Essay by Eric Worrall
… A diplomat from one developed country said: “It could not be much worse.” Another said: “You could not make this stuff up.” …
The window is closing’: Cop28 must deliver change of course on climate
With six months until UN summit in Dubai, can its oil executive president bring unwilling countries into line?
Fiona Harvey Environment editor Fri 2 Jun 2023 21.00 AEST
…
“Cop28 must deliver strengthened emissions reduction targets, and a commitment to peak global emissions by 2025,” he said. “[There must be] a plan to turbocharge the clean energy revolution, and a commitment to phase out fossil fuels. And a meaningful agreement on how to scale up finance, both public and private, to support developing nations to decarbonise their economies – moving from the billions to the trillions.”
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That is the theory. But even the most optimistic supporter of Cops may find their bright hopes ebbing in the face of Cop28.
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Any Cop would be challenging under such dire circumstances. For Cop28, there is an added twist. It will take place in Dubai, hosted by the United Arab Emirates, a leading oil and gas producer. And the official chosen to preside over the summit – Sultan Al Jaber – is the chief executive of the country’s national oil company, Adnoc, which is planning a big expansion of production capacity.
A diplomat from one developed country said: “It could not be much worse.” Another said: “You could not make this stuff up.”
Jaber’s appointment in January was greeted with disbelief and dismay by climate campaigners and experts around the world. “If I were asked how to make Cop28 a success, I would not put the head of a fossil fuel company in charge of organising it,” said Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer in climate at the Grantham Institute, at Imperial College London. “I would not invite lobbyists from fossil fuel companies. I would try to see that everything was done to remove fossil fuels from the energy supply globally as soon as possible.”
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/02/window-closing-cop28-change-course-climate-dubai
At least you can’t criticise COP for lack of innovation – who could have predicted they would put an oil sheik in charge of a climate conference?
Clearly there is only one path forward if the oil executive fails to deliver. Put a climate skeptic in charge. I hereby offer my services to organise the next COP conference after this one, COP29. For a modest eight figure inflation adjusted salary, and a budget to match, I promise to do at least as well as the Arab oil guy.
Actually, this appears to be a brilliant UNFCC move. They know COP28 will fail—no different than the previous 27. But this time they have pre-created a ready made failure excuse. Hosted by an oil country, chaired by its oil minister. Sabotaged!
The only fly in the ointment is that UNFCC chose the country because it was politically correct to have a small Arab state host this time. So they sabotaged themselves in advance without thinking it through. Now they realize and are taking advantage.
Like turning a nun into a madam.
That is the theory. But even the most optimistic supporter of Cops may find their bright hopes ebbing in the face of Cop28
Obviously the time has come to defund the COPs
I see what you did there
Well done
Isn’t it more the other way round?
Warmunists don’t think. They feel. What a wast of time and money that could be better used for, say, education.
Actually, that is a good observation. They FEEL that Gaia will die soonish (doomsdates vary) because their climate models predict it.
Meanwhile, in the real educated world:
Rud, you’re right on all counts- yet this lunacy continues!
Because of the $trillions of government subsidy money to the Wall Street-created tax shelters of the already-rich multi-millionaires
Ah yes…Climate Models…the Holy Speculator
Ted Danson predicted the Oceans would be dead in 10 years. That was in 1990 and his doomsday prediction was for the year 2000. Didn’t happen.
I personally, would SERIOUSLY question the judgement of anyone that dated Whoopi!
Well the oceans are dead. There’s a lot of fish, mammals and plankton living in the oceans, but the ocean itself isn’t alive.
Ted Danson??? ha, ha, ha! another climate scientist? 🙂
Bollox. Western nations are beginning to realise they are in competition with the global south who don’t give a monkeys about climate change.
Realisation is beginning to dawn. President Xi told the world that we will see more change in the coming short term than we have in the last 100 years.
What did that mean?
It meant that Ukraine is the spark that ignited a revolt against western hegemony.
Irrespective of whether Russia or Ukraine wins the conflict, BRICS nations and their 80 plus associate countries, now realise that the collective west isn’t such a big deal any longer.
The climate discussion is now over. We are into a period of a geopolitical wrestling match and the west is fighting with one hand tied behind its back because it has been seduced by the cult of climate.
Only now politicians are beginning to understand that climate is a non subject, as they watch their economies crumble and realise they must abandon the climate cult or be lynched by the masses.
The scientific war is over. The propaganda war is over. The west is now down to ponying up for its climate fantasies. It’s not going well and it will only get rapidly worse.
How many years have I been saying this? But the sceptic community is as blind to what’s going on in real life as the climate cult.
It’s estimated Russia lost 27 million people in their fight against the Nazi’s. But they are somehow now our enemy?
They abandoned communism in 1991. They did exactly what the west wanted. But they are somehow now our enemy?
