Another Cop-out by the great and good
SApparently, natural gas is no longer a dirty, nasty, polluting fossil fuel
O, the great and the good have headed home from the Cop27 beano at Sharm el-Sheikh. With scarcely a mention of the irony, they’d all flown to and from a luxury resort to dance around doing anything meaningful to stop global warming.
Instead, this time, the headline has been rich countries giving poor countries money. The plan finally cooked up was needed to deflect the demands for ‘reparations’, as poor countries were building to a crescendo of demands for ‘compensation’ re climate change.
Well, fair enough. But we all know – or at least we very strongly suspect – that if you give most poor countries money, the president and his henchmen will either invest it in arms with which to wage war on their neighbours, or possibly some minority of the own countrymen, in a bloodbath that was only waiting for someone to buy the hardware. Happily, Western countries usually manoeuvre matters so they at least get some of the money back by making damn sure they’re supplying the arms in the first place. Annoyingly, those pesky Russians sometimes foul the game by making their wretched Kalashnikovs absurdly cheaply. Spoilsports.
Or, the other popular usage for funds sent to developing countries happens when the monies mysteriously evaporate, and then surprisingly re-appear in a Swiss bank account handily in the name of the President, his wife, or their nephew.
I notice several Western countries have cottoned onto this, so the Cop27 fudge has been a promise to establish a fund which could pay out to individual countries hit by climate change cataclysms. And the more cynical of observers will already be questioning…. who decides a particular weather event was caused by global warming? And which were merely unusual regular storms/ droughts etc? Anyway, it was only a promise, so that can will be kicked along the road for a while.
In fact, the only fool-proof way we could – or should – be helping poor countries is to go there ourselves, and build them solar arrays, hydroelectric installations, and the like. But then, if we haven’t finished our own switchover to renewables, wouldn’t it be better to get our own house in order first?
Another outcome of Cop27 is that, apparently, natural gas is no longer a dirty, nasty, polluting fossil fuel. With some clever marketing and pretty photos of smiling children, we can go on burning it and pretend it’s OK.
Look, a lot of very well-meaning delegates have undoubtedly tried their best to find ways forward. Many are undoubtedly quite earnest, but they’re up against endless fossil fuel industry lobbyists, governments reliant on fossil fuels, and of course, governments threatened with being booted out of office in favour of populist climate change ‘denialists’.
Sadly, it’s hopeless, and even the most decent delegates, with apparently unimpeachable integrity, must know it. So, in truth, it remains little more than a jolly good beano. I know individuals for whom attendance has become a ‘job’ in its own right.
IT’S almost funny that as one highly questionable beano closed in the region, two others opened. The obscene F1 car racing circus was already limbering up in Abu Dhabi, to waste as much petrol as they possibly could, in as much spectacle and tyre smoke as they can achieve.
And just along the Gulf, Qatar started to welcome the world of football to their specially-built facilities for the World Cup. I’d have a downer on such a huge waste of resources at just about every level even before we get to the current location.
I’m not big on sports as a rule... So the concept that dozens of teams, hundreds of hangers on, and tens of thousands of spectators will fly to what is demonstrably a stupid place to hold the event is repugnant to me.
I don’t care very much how many migrant labourers they killed making the air conditioned white elephant stadia, nor that the country have moral views we would find abhorrent. That’s their affair.
What repels me is the fact that football allowed itself to be ‘bought’ like this. The Qataris are what they are, but Fifa, media pundits, the teams and Foreign Secretary Cleverly, who’ve been bought? It’s shameless, and unworthy.