OK, OK, some in the audience won’t remember the old movie theatre system where a film just ran in a loop and you bought a ticket and went in whenever and left whenever. But the tedious cliffhanger serial Meeting Saves Climate seems to work on that principle. Thus from Climate Home News we learn that “At COP30, when a clutch of countries announced their backing for the first global conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels, little did they know the Iran war would be helping win the argument for the summit that starts in Colombia tomorrow.” Which is quite an introductory summary for those who haven’t been following the action. Especially that “win the argument” bit where apparently learning that we can’t do without oil has taught us all that we must do without oil. Maybe let’s just walk out now.
If you didn’t, then you’ll discover that this “summit” is the “First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia” that CHN hyped and we scorned earlier this month. Not to be unduly frank, but we’ve had quite enough experience in our own lives of meetings at which many people appear to be talking solely to determine whether their tongues still work. And of climate meeting serials that go on for decades without apparently making the slightest dent in the problem or even trying a series of different failed solutions. But evidently there are those who like that kind of thing.
Including CHN, which after the absurd email subject line “Scientists lay ground for fossil fuel phase-out” babbles that:
“Inside the air-conditioned lecture rooms of the University of Magdalena, not far from Colombia’s largest coal-exporting port, around 400 academics gathered this weekend for the first time to discuss the nitty-gritty of leaving fossil fuels behind and its myriad implications.”
Please, please, tell us you do not believe that in 34 years of constant, shrill, swaggering climate activism, it’s the first time anyone discussed the nitty-gritty. You can’t be that clueless, can you? Not just about the need at some point to talk practicalities even if all you have in mind is totally revamping the world economy and how everyone lives (or doesn’t). About the fact that people have been discussing it for decades and their conclusion has been whoa nelly, kind of hard, better have more meetings.
The funny thing is, CHN seems to like such things even while at least dimly aware that it’s a silly preference, like ordering that cold stale popcorn with the weird yellow grease on it hoping this time it will taste nice. In its earlier hype it wrote:
“Earlier this week, the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, gathering leaders for a diplomatic talk-fest in Germany, relayed the message that the recent disruption to oil and gas markets – courtesy of Donald Trump – shows how fossil fuels are a risk to economic and energy stability. ‘We know that relying solely on fossil fuels means walking towards volatility, insecurity and climate collapse,’ said Murat Kurum, Türkiye’s climate minister and COP31 president. Yet while the business case for the clean energy transition may be getting clearer by the day, a decent plan for weaning the world off planet-heating coal, oil and gas remains elusive.”
Wait a minute. The “Petersberg Climate Dialogue”? How many of these things are there? And why?
Also, if you’re tempted to go hey, isn’t it “Petersburg” this one’s not in Russia, it’s in Berlin, and is the 17th such so you can see how well they’ve been going even if the German Ministry for Unpronounceable Names of Things (OK, OK, Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Klimaschutz, Naturschutz und nukleare Sicherheit) says:
“The event serves as a forum to discuss key priorities for the climate year 2026 and COP31, build political alliances and partnerships at an early stage, showcase positive examples of successful transformation and highlight the role of ambitious climate policy in economic development and competitiveness.”
What, again? And never mind thinking the Iranian government bears some responsibility for being so violently obnoxious that someone had to do something that reduced supplies of petroleum other than just yak pointlessly at meetings. Or the Turkish government not being an expert on stability, security and economic and environmental quality, or even English-language orthography. (If they want to call us Cänādăyeiu when writing in Turkish they’re welcome to it, but when we’re writing Turkey in English hold the diacritics.) Or even the “planet-heating” since evidently warming just isn’t scary enough, though stand by for “baking” or “roasting” or who knows what?
The point is that “decent plan”. After all, the alarmists got a February gift from the dreaded Trump when he finally found a way to make hydrocarbon energy more expensive and less available, except of course in benighted jurisdictions like the US that produce a bunch of the stuff. If even that’s a bad plan, what would a good one look like?
You’ll regret asking. See according to CHN:
“This is the task for the 60 or so nations now gathering in the coastal city of Santa Marta to firm up what has been dubbed a coalition of ‘the willing’, ‘doers’ and even ‘speedboats’. Don’t expect a negotiated outcome - the whole point is for this process to be nimbler than the UN climate talks where it takes only a couple of countries to block meaningful results.”
And OK, arguably a dead elephant is “nimbler” than the UN climate talks. But if you’re not even negotiating anything, and the willing doer speedboats are already speeding willingly to Do-Land, what exactly are you doing except going climate breakdown blah blah blah green transition blah blah blah soy latte please blah blah blah Orange Man Bad? We said don’t ask:
“Co-hosts Colombia and the Netherlands want ministers to make progress on thorny issues such as phasing down and closing fossil fuel extraction, tackling economic dependence on oil and gas revenues and protecting workers and national budgets from the inevitable fallout.”
Oh. Just that? Sounds a lot like Paris… and Rio… and yeah, we already saw this bit and the popcorn tastes awful. Let’s get out of here.