Other than border skirmishes, China has never waged war across the Middle East or any other nation remote from it’s borders. But somehow they’re now our enemy?
China has progressed faster, economically and socially, in the last 60 years than the collective west has in the last 250 years. But somehow they’re our enemies?
Get a life folks. These places are not the problem. We are the problem with our appalling, corrupt, crony capitalism.
As summarised by a US president candidate some years ago: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Russia is Ukraine’s enemy. Because Russia invaded Ukraine, without provocation.
That was in 2014.
The West saw this ruthless disregard for a nation’s borders and did… nothing. It was accepted that Crimea was ethnically Russian and if Russia wants to integrate all their ethnic majority areas into one empire then the West would let it. Bad news for Russia’s neighbours but only for Russia’s neigbours It would be a limited aggression.
This is exactly what we did with Germany over the Sudetenland and Anschluss. It led to an agreement of “Peace in our Time” at Munich.
And, like in the 1930s, ther aggressor was lieing about protocting their people. They promptly invaded a neighbour for purely expansionist reasons (it was Poland, if you don’t know).
At this point it as clear to evryone that there could be no negotiatid peace. That had been tried. It was time for war or surrender.
Ukraine has not opted for surrender. We should support them as it will be our turn next, (after Moldova, the Baltic States, Germany and France…)
Who stole what from who?
Crimea was part of Russia since 1776, the time of Catherine the great, until Khrushchev gave it away one drunken night whilst the whole region was under the USSR.
Under that regime, no one was allowed to object and there was, of course, no democracy to stop it.
Soros wants Russia to collapse so the resulting liberation of resources from the former Russian Federation can be used to green the world’s energy systems.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/27/the-easiest-way-to-derail-europes-green-plan-for-america-is-to-stop-us-funding-for-ukraine/
For what it’s worth I have a Ukrainian friend whose family was in the firing line of the Russian invasion. But defending Europe and containing Russia is a European problem.
Europe cannot physically and mentally defend itself, without the US taking the lead; it is meek/cowed follower, good for peace-keeping operations, as in Kosovo.
The US forced the EU to go along with the state department, neo-con coup d’Etat in Ukraine in 2014.
Ms. Nuland, a former Ukrainian, then assistant Secretary of State, said “ Fu.. the EU”, in a recorded conversation, at that time.
A legally elected President was ousted and had to flee for his life back to Donetsk in the Donbas.
He had been elected by the eastern part of Ukraine with mostly Russian-speaking people, who had lived there for over 400 years.
At that time all the border lands of the Black Sea were part of the Ottoman Empire, including Crimea.
Catherine the Great changed all that by winning several wars against the Ottoman Empire and acquired all the border lands, including Crimea, and all of Eastern Ukraine.
The Tartars in Crimea had been operating a slave-raiding business by capturing Russians and selling them as slaves to the Ottoman Empire
Later, she acquired western Ukraine from the Polish and the Hungarians, by trading territories.
Later, all of Ukraine became part of the USSR.
The US has had its nuclear bombs located in at least 6 countries outside the US, already for decades, but when Russia locates tactical nukes in Belarus, the US objects; double standard?
The US should be defending its own borders, instead of the Ukraine borders 4500 miles away.
“The US should be defending its own borders, instead of the Ukraine borders 4500 miles away.”
The U.S. should do both.
We should, but we are deliberately opening the southern border.
to remake the US for the benefit of the Democrat socialistic party
We are GREATLY concerned about Ukraine’s border, but not at all concerned about a part of Serbia, for more than 1000 years, to declare itself independent, and then add it to the EU and NATO, over Serbia’s objections.
Only a few countries recognize Kosovo to be independent.
This is raw power politics by the Hegemon, as was the Ukraine coup in 2014, to weaken Russia
“We should, but we are deliberately opening the southern border. to remake the US for the benefit of the Democrat socialistic party”
You are exactly right. That’s what they are doing. Biden is completely ignoring U.S. law. He is derilict in his duty to protect the United States and should be removed from office because of it.
The difference being that Russia’s army is no 1940/1941 Wehrmacht. They can’t even overrun Ukraine.
“We are the problem with our appalling, corrupt, crony capitalism.”
I thought that was where you were coming from, and now you confirm your bias.
That is, because they go to feel-good schools to be with others to pursue feel-good courses, to prepare themselves to feel good about themselves and others like them, against an evil world using these evil fossil fuels, that provide the plastic bottles they use to drink from, while protesting whatever makes them feel good
The more hysterical, the better it looks on TV.
Look mom and dad, there is where your educate-me-money went
Mr. Istvan: Yes, they needed a pre-set failure, and Kamala Harris was not available.
No she appears to be spreading banana skins on stages where Joe Biden is due to speak and changing the autocues so he can’t read them!
Has any of these COP conferences succeeded in reducing fossil fuel usage and carbon emissions, and has any one succeeded in causing global temperatures to fall? Enough said.
I’ll bet you that every COP creates more carbon dioxide than it saves…
Have any of these COP conferences complained about the Chicoms continuing to increase their CO2 output?
China’s output will offset any and all CO2 reductions by stupid Western nations, so what’s the point in the West reducing output, if it’s not going to make any difference anyway?
It’s a ridiculous situation that ridiculous people take seriously, and it ends up costing society Trillions of dollars.
Perhaps the next COP could hold a seance or a rain dance? It would be as likely to show real results.
That’s ‘indigenous traditions’ to the rest of us, I believe. Word is that many indigenous groups used to be happy to visit the COP’s but now feel they are being exploited as a ‘song and dance act’.
Well, I am part Indio from Oaxaca, but I have no idea of what rituals they performed. It could not have been as theatrical as the Mexica, or the Spanish would have noted them. Cardiectomy with a flint blade is hard to miss.
“Cardiectomy with a flint blade is hard to miss.” Especially when it’s done on top of a stone pyramid 100 ft or more high!
HM Britain’s King Charles III received United Arab Emirates’ Minister of State, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, and President of COP28, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, during an audience at Buckingham Palace in London on February 16, 2023.
No doubt HM, the king explained to the Dr. al-Jaber that the ‘world is doomed’.
That irony is rich. I am ‘sure’ Charles prevailed. /sarc
The UK has become the sick man of Europe, with no prospect of any improvement, I.e., terminally ill
Can anyone name a single solar panel, wind turbine, or battery manufacturer using these systems to make their product? I thought not. This 2025 nonsense is a cruel joke. The fossil fuels needed to ramp up production of these systems would vastly increase CO2 output.
It’s insane.
This is why heavy industry is dead in the UK and Australia and near death in North America (Mexico aside) and most of Europe. Australia still has a few smelters hanging on a thread, supported from government general revenue.
If you want to have a career in heavy industry, learn Mandarin.
Same for New England. The attached photo is in north central Woke-achusetts. There are thousands of these dead factory buildings in this region. They look like bombed out Ukraine. This region, like the UK is where the industrial revolution got started and now they’re among the first to lose heavy industries.
Those regions were the first to realize the fantastic benefits of industrialization to mankind. That gave enough resources above subsistence grubbing in the earth to afford luxuries like Leftist academics, feckless politicians, subversive Deep State operators, insane billionaires and their wastrel families and crony capitalist profiteers. Those groups are busily destroying what their predecessors worked so hard to build.
Nothing to do with woke.
The Chinese said “we have cheap labour and no unions” and western manufacturers flocked to the country.
Chinese say: “$10,000 iPhone avairable from China for $1,000 dollah”. And the west said, bring it on!!
We did this to ourselves and people need to wake up to it.
Waking up to do what?
Build more of ECONOMICALLY debilitating wind, solar and batteries?
What about the recent deficit reduction bull manure act?
The woke folks on both sides of the aisle did it again to protect the system THEY have built to benefit THEMSELVES.
I said it at the time, and I continue to say it. When Thatcher and Reagan changed the political, social and industrial dynamic of the west from one of manufacturing to one of services, they were right.
The only way the west could compete against cheap Chinese and Indian labour to build ships, cars and microprocessors was to control the money.
Sure, give American workers a bowl of rice a day and they can compete with Chinese labour. But no one wanted to do that.
Instead, we screwed up our financial dominance and adopted ideological climate cult behaviour, because we could afford it.
The chickens are now coming home to roost.
“You could not make this stuff up.” like we do with consensus climate science.
“That guy is our last hope.”
“No, there is another, there’s always another.”
Apologies to Obi-Wan and Yoda.
Somebody had better tell India and China, they don’t seem to share the urgency.
Interestingly, India and China, even with real pollution problems, make inexpensive electricity a priority.
https://thelibertydaily.com/ranked-the-20-most-air-polluted-cities-on-earth/
In August 2022 coal powered generation in China reached over 500TWh. This monthly level of generation was higher than the total annual coal power generation of any other country except India and the US
IEA ‘Coal 2022 Analysis and forecast to 2025’ Dec 2022
These two consume 6 of the 8 billion metric ton consumed per year.
They will not give that up, “for as long as low-cost coal is around”
They say F U COPXXX
Didn’t Obama go over there to do just that and ended up hobbling the USA whilst giving China a free ride?
…because it was politically correct to have a small Arab state host this time.
Splendid example of the futility of politically correct governance. It selects conflicting goals, then expects to extract from the public sufficient funds to cover them all.
Perhaps the reasoning went something like – “It takes an awful lot of money to stage a COP meeting, lets give it to an oil rich state and they’ll have less money to spend developing their oil reserves” 🙂
“… moving from the billions to the
trillionsquadrillions…”what he meant
Pretty soon, we will be talking about real money!
No COP will be a success. That would require that all nations in the world agree to commit suicide through installing autocratic Marxist regimes (destroying free market capitalism) and deindustrializing the planet.
Of course they can’t be a success. If it was successful then the climate gravy train would come to a screeching halt and the climate enthusiasts would have to think up another scam.
There are no climate scientists, consensus or other, who actually believe there is a developing climate crisis (save, perhaps, a small number with psychological problems). A quarter of a century ago, yes. Even I (scientist and engineer), Anthony Watts, and a large number of others thought there could be something to the idea.
How can one be certain now that the “consensus” no longer believes there is a crisis? Multiple lines of evidence make for a prima facie case. In 1990, climate scientists forecast, with a high degree of confidence, T°C anomalies that proved to be 300% too high in the middle of the the 1st decade of the new millennium (also it was in the middle of an 18year+ unexpected pause in T-rise). This unequivocally falsified their theory.
How they responded doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes or even an Inspector
Clouseau to conclude that the consensus knew they ‘didn’t have the right stuff’. Why else would they move the goalposts for the datum from which to measure the warming ’caused by humans’ from 1950 back to 1850 (when world population was only a billion people with less than a tenth of them living in very modestly developed countries). Clearly, they wanted to bankroll the 0.6°C of natural warming of recovery from the depths of the Little Ice Age to help “correct” the falsified science.
Nevermind that the LIA occurred from a completely natural cooling down of ~1.5°C or so from the Medieval warm period that was warmer than it is now! Norse farmers grew barley, kept sheep and cows on Greenland; Scots had a flourishing wine industry, …
They still fell short of their warming forecasts. They then, now more boldly, began major fiddling with the longterm global temperature data sets. There had been disappointment that the super el Ñino of 1998 did not set a new temperature record and we immediately thereafter went into “The Pause”. GISS under Hansen, as his last act before retiring, pushed the mid 1930s to 1940s 20th century high Ts down 1°C to confer the century ‘record’ on 1998. He did this in 2007!!! Weather record highs in the US are still in the individual state data. There is much more but I rest my case.
Putting an oil sheik in charge is a COP-out
cop out
2 of 2
verbcopped out; copping out; cops out
intransitive verb
1
: to back out (as of an unwanted responsibility)
cop out on jury duty
2
: to avoid or neglect problems, responsibilities, or commitments
accused the mayor of copping out on the issue
Hey Eric,
Where would you suggest the next COPs extravaganza be held, Birdsville?
I think I would contact all the local governments in Australia and start demanding money for not holding the event in their district. Lowest bid gets the booby prize 🙂
Fond memory of Birdsville. Working for United Geophysical at the time, mid 1960’s, going on break to Brisbane. A DC3, I’m the only passenger. Overnighted in Birdsville. The pub was late waking me up, 0745. Departure: 0800. Raced to the dining room – grab a cup of coffee? The plane crew were finishing their breakfast. “Are you coming with us this morning?” “Yes.” “Have your breakfast, we’ll wait.”
I do love this ‘set stricter targets for emissions’ thing! Are alarmist memories so short? There’s a thing called PARIS which set targets for all. And to ‘keep under two degrees ‘, now to scare us all one and a half. Where did that come from? The corrupt IPCC? Does it have the powers? Meanwhile not a tremor in the steady rise of CO2 since COP 1 in 1995. It’s laughable! 30,000 suckers in Dubai? Even the Guardian can’t support it,
Mustn’t lose my temper,
Relax, Grauniad. COP 12 was held in Doha, Qatar in 2012. Oil and gas man Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah was at the helm. The circus rolled on, and after Dubai it will roll on to COP 29 in Australia.
I want COP 31 or 32 to be in Russia – that should finish them off once and for all!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65754296 selecting China or India shows the folly of emissions control, even if they were necessary.
“Cop28 must deliver strengthened emissions reduction targets, and a commitment to peak global emissions by 2025,”
It ‘must’. So what are the consequences of global emissions not declining after 2025? Given that China has consent to ramp up its emissions until 2035, it won’t happen. So will they just adjust the date as they always do?
Given that the EU is proposing fining those EU countries which don’t take in the EU-imposed number of “immigrants”, will the UN seek powers to fine countries which don’t reduce their emissions sufficiently?
No – I think you’ve missed the point. The goal is to get binding, restrictive emmissions reduction targets in place before the population of Western countries realise they’re being duped and kick the globalist politicians out. It’s a race against time and the globalists have lost their lead.
Conference of Parties. Noun.
Think of it as the great deal making and money-grubbing COP to date. That comes ahead of all else.