And the Winner Is … Azerbaijan

December 10, 2023

United Nations policy of sharing climate conferences among the world’s regions means next year’s meeting will be held in another petrostate. Politics trumps climate policy — again.

Saturday’s “Global Day of Action,” in which climate campaigners from around the world staged demonstrations at an already fractious CoP28 meeting in the UAE, produced yet another disconnect. Next year’s climate conference — or what’s left of climate anyway — will be hosted by the unitary semi-presidential Republic of Azerbaijan, a petrostate rich in oil and gas with many, many pipelines.

So much for the idea of rolling back the world’s reliance on emissions-causing fossil fuels, let alone phasing fossil fuels out entirely.

The Southern Gas Corridor connects Azerbaijan’s vast Shah Deniz gas field to continental Europe, reducing the EU’s dependence on Russian gas — making it one of the most active regions in the world for oil exploration and development. Hoopla!

If you’re wondering how a petrostate ended up hosting the UN’s most high-profile conference on the environment — for the second year in a row — blame war.

UN policy means that 2024 is Eastern Europe’s turn to take over the rotating presidency. The decision has to be unanimous. In theory, that’s good policy for a global organization that claims to represent every region of the world, though in practice it often results in decisions that satisfy no one. Russia vetoed EU countries from hosting — don’t cry for me, Ukraine — and Armenia initially blocked Azerbaijan’s bid. Azerbaijan seized the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in September after more than 30 years of simmering tensions, forcing some 120,000 ethnic Armenians to flee their homes in what Foreign Policy magazine called “one of the starkest examples of forced displacement in the 21st century.” This was about four weeks before the conflagration in Gaza, and follows on the heels of Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine, which has stalled in the bloodiest stalemated conflict in Europe since the Second World War.

Late last week, in a desperate bid to forge a peace deal, Armenia — hopelessly overmatched militarily against Azerbaijan — withdrew its own bid to host CoP29 and agreed to support its tormentor. Money talks. The reality is that few countries in Eastern Europe are able to stump up the finances and facilities needed to host such a large conference, and Russia’s threatened veto against EU countries ruled out benign candidates like the democratic republic of Slovenia — it’s governed by a democratically elected prime minister as the head of government and a democratically elected president as head of state!

Never mind that, by most accounts, Slovenia — a mostly mountainous and forested country bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and the Adriatic Sea to the southwest — would have made an ideal host for a global climate conference.

What the hell had this got to do with the climate crisis, you might well ask. Welcome to realpolitik in the 21st century.

“Choosing Azerbaijan as a host will do little to quell protests from climate (campaigners) that (global climate conferences) have been … captured by fossil fuel interests,” The Guardian reported Saturday. “Much like this year’s host, the country of 10 million people on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia relies heavily on digging up fuels that heat the planet when burned.

“Oil and gas production accounted for nearly half of the country’s GDP and over 92.5% of its export revenue last year, according to the US government’s International Trade Administration.”

Alrighty then!

Business as usual, in other words.

”Down” or “Out”

December 08, 2023

Wording is a key battleground at the CoP28 climate conference in Dubai, with stakeholders digging in over whether fossil fuels be dialed down or phased out completely. It was ever thus.

Word soup is the order of the day midway through the climate-change summit in the UAE, as stakeholders appear divided between those who want to limit fossil-fuel cuts to “unabated” oil and gas and those who want to include all fossil fuels in any agreement, whether they’re abated, unabated or both.

Other disputes are developing over whether to tie the growth of renewable energy to any proposed deal, digging in over whether any changes in policy be implemented “gradually” or “rapidly” over a specified period of time, be it “this decade,” “next decade,” “mid-century” (2050) or “by the end of the century.” Or not at all. “It won’t affect us personally or directly — let someone else deal with it.”

“Unabated” refers to the burning of fossil fuels where carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions are released directly into the atmosphere, which exacerbates global heating, which most delegates — though not all — now admit is a genuine crisis.

“Abated,” on the other hand, means — well, no one appears quite sure what it means. Loosely defined, “abated” refers to the burning of coal, oil and gas coupled with the capture and storage, permanent or semi-permanent, of the resulting greenhouse gases. “Carbon capture,” in other words.

Bottom line: There is no agreed-on definition of what “abated” really means. It’s just something to argue about. And if climate conferences have proved one thing in recent times, it’s that people like to argue.

