COP28 is a joke, a dangerous joke among unserious politicians not really concerned about an existential threat to a world that will fry after they’re dead. Those politicians should be tried and held accountable now… but we all know that’s not going to happen. Remember in the film The Day After Tomorrow (2004), the villain, a Cheney-based vice president, Raymond Becker, winds up as some kind of post-apocalyptic hero, running the ice-bound “U.S.” out of the American embassy in Mexico City and apologizing on the Weather Channel for the loss of most of the Northern Hemisphere?
Politico reported that “Leading scientists worldwide delivered a striking dose of reality to the United Nations on Sunday: it’s ’becoming inevitable’ that countries will miss the ambitious target they set eight years ago for limiting the warming of the Earth. The ominous estimate points to the growing likelihood that global warming will shoot past 1.5 degrees Celsius before the end of this century, inflicting what scientists describe as an overwhelming toll from intensifying storms, drought and heat on people and the economy. It also injects an urgent message into global climate talks in Dubai, where the debate over ramping down fossil fuels is set to flare over the next two weeks. Surpassing the temperature threshold— even temporarily— would be a major blow to the international Paris climate agreement from 2015, which called for nations to keep global temperatures well within 2 degrees Celsius of their preindustrial levels, and within 1.5 degrees if at all possible. The findings come amid climate talks that for the first time are focused on taking stock of whether almost 200 nations are meeting that goal. Early indications offer a bleak picture.”
Is humanity fated to procrastinate itself into extinction? Putting this off until the last moment isn’t going to work. As a species we tend to value immediate rewards far more than future rewards, meaning that we’re more likely to engage in behaviors that give us immediate gratification, even if they have negative consequences in the long run. “Fill ‘er up!” On top of that our capacity for self-control is limited, causing us to either no make any decisions or make decisions that are contrary to our long-term goals in order to satisfy our immediate desires. In other words, focusing on the present moment and neglect the future. That’s what the reality of COP28, the UAE and Sultan al-Jaber are all about.
Yesterday Al Gore “slammed the UAE— host of the COP28 climate summit— saying its position as overseer of international negotiations on global warming this year was an abuse of public trust. Did someone at some point in the planning stage ever thing it could be anything but that? Giving a backward oil dictatorship this kind of a platform, and making Sultan al-Jaber, head of the UAE's national oil company ADNOC the COP28 presidency, was always a disgrace, something Gore noted in his interview with Reuters.
At a presentation at the COP's main plenary hall before the interview, Gore unveiled data showing that the UAE's greenhouse gas emissions rose by 7.5% in 2022 from the previous year, compared to a 1.5% percent rise in the entire world. That data came from a coalition he co-founded called Climate TRACE, which uses artificial intelligence and satellite data to track carbon emissions of specific companies, Gore said.
…Asked about the first-ever appearance of Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods at a COP conference, Gore said the oil giant's engagement does not brush away its history of resistance to climate policies.
"He should not be taken seriously. He's protecting his profits and placing them in a higher priority than the survival of the human civilization," Gore said.
…Gore urged delegates to agree to language in the final text issued at the summit to phase out fossil fuels, without caveats or mentions of carbon capture technology.
"The current state of the technology for carbon capture and direct air capture is a research project," Gore said. "There's been no cost reduction for 50 years and there is a pretense on the part of the fossil fuel companies that it is a readily available, economically viable technology."
At least it was a good opportunity for sellers of oil, gas and nuclear technology to peddle their wares. Last week Hiroko Tabuchi warned that “behind the scenes, the Emirates has sought to use its position as host to pursue a contradictory goal: to lobby on oil and gas deals around the world, according to an internal document made public by a whistle-blower. In one example, the document offers guidance for Emirati climate officials to use meetings with Brazil’s environment minister to enlist her help with a local petrochemical deal by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, the Emirates’ state-run oil and gas company, known as Adnoc… These and other details in the nearly 50-page document— obtained by the Centre for Climate Reporting and the BBC— have cast a pall over the climate summit, which begins on Thursday. They are indications, experts said, that the U.A.E. is blurring the boundary between its powerful standing as host of the United Nations climate conference, and U.A.E.’s position as one of the world’s largest oil and gas exporters. ‘I can’t believe it,’ António Guterres, the United Nations Secretary General, said at a news conference Monday. The U.A.E. had been ‘caught red-handed,’ Christiana Figueres, a former United Nations diplomat posted on Twitter. Figueres led the negotiations that yielded the 2015 Paris Agreement, the pact among nations of the world to work to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. ‘At this point we might as well meet inside an actual oil refinery,’ said Joseph Moeono-Kolio, lead adviser to the campaign for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, an advocacy network.”
And over the weekend Jenny Gross highlighted the increasing role of nuclear energy is in the mix. She wrote that “The United States and 21 other countries [including the UK, Japan, Canada, Poland, France, Holland, Sweden South Korea…] pledged on Saturday at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050, saying the revival of nuclear power was critical for cutting carbon emissions to near zero in the coming decades… [despite the fact that] The cost of building [small] reactors had risen to $9.3 billion from $5.3 billion because of increasing interest rates and inflation.”
Masayoshi Iyoda, an activist from Japan with 350.org, an international climate action campaign, cited the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in 2011 and said that nuclear power was a dangerous distraction from decarbonization goals. “It is simply too costly, too risky, too undemocratic, and too time-consuming,” he said in a statement.
“We already have cheaper, safer, democratic, and faster solutions to the climate crisis, and they are renewable energy and energy efficiency,” Iyoda said.
All but four of the 31 reactors that have begun construction since 2017 were designed by Russia or China, with China poised to become the leading nuclear power producer by 2030, the International Energy Agency said. This year, Germany shut its last three nuclear plants.
Nuclear capacity rose in the 1980s, particularly in Europe and North America, but dropped sharply over the subsequent years after accidents at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986. New technology and tighter regulations have been put in place since then.
Americans are conflicted about nuclear power, but a growing number favor expansion compared with a few years ago, according to a Pew Research Center study published in August.