COP out

The 2023 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28 for short, thankfully) opened in Dubai last Thursday in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - whose National Day it is today - and runs until 12 December.

This annual international jamboree sees 80,000 delegates jetting in (literally) from all around the globe - the UK alone sent its King, Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary on separate jets - to pontificate, debate and finally vote on measures to reduce the world's CO2 emissions. Suffice to say, an awful lot of trees will need to be planted to offset the flight emissions of COP itself before the ostensible work of the conference even begins (which, despite being set in an international retail paradise - best not use the term 'shopping Mecca' in this context - is emphatically not about stocking up with Christmas presents). 

All of this may seem bizarre enough but the fact that COP28 is being hosted by a petrostate, the world's seventh largest oil producer, is not actually stretching credulity that far; it is, in fact, becoming the norm rather than the exception - after all, COP26 was held in Glasgow! But COP28 takes things to a whole other level. The COP presidency is now held by Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, who as well as being the minister of industry and advanced technology of the UAE (so far so good) is also CEO of Adnoc, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Ponder that for a moment...

Okay, moving on, Al-Jaber's appointment has been described as putting the fox in charge of the hen coop. It certainly seems to present a clear conflict of interest. He strives to reassure a sceptical world that he can divide himself in two but, in reality, isn't this like running with the hare and hunting with the hounds? (I appreciate hare coursing is not big in the UAE but I'm sure the simile will not be lost on the Western-educated Sultan). Or, put another way, it's rather like asking the Pope to preside over an international atheism conference. Even then I'd sooner bet on His Holiness resisting the temptation to use his position to proselytise than on His Excellency not to fossilytise.

To be fair to the Sultan, perhaps MacDonald's presents a useful analogy. This company has built a worldwide reputation on selling beefburgers but now also includes full vegetarian and vegan offerings on its menu. Is it possible that the head of a state fossil fuel company can also look beyond the end of petrocarbons to a world of renewable energy? Not impossible but, frankly, highly implausible. Although his country, like all others, must transition to alternative energy sources sooner rather than later, his economy, more than most, depends on continuing to sell oil until it does. 

Without this income, his country risks reverting to desert and his people to their former precarious lifestyle, although the once-lucrative pearl-diving is no longer an option; swapping Cadillac's for camels seems a more likely scenario. However, with its continuance, the entire planet becomes unliveable. It may be a stark dilemma.but, existentially, it's hardly a choice, it's a sine qua non.

And, indeed, allegations are already circulating of behind-the-scenes shady deals to hook Africa on cheap UAE oil and petroleum. Critics of this policy have dubbed it Africa's 'dash for gas' and pointed out that, despite being home to 60% of the best solar resources globally, the continent has roughly the same installed solar photo-voltaic capacity as Belgium, a small country hardly renowned for its sunny climate. Against this backdrop the Sultan's role as COP President appears decidedly more sinister.

Not so much the wily fox as the amoral drug pusher?

Update: Uh-oh! As reported by The Guardian, Al-Jaber to Mary Robinson in a discussion session: "There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C.” Sounds worryingly like climate denial to me.

Popular posts from this blog

Looking to Africa - long read

As I sit here on an island just off the coast of North-West Africa I can't help pondering the future of that vast and seemingly unknowable continent, so near and yet so far. I'm writing this in Tenerife, one of the eight Canary Islands forming an archipelago off the coast of Morocco and Western Sahara - tantilisingly close and yet a world away from the 'mainland' of continental Africa. As an Autonomous Community of Spain, the Canaries form an outpost of the European Union (EU). Yet, despite their proximity to Africa, their outlook, politically, culturally and economically, is resolutely European. Africa may as well be Mars, though only a narrow gulf of the Atlantic Ocean separates these offshore islands from their continent. I say resolutely European but that resolve may, little by little, be weakening. There is a growing sentiment, especially, though not exclusively, amongst young Canarians, that they have been sold a pup. True, the economy is superficially buoyant, du
Read more

On old age

"The fact is that when I come to think it over, I find that there are four reasons for old age being thought unhappy: First, that it withdraws us from active employments; second, that it enfeebles the body; third, that it deprives us of nearly all physical pleasures; fourth, that it is the next step to death."  Writing his essay,  De Senectute (On Old Age), in 44 BCE, Marcus Tullius Cicero went on to refute these four supposed reasons in characteristically robust and forthright manner. Cicero wasn't one to sit about moping in his own old age; he remained actively engaged in the political life of the Republic whose survival, in the face of tyranny, he championed so fiercely.  Cicero was nine years younger than I am now when he met his untimely end yet he considered himself already an old man; or, rather, his society judged him to be so. His second point about age enfeebling is more germane. Physical decline had not yet impacted him but, six years on from my retirement, I
Read more

Born to rule

When, ten days ago, I posted my piece about the manipulated image of Catherine, Princess of Wales, and her children (see Snap Judgment) I didn't know of her cancer treatment. Had I known, I would have adopted a gentler, though I hope no less critical, tone. But I didn't know, and nor did any of us outside the immediate royal circle, which rather goes to strengthen the case against the monarchy. For Kate and her family the diagnosis of cancer (as yet unspecified) will have been a devastating blow, as will the chemotherapy she is currently undergoing. On a human level, of course I sympathise and extend my best wishes for a full recovery as, indeed, I did at the time of her father-in-law's diagnosis. It is particularly cruel, then, that on top of all this she has been obliged to record a video statement to reassure the public. As if she didn't have enough to contend with already. But such is the unpalatable obligation placed upon any royal personage - noblesse oblige. Whic
Read more