It doesn’t matter how much carbon dioxide is stored, the optimists say, just so long as some is. Regardless of whether countries agree to “phase down” or “phase out” fossil fuels, the production and use of fossil fuels will “drop dramatically.”

It’s already too late, climate realists say: This is no time for semantics.

Aren’t you glad you asked?

Some facts are unassailable — except, of course, to those who choose to dispute them.

Fossil fuels are the single largest contributor to present-day global heating and are responsible for most of the cumulative historical emissions.

Furthermore, continued expansion of oil and gas development will “lock in” future emissions, according to scientists who have testified before the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Their findings represent a “large consensus” of scientific opinion, according to published reports; further development of oil and gas fields — as has been decided by several countries already — is “incompatible” with keeping temperatures below the 1.5°C threshold agreed to at the 2015 Paris summit.

“Large consensus” or no, the experts are divided — if one looks hard enough.

Dr. Alaa Al Khourdajie, a respected climate scientist and research fellow at Imperial College London, has said these disagreements emphasize the need to be “transparent” and “crystal clear” about what abated fossil fuel really means, in the same way a “clear” and “obvious” error by a match official at a Premier League soccer match be overturned by instant video replay (though, in practice, that hasn’t worked as expected).

So far, it’s about as clear as mud.

“There is a lack of clarity about what counts as unabated and what counts as abated,” Dr. Khourdajie told Carbon Brief, a UK-based website that specializes in the science and policy of climate change. “Largely due to the absence of agreed definitions in the underlying literature at the time of (these) negotiations.”

Again, aren’t you glad you asked?

The CoP28 climate conference concludes this weekend.

”There’s No Science...”

December 04, 2023

The link between fossil fuels and global heating is bogus. Don’t believe it? Just ask the president of the CoP28 global climate conference.

So much for curing it with science. The president of CoP28, Sultan al-Jaber, has claimed that there is “no science” to indicate that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to scale back global heating to 1.5C, the Centre for Climate Reporting revealed over the weekend. As Thomas Dolby once sang, All my tubes and wires / And careful notes / And antiquated notions — all for naught.

Al-Jaber made the comments in response to questions from Mary Robinson, chair of The Elders, at an online event last month. The Elders, founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007, is a consortium of independent global leaders working together for peace, justice and human rights. Robinson, a former UN special envoy for climate change, is the curfrently serving chair of The Elders group.

Al-Jaber is the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates’ state oil company, Adnoc, in addition to his CoP28 hosting duties and responsibilities. To say that his day job may seem a conflict of interest is an understatement, and reaction to his comments — admittedly made two weeks ago — from environmentalists and climate scientists has been, forgive the analogy, fast and furious. Comments range from “incredibly concerning” to “verging on climate denial,” as reported in the Sunday Observer, the weekend edition of The Guardian. And so it goes.

The most discouraging development of CoP28 so far is that, far from being a global conference dedicated to finding common cause in the fight against climate change, it has hardened already entrenched views between those who insist that continued use of fossil fuels — indeed, expansion of fossil-fuel use — is critical to the global economy and those who point out that the economy won’t be of much use to anyone if global climate systems collapse.

The trouble with insisting there is “no science” to support the claim that phasing out fossil fuels will make any substantial difference is not just that it is wrong — actually, there’s plenty of science to suggest the opposite — but that it plays to the narrative that it’s too late, the damage has already been done. The tide is irreversible! Continue to party like it’s 1999 (Prince, not Thomas Dolby). Carry On Doctor.

The facts as they stand: While Earth’s climate has changed throughout its history, the current warming is happening at a rate not seen in the past 10,000 years.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “Since systematic scientific assessments began in the 1970s, the influence of human activity on the warming of the climate system has evolved from theory to established fact.”

The facts as they stand:

While Earth’s climate has changed throughout its history, the current warming is happening at a rate not seen in the past 10,000 years.

Scientific measurements taken from natural sources (such as ice cores, rocks, and tree rings) and from modern equipment (like satellites and instruments) all show the signs of a changing climate.

From global temperature rise to melting ice sheets, the evidence of a warming planet abounds.

These points are taken directly from NASA’s climate project, as reported on NASA.gov. There’s more where that came from.

The United Nations for one. Generating electricity and heat by burning fossil fuels causes a large percentage of carbon emissions worldwide. Most electricity is still generated by burning coal, oil, or gas, which produces carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide – powerful greenhouse gases that blanket the Earth and trap the sun’s heat. Globally, more than a quarter of electricity comes from wind, solar and other renewable sources which, as opposed to fossil fuels, emit little to no greenhouse gases or pollutants into the air (https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change).

Manufacturing and industry produce emissions, mostly from burning fossil fuels to produce energy for making things like cement, iron, steel, electronics, plastics, clothes, and other goods. Mining and other industrial processes also release gases, as does the construction industry. Machines used in the manufacturing process often run on coal, oil, or gas; and some materials, like plastics, are made from chemicals sourced from fossil fuels. The manufacturing industry is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

And so on.

As one conference delegate told the Observer over the weekend: “CoP28 must deliver a decision on phasing out fossil fuels in a just and equitable manner, without any loopholes or escape routes for the industry to continue expanding and exacerbating the climate crisis.”

Good luck with that.

Yes, But Is That Hot Dog Halal?

December 03, 2023

Judging from early media reports, the CoP 28 climate conference in Dubai is as much about optics as substance. Now about that $6 cup of coffee…

If you’re like me and your visual cortex has been conditioned over time to react to an image in real-time before reading the caption, you could be forgiven for thinking the picture above has something to do with Unilever.

Since the photo accompanies a story about the CoP28 climate conference underway in Dubai, you can be forgiven for thinking that Unilever, the world’s largest producer of soap that distributes a wide range of consumer products to more than 190 countries, has run afoul of moral and ethical guidelines that govern locally sourced, enviro-friendly consumer goods.

But no, it has nothing to do with that.

Rather, it’s a speech by Bank of America’s CEO during a reception this past week at the annual UN climate conference.

This year, the conference is being staged in a gleaming city of glass towers on the edge of the vast Arabian sand sea.

Yes, it has been hot there — 30°C, or 86°F — but do keep in mind that November to April is reportedly the best time to visit Dubai, “during the winter months.”

Irony is never in short supply at these get-togethers, and so far, just 72 hours in, CoP28 has not disappointed.

Staging a global climate conference in an oil kingdom during a time of unprecedented temperature rises — and melting ice caps — is one thing, but news reports fixating on where to go and what to eat in Dubai during a global climate conference linking 70,000 delegates take the frisson to a whole new level.

Media communication in our modern-day wired world is all about optics, after all.

Style is everything, and substance just has to take its chances. Irony — loosely defined as language that says one thing but means the opposite — abounds.

And so we have news stories about $6 coffees (£4.75) — more expensive than New York! — and reports of delegates packing boxed lunches and Thermoses to beat the cost of doing business in one of the priciest cities on the planet.

After all, it’s hard to grow coffee in the Empty Quarter, the largest continuous body of sand in the world, where temperatures can climb as high as 52°C (125.6°F) on a warm summer’s day.

Scouring the area for locally sourced food can only go so far in the middle of a sand sea.

Green-minded delegates insist on vegan, eco-friendly food — CoP24 in Poland was roundly criticized for being a sausage fest, literally — but as the Guardian reported this past week, carnivores aren’t being left out entirely in Dubai. The chicken sausage rolls are said to be halal, too; local customs have to count for something.

Then there are the news stories about eco-fashions on display. Delegates, diplomats and climate campaigners from more than 180 countries — almost as many as Unilever distributes to — reputedly sport everything from Amazonian headdresses and West African wax prints to Pacific island floral garlands and Mayan huipils.

Then there is the ever-present presence of the fossil fuel industry — fitting for a climate conference in a petrostate with one of the world’s largest sand seas on one side and the Persian Gulf on the other. As Guardian environment editor Damian Carrington reported Thursday, when one delegate opened her hotel room curtains in the morning, she was greeted by the world’s largest gas power-producing facility.

“‘Fitting,’ Carrington reported her as saying, ‘I am going to stare at this through the haze of pollution for two weeks.’”

Heading to the conference centre on the metro — public transportation! — “at least 50 tall industrial smokestacks mark the way,” Carrington noted.

Gas flaring is an added bonus. It’s part of the entertainment.

Some delegates arriving at CoP28, Carrington observed, are more concerned about what’s outside the Expo City conference centre, namely the air quality.

“A haze settled over Dubai on Tuesday and Wednesday,” Carrington reported, “shrouding its vertiginous buildings and bringing air pollution unhealthy to sensitive groups, according to IQAir, an air monitoring service.

“The air quality improved a little on Thursday, the opening day of CoP28, but was still four times worse than guideline levels set by the World Health Organization.”

Now that’s irony for you.

Where de Money?

December 01, 2023

World leaders at the CoP28 climate summit in Dubai have agreed in principle to a global fund to help struggling countries deal with the effects of climate change. But what does that mean in real terms?

In Start the Revolution Without Me, Bud Yorkin’s 1970 parody of Alexander Dumas’ historical classic The Corsican Brothers, Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland play identical twins who are accidentally switched at birth on the eve of the French Revolution.

One set of twins is born to a family of peasants, the other to aristocrats.

They grow up in different worlds, one hard-scrabble and beset by poverty, the other a world of sophistication and plenty.

Sutherland grows up to become the haughty, sophisticated Pierre DeSisi and the somewhat more intellectually challenged Charles Coupé; Wilder grows up to become the haughty, aristocratic Phillipe DeSisi and the excitable, rough-around-the-edges Claude Coupé.

When the revolution comes to a head — sorry — both sets of twins find themselves mistaken again, but this time as adults. A running gag involves the dastardly Versailles villain Count du Monet, who Claude calls “Count de Money!” as an exasperated Pierre tries to correct his pronunciation with the more cultured — and accurate — “Du Moan-ay, Du Moan-ay.”

One of the criticisms of the annual United Nations CoP climate talks over the years is that they’ve been full of financial promises from Western nations to the developing countries, that part of the world most affected by climate breakdown caused by carbon emissions from the excessive burning of fossil fuels, without actually producing the money.

That looked to change earlier this week at CoP28 when world leaders at the UN climate summit in Dubai approved a disaster fund to help low-lying tropical island states and coastal regions vulnerable to flooding from rapidly rising sea levels.

Conference president Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, whose day job is the UAE’s Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology — he heads the UAE’s national oil company and has control of his country’s vast oil reserves — says world leaders need to “proactively engage” fossil fuel companies as a keystone part of any solution to climate challenges.

This matters because, like it or not, oil companies are where the money is. Al-Jaber described the agreement as a “positive signal of momentum” in his address at Thursday’s opening ceremony, but not everyone is convinced.

The UN climate chief, Simon Stiell, took a more cautious position, noting that there must be a terminal decline to the fossil fuel era if the world is to stop “our own terminal decline.”

In a speech earlier this year at the United Nations Security Council’s first-ever meeting on the threat to international peace and security from rising sea levels, UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared that sea levels will rise significantly even if global warming is “miraculously” limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the elusive international goal. Guterres warned the Earth is more likely on a path to warming that amounts to “a death sentence” for countries vulnerable to that rise, including many small island nations.

Guterres added that the threat is not just limited to low-lying island states in the tropics: some of the world’s largest cities are also likely to be affected. “mega-cities on every continent … including Cairo, Lagos, Maputo, Bangkok, Dhaka, Jakarta, Mumbai, Shanghai, Copenhagen, London, Los Angeles, New York, Buenos Aires and Santiago.”

More than 70,000 delegates are attending the CoP28 climate talks, among them world leaders of France, Japan, the UK and Brazil, as well as activists, lobbyists and prominent public figures such as Bill Gates and King Charles III.

The leaders of the world’s largest emitters of carbon emissions, the US and China, have elected not to attend, however.

So far, nations at CoP28 have formally approved the implementation of a “loss and damage” fund to compensate “climate-vulnerable” countries — this, after months of hard-fought negotiations over how the fund will work. The UAE sees itself as a bridge between the rich developed nations most responsible for historic emissions and the rest of the world, which has contributed less to global warming but suffers its worst consequences.

While talk of a climate fund is encouraging, island states most likely to be affected in the short term — Tuvalu and Vanuatu, to name just two — risk being completely submerged by rising sea levels water by the end of the century. Tuvalu and Vanuatu, together with the Maldives, Kiribati, the Bahamas, Antigua, Palau, Barbuda and St. Lucia, tona me just a few, can be forgiven for asking, Where de money?