We collectively need to grab the COPs process back from the big money corporations and special interests that are marauding across the world stage.
Can the UAE find the strength to swap RealPolitik for RealAction?
Following the slew of pre-COP scandals including the host country allegedly using the climate negotiations to hold backroom oil trading shindigs, the mood chart on day one trended upwards as the gavel came down, announcing the operationalising of the Loss & Damage Fund with over $600 million already pledged from a number of nations.
Loss and damage progresses
The announcement on Loss and Damage was perhaps the best tribute to the memory of Professor Saleemul Huq, a key voice for the Global South countries over a multi-decadal COP-history. Saleem was also a friend and inspiration to many across the world, so this is especially fitting.
Even so, finance cannot be used an instrument purely to massage media attention, especially when the estimated amount of current loss and damages from climate impacts is quoted by the Loss & Damage Coalition to be $400 billion per annum.
COP mood trends upwards
Now the mood is trending upwards, other key agenda items are coming into sight. One is the Emirates Declaration on Food & Agriculture, which as of this moment, 134 countries have signed up to. This is to tackle land use emissions and promote soil heath and regenerative practices globally. It is desperately needed with carbon emissions from this sector accounting for an estimated 30%.
More fossil fuels equals mass destruction
With emissions still rising and all the major coal, oil and gas producers in the world, including the host nation, expanding production, the public has a right to question whether the COP process is at all serious about tackling the root cause. Saudi Arabia has already objected to the language of ‘fossil fuel phase out’, preferring (in polite legalise) ‘fossil fuel phase down’. One implies a cessation, the other a reduction.
In the UK, cigarette packets are now emblazoned with diseased body parts to emphasise the risk of using tobacco products. Going by the logic of COP thinking, we can keep sticking pictures of wind turbines and solar panels across the marketing of their fossil fuel products whilst our climate and ecosystems degenerate in plain sight. When I spoke to Professor Julia Steinberger recently, she paraphrased Ghandi, saying:
‘First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win. The ignoring thing happened. The laughing at you with overt climate denial happened. This is the fight, right? This is an overt fight.’
Tzeporah Berman: “Got into Dubai late last night. Opened up my curtains in my hotel this morning to what I now know is the largest single site natural gas power generation facility in the world. Fitting. I am going to stare at this through the haze of pollution for two weeks. Welcome to #cop28"
We collectively need to grab the COPs process back from the big money corporations and special interests that are marauding across the world stage.
Driving cynicism
The other exposé on the eve of COP28 was the Saudi’s attempt to further echo the tobacco industry by shifting their focus to Africa, flooding the continent with cheap combustion engine vehicles, locking in oil consumption way beyond the limits of what the IPCC set out. Even as I type, Dr Natalie Jones is reporting on Twitter/X that the Saudis are refusing to accept the first draft of the Global Stocktake response.
The Global Stocktake is the report that tells us how we are collectively achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement, to hold as close as possible to a mean global average temperature rise of 1.5ºC. The obvious current status is that we are not. We are heading for around 3ºC heating which is a disaster for all of human civilisation, including driving the 6th great mass extinction ever harder.
The cynicism around COP28 is because emissions are still rising to record highs with the US now the largest global oil and gas producer. The Loss & Damage is guaranteed. This is boomtown for dirty business and techno-fixes. Speaking to Astronomer Lord Martin Rees recently about existential risks, he said, "I'm more worried about human stupidity than I am about artificial intelligence!”
Human Stupidity is COP28’s fossil fuel ambition writ large
This is a 'fossil fuel hijacked COP', we, the people who care, need to wrest control of the narrative back firmly towards phasing out dirty fuels in an equitable way, right now. Sure, charge the Loss & Damage fund but do it properly, with the true hundreds of billions required. Its time to ditch Realpolitik and give us our future back.
The UN is an important international body designed to serve us all for a peaceful and prosperous future. To achieve that end, we collectively need to grab it back from the big money corporations and special interests that are marauding across the world stage.
Next year is election year in the US, UK, and a great many other states. Governments serving up oil and gas licenses and garbage dreams of mechanical trees and carbon crunching robots in place of real mitigation must be punished at the ballot box
This Author
Nick Breeze’s COPOUT: How governments have failed the people on climate is published by Ad Lib on 14th March 2024 (paperback RRP £9.99).
