Mark Twain said that if you don’t read the papers, you are uninformed, and if you do, you are misinformed but nothing could prepare us for the post truth world we are living in now.
As I look out of my window, the depth and silence of winter is remarkable – it’s minus ten Celsius and if I were Chicken Little, I would be well assured that global warming is a myth and that the sky will not be falling any time soon. Snow is thick on the ground and Christmas is just around the corner – how delightful. Soon we will be sitting around a table stuffed with festive food and l will be thinking increasingly warm thoughts, (above 1.5 degrees at least