The next UN gabfest, COP28, is scheduled for November 30 to December 12, 2023 in the United Arab Emirates because COP27, held from November 6 to 18, 2022 in Egypt (yes, the great and good fly to these things in warm tropical resorts when it’s cold in the northern hemisphere to underline that it’s one rule for me, another for thee on this file) was such a total and complete waste of time, effort, money and idealism that it’s crucial to do it again. And the main theme of COP28 is that since we can’t get nations to stop emitting GHGs, and we look darn silly getting delegates to promise to again and again and then fly home first-class to make a first-class mess of it, we should demand instead that politicians in industrialized democracies give all their citizens’ wealth to politicians running countries they have mired in political and economic dysfunction.
Won’t that make a positive impression, especially on the citizens of the industrialized democracies? Particularly if the mathematics and economics involved are even more transparently ludicrous than the science?
By the way, if you want some sense of how the global elite manages such issues, Reuters “Sustainable Switch” got all breathless about how:
“The Bonn Climate Change Conference, designed to prepare decisions for adoption at COP28 in the United Arab Emirates, is seen as a mid-way check for how ambitious international climate talks will take shape at COP28 in December.”
Right. An expensive, carbon-heavy meeting about another meeting. What a joy it is to see them roll up their sleeves and get to work on the hors d’oeuvres. Though not much else, since it turns out that “Despite months of discussions since the previous COP27 in Egypt, there was no agreement on adopting the agendas proposed by the COP permanent subsidiary bodies for the Bonn conference”.
Months of discussions and they can’t draft an agenda. But they can save the planet by diving into your pocket and pulling out hundreds of trillions of dollars. Sure thing, buddy.
The notion that eating the rich is a fun substitute for sequestering the carbon seems to be gaining ground, as one might expect among such people. A piece in The Hill, a publication dedicated to covering Capitol Hill and apparently in the usual process of being captured by left-wing activists more interested in describing the world as it should be than as it is or could be, says:
“The idea that polluters should pay reparations for climate change is gaining steam among advocates. Some environmentalists and academics argue the companies or states that are most significantly contributing to the climate crisis should be made to compensate the people bearing the brunt of its impacts. Advocates have been calling for such reparations for years, especially since evidence emerged that fossil fuel companies were aware of the impact of carbon emissions. But the idea is now more practically achievable due to scientific advances, said Adrien Salazar, policy director at the nonprofit Grassroots Global Justice. He pointed to the increased sophistication of diagnostic techniques such as ‘attribution science, a rapidly developing field that says when this disaster happens, how much of this is attributed to the climate crisis [and] to the fact that humans have had an impact on the atmosphere.’”
And guess what they discovered? Right. Oil companies bad, and rich. And thus:
“Some advocates for reparations are making specific practical calculations of what they believe is owed. Last week, an analysis published in OneEarth concluded that fossil fuel companies including BP, Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron collectively owe $209 billion a year in restitution for the cumulative climate disasters expected to take place by midcentury.”
Not, you see, the people who bought and burned the fuel, like the delegates to the previous 27 COP meetings. Alas for the advocates gaining steam no such sums will ever be forthcoming. Not even if you gather in a circle, paint your faces and chant “attribution studies”. Climate Home News whined that:
“After surprising everyone by finally agreeing to a loss and damage fund at Cop27, developed countries were back to playing Scrooge in Bonn the last two weeks.”
If you really cared about climate, or had any self-awareness, you wouldn’t demand ludicrous sums for dubious purposes. You’d focus on practicalities.
One of the reasons, possibly the fundamental reason, for demanding enormous reparations for past misdeeds (climate, colonialism, slavery, you name it) is that some of those reparation tend to stick to the grubby paws those involved in the reparations business. $209 billion per year from the oil companies? Any half-awake shyster should have no difficulty diverting a tenth of a percent of this. That's $209 milliom per year.
Let those with a zero carbon footprint cast the first stone.
Not a tenth of a percent, it would be lucky if 50% went to the nations, and of that, given the corrupt governments in the third world, 90% of that will end up in the Swiss and Cayman bank accounts of the ruling elites…
I'd like to see the scientific evidence of these so-called scientific advances,"increased sophistication of diagnostic techniques",and so on,that supposedly determine who emitted what amount of CO2,where and when and how.Something fishy about Salazar's claim to say the least.
I agree, Mike. Nowhere do the elites tell us how they arrived at their figures. I calculated that my managed forest sequesters about 24 tonnes of carbon a year, but I didn't plant my seedlings for that reason; I planted them to improve the environment. Unfortunately, the government that delights in taxing carbon does not compensate carbon sequestation.