A climate conference set in a country whose vast wealth is entirely from oil starts with one strike against it. Add 1,300 participating fossil fuel lobbyists and that’s strike two.
I’m not saying the COP28 gathering in Dubai will strike out on its climate at-bat but with another week to go (as of this writing on Dec. 5), batters who tried to get a hit off Mariano Rivera (greatest relief pitcher in baseball history) had a better chance.
Three decades after this annual United Nations-sponsored event began, results have been mediocre at best. A plethora of pledges and promises have often gone unfulfilled. Even if affluent countries like France, Germany and the United States are sincere in their intentions to cut emissions and compensate poor countries which suffer the worst effects of climate chaos, the wealthy nations chronically fall short of both goals. And we’re short of time to be short of goals.
Conference of the Parties was a poor title for the convention from the outset. They could change it to Climate of the Planet and keep the same initials. There are 170 countries represented, and most of them will be victims of the climate crisis without being beneficiaries of its destruction like Dubai with prodigious profits.
The conference president, Sultan Al-Jaber, also heads up Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). Please insert joke here. OK, I’ll make one. You know about putting the fox in charge of the hen house? This is like putting all the hens in the fox house.
Global Witness, a London-based watch group, says the Sultan’s company made a teensy mistake in its official pollution figures last year. It seems that their 650 million barrels of oil and 40 billion cubic meters of natural gas sold in 2022 produced 14 TIMES more carbon emissions than they reported. So sure, let’s put THAT guy in charge of achieving the world’s wish of cutting emissions.
“Fossil fuels account for 90% of the carbon emissions that are heating the planet and inflicting misery and loss on millions of people,” said Patrick Galey of Global Witness. “While conceding publicly that a livable future means cutting all emissions, Al-Jaber’s firm is refusing to acknowledge the vast majority of its product emissions as its own.”
Adding insult to injury, the BBC reported that Sultan Al-Jaber planned to use the climate summit to make fossil fuel deals with at least 15 nations.
“These allegations are false, not true, incorrect and not accurate,” said Al-Jaber.
Wow, a quadruple negative! If a double negative means a positive in grammar, then a quad must be absolute affirmation.
The BBC also noted that the Director of the International Energy Agency called the conference a “moment of truth” for the oil companies, and that they must choose between being part of the problem or part of the solution. Seems like they’re choosing a moment of untruth because those fossil fools were responsible for only 1% of global investment in renewable energy last year, despite copious commercials on cable to greenwash their image.
Most attendees to COP28 are deeply devoted to sustainable solutions of the climate crisis. Even Pope Francis was planning to go but fell ill. It might have helped for Christ’s representative to be there sticking up for protecting God’s green Earth.
Yet despite their efforts, those thousands of eco-activists came to the game with the score already run up by the heavy hitters before the activists arrived.
Now to get a climate victory, it’s gonna take a grand slam with two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth. I wouldn’t bet on a homer but I hope I’m wrong.
Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.” Email: lingofrank@gmail.com. [[[[[[[See his website: Greenbeat.world
From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2024
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