Essay by Eric Worrall
“We are making progress” – but it sure doesn’t smell like progress.
From The Guardian;
Cop28: ‘failure is not an option,’ says summit president – as it happened
Sultan Al Jaber calls for countries to come together amid disagreements over the future of climate action
‘Failure is not an option’ – Al Jaber
Fiona Harvey
Sultan Al Jaber, president of Cop28, made a last-ditch call for all countries to come together this afternoon in Dubai, to find common ground amid deep disagreements over the future of climate action.
Everyone would be listened to, he said, emphasising as he has done from the start that this must be an inclusive process. “Everyone’s experience and national circumstances have merit and will be taken in consideration. We will not ignore anyone. As I’ve said many times, we will not neglect any issue, we will not neglect or undermine or underestimate any of the views or the national circumstances of any region or any country. And I promise that they will all be heard,” he said.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2023/dec/10/cop28-live-focus-on-food-and-agriculture-as-climate-change-summit-continues
I actually feel a little sorry for Sultan Al Jaber. Despite being a big oil boss, I think he genuinely expected parties to behave rationally, that participants would be persuaded to buy his gas to help ween their economies off coal and oil, and everyone could go home and report real progress towards reducing global CO2 emissions.
What Al Jaber didn’t reckon on is the sheer irrationality of the climate movement. No agreement which includes a future role for fossil fuel is politically acceptable to Western climate extremists, no matter how much it reduces CO2 emissions. To the green extremists driving this entire process, Al Jaber has committed blasphemy by suggesting fossil fuel has a future. There is also a real possibility many participants at the COP conferences don’t actually want genuine progress, they just want someone to blame for the lack of progress.
Al Jaber is the perfect fall guy for the coming blame storm – he’s a big oil executive, and he was in charge of COP28.
Pinning the blame for failure on Al Jaber could have commercial consequences for the UAE economy, if greens in Europe and elsewhere demand the scapegoat be punished.
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Of course failure is not an option because based on COP’s lack of success since the first conference in 1995, it’s a guarantee. Note as usual there are no penalties for failure to meet any emissions reduction targets or any strong indications of declining fossil fuel use. That’s because no country would agree to a treaty that forced it to send money to an unelected semi-dysfunctional organization like the UN which would probably direct it to equally dysfunctional and even more corrupt Third World recipients. Forget about any successes from COP; it’s proved to be nothing more than a non-productive gabfest that provides a free ride to delegates who know they won’t have to produce any positive results.
As a diversion from the previous failures, they are beating the methane drums.
I only have old Anglo Saxon words for the dear president and it relates to sex and travel.