The annual international greenwashing lollapalooza, COP28, kicks off in Dubai tomorrow. That’s Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates, a leading oil and gas producer. Indeed, the UAE holds the world’s sixth largest natural gas reserves and the seventh largest oil reserves.
So a major fossil energy power will be hosting COP28, the 28th meeting of the United Nation’s “conference of the parties” that are members of the UN’s “Framework Convention on Climate Change.” If the past is a guide, some 20,000 individuals of varied interests are already in Dubai for the COP.
Leading the host delegation, essentially steering the enormous political and policy scrum, is Sultan al-Jaber, 49, whose real-life job is head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC), the UAE’s state-owned oil company, the world’s 12 largest oil producer. He also founded Masdar, a renewable energy company that pales in comparison to ADNOC.
Last September, the New York Times wrote, “The Emirates, made wealthy by decades of oil exports, wants to be seen as a climate-friendly renewable energy superpower, even as it helps lock developing nations around the world into decades more fossil fuel use.
Last year, COP27 met in authoritarian Egypt, where the most notable aspect was the brutal suppression of dissidents and protestors by the government of the dictator Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
These conferences began in 1992 with the Buenos Aires climate meeting, dubbed the “Earth Summit.” U.S. President Bill Clinton made an appearance. All agreed that more meetings were needed (of course). The first official “COP” was in Berlin in 1995. Last year, The Guardian asked, “Thirty years of climate summits: where have they got us?”
The answer is clearly “not much.” The most significant was 2015 in Paris, where the parties agreed to a “legally binding” treaty to limit future world temperature increases to either 1.5C or 2.0C (take your pick). Legally binding is, of course, meaningless diplospeak. Countries will and do what they believe is in their national interest, while mouthing anodyne cliches about treaty compliance. It may be the case that the world has already surpassed 1.5, and certainly will soon. Look out, 2.0.
Here’s a classic example of the triumph of national interest: the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that U.S. crude oil production in October and November hit historic new highs of 13.2 million barrels per day, exceeding the previous high of 13.1 million barrels per day in February and March of 2020. The MTN news and comment site noted, “Yes, Joe Biden just broke Donald Trump’s record of daily domestic crude oil production, which is now higher than it was pre-Covid. When Biden took office it was 11 million barrels a day.”
An example of the Paris commitment to reduce climatic threats to the globe, Bloomberg reported in September, “China is considering compensating utilities for all the coal-fired power they’ve built, including plants that are likely to sit idle as Beijing accelerates its transition to clean energy. The reimbursement would come in the form of capacity fees for power users, in addition to the rates they pay on the electricity they consume, according to a draft of the plan seen by Bloomberg.”
The Guardian recently headlined a story: “Cop28 host UAE breaking its own ban on routine gas flaring, data shows.” The article said satellite monitoring data shows that the emirates gas fields “have burned gas near daily despite 20-year-old pledge.”
Another lauded outcome of Paris was a pledge to pay poor nations, whose contribution to global warming is negligible but may experience significant costs, $100 billion in reparations. That pledge has been reaffirmed at every COP since. No money has yet changed hands. It’s on the Dubai agenda. The Washington Post wrote, “Years of failed promises of help from rich countries could undermine success at the upcoming global climate talks, COP28.”
Among the multitudes enjoying the luxurious lodging, world-renowned shopping, fine dining (and alcohol is available), and hot desert climate of Dubai are legions of industry lobbyists, caravans of climate activists, boatloads of bureaucrats, a proliferation of preening politicians, and scores of scribes (digital mavens and old-time scribblers). The Washington Post reported last week, “Representatives of the fossil fuel industry have attended U.N. climate talks at least 7,200 times over the past two decades, according to research released Tuesday by a coalition of advocacy groups.” That’s hardly a surprise.
Would ending these annual assemblies mean an end to the international response to a warming world? Hardly. There is progress, driven by human ingenuity and adaptability and by economic forces. Renewable electric power and new ways to store it are displacing polluting legacy big iron. Cars, trucks, buses, and trains are revolutionizing transportation. Agriculture is transforming itself with little notice.
If these annual gabfests ever served a valid purpose, that time has passed. The COPs are not driving events. They are sideshows, empty vessels more notable for their unofficial parties that any relevant work by the official party delegations or even behind-the-scene, backdoor deals. It’s time to defund the COPs.
–Kennedy Maize