The 28th Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (or COP28), comes to an end this week. It was their largest conference yet, with more than 75,000 people flying to Dubai, the biggest city of the petro-state United Arab Emirates, to spew hot air about how to save our "warming" planet. Really, you can't make this stuff up.
No doubt the participants had a grand old time, but overall the shindig in the desert was a dud. First because two of the anticipated premier attendees -- Joe Biden and Pope Francis -- pulled out at the last minute, the latter due to his precarious health and the former reportedly because it was deemed too much of a security risk, with the ongoing Israel/Gaza war. But mostly because, really, there's nothing new to say. They've been holding these gab-fests about how to save the planet for 30 years now, and so far the planet hasn't gotten saved. Even the media are starting to get bored with the whole thing.
That said, there were a few bright spots, some unexpected intrusions of good sense. One of them regular readers will have already heard about from our contributors Jenny Kennedy and Brandon Weichert. It happened when the UAE's Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and Special Envoy for Climate Change (and president of COP28) Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, was asked by former Irish president (and avowed leftist agitator) Mary Robinson about the importance of "phasing out fossil fuel" to help combat the "absolute crisis that is hurting women and children more than anyone." Al Jaber replied:
I accepted to come to this meeting to have a sober and mature conversation. I’m not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist. There is no science out thereth at says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C. Please show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves. I don’t think [you] will be able to help solve the climate problem by pointing fingers or contributing to the polarization and the divide that is already happening in the world. Show me the solutions. Stop the pointing of fingers. Stop it.
The second, which garnered a little less notice, came from one of the countries on the lower end of the economic totem pole. With all of the talk from the movers-and-shakers of the world about the necessity of abolishing natural resource-derived energy, Uganda's Minister of Energy's Ruth Nankabirwa Ssentamu felt compelled to say, essentially, you go first:
To tell us to stop fossil fuels is an insult. It's like you are telling Uganda to stay in poverty.
We could accept a long-term phase out, if it made clear that developing nations can exploit their resources in the near term, while wealthy long-time producers quit first. #COP28 pic.twitter.com/CR4YzUc0xd
— Ruth Nankabirwa Ssentamu (@NankabirwaRS) December 10, 2023
And, of course, she has a point -- after all, the "developed" world has spent centuries getting rich off of our natural resources. Do we really have the right to tell countries trying to follow our path that, for the good of the planet, they must stay poor? For all of the hand wringing and pearl clutching about western imperialism and colonialism, this looks like a pretty good contemporary example.
In any event, it was nice to have these moments of straying from the accepted narrative, to have some excitement to cut through the tedium, even if much of it was inadvertently and pungently provided by ol' reliable himself, John Forbes Kerry. The organizers were outraged of course, especially at Al Jaber, who drew a rebuke from the toothless U.N. Secretary, General António Guterres and all of the scientific big brains. But they were too late. A rare moment of truth has finally cut through that miasma of obfuscation.
Article tags: climate alarmism, COP28, Dubai, John Kerry, Sultan Al Jaber, UN secretary General Antonio Guterres
Time for America tot totally pull out of the United Nations and moved rhem out as well Moscow would bea a better place or maybe Bejing