “efforts should be made to transition away from fossil fuel use” — many in the “elite circles” of the world are patting themselves on the backs for having done such “a good job at saving humankind from a heating world.” What I see is these folks merely justifying expensive trips to the desert. I am sure many also hope to find something in the COP meeting to put a better mood as they head into end-of-year celebrations.
Whenever times are difficult, people resort to wit and repartee. The reason is simple. If you don’t laugh, you will cry, and that marks the beginning of a very slippery slope. As civilization faces a threat that dwarfs that of every war ever fought combined, and the outcome of the latest climate COP offers little hope, it’s something we need — not only to remember — but to actively adopt as a weapon in our armory to fight for a better future for our children and their children.
The world’s biggest climate joke has just ended in the United Arab Emirates, where more than 80,000 delegates — including 2,400 from the fossil fuel sector, have conspired to take the mickey (This Is Why I Am Laughing).
Can you imagine? 80,000 people, each one considering himself the smartest person in the room, gathered in a country that is built on the backs — legs, arms, spines, etc. — of long-ago decreased marine life (oil) and came away with an official communique that commits no one to anything real. We can mince words as much as we want, but everyone responsible for COP28 should be tried for the future harm to humanity that the overheating toward which our planet is racing.
I am not sure whose great idea it was to let the United Arab Emirates host COP28, but I am sure whoever is letting Azerbaijan host next year’s COP meeting probably thought it was a good idea.
I am not really sure how I will tell my son about humanity’s failings at these meetings. We have reached the point that most climate scientists told us a decade ago was an official “tipping point.” If we don’t make changes, they warned us, then crazy stuff will start to happen. The crazy stuff is now happening. Every storm has the “once in a 100-years” type of ferocity. Hurricanes are bigger, meaner, and more frequent. The flooding that results is reaching further inland and devastating communities that never before planned for flooding.
Summertime temperatures are going so high that people worldwide find it impossibleto leave their homes during the day. Tourists are dropping like flies at historic sites in Greece, and nighttime temperatures are not effectively cooling the Earth.
How are the world’s professionals responsible for devising ways to slow the effects of climate change? It’s the bottom of the 9th inning; the home team is down by three, and with the bases loaded, the coach takes out the most reliable hitter and lets the pitcher bat. If you don’t follow baseball, let me say that everything you wouldn’t do to win the game is being done.
COP28 was always set to be a bit of a comedy show, and one that even the best comic writers would find hard to make up. Held in a major petrostate, the colossal wealth of which is predicated upon fossil fuel extraction, and which has no vested interest in slashing the carbon dioxide emissions that result from burning them, the conference was presided over by the head of the country’s national oil company.
Papers leaked in advance revealed that the UAE planned to use the opportunity provided by the meeting to set up new oil and gas deals, while — halfway through — it emerged that the COP president had made a vigorous defense of fossil fuels, arguing that dumping them would see us back living in caves (This Is Why I Am Laughing).
Choosing Azerbaijan to host COP29 is like inviting the heads of NAMBLA — North American Man Boy Love Association — to investigate sexual misconduct by scoutmasters in the Boy Scouts. It’s neither funny nor wise, but this is how humankind’s potentially darkest and most dangerous moment is regarded by the folks we had hoped might take this clearly non-laughing matter seriously.
The heads of oil and gas companies worldwide are giggling to the point of wetting themselves because they hijacked the messaging just when reality demanded concrete action. The forecast for the future is a hot and tragic one — haha!
Q: How many climate change deniers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: What are you talking about, the bulb is fine (This Is Why I Am Laughing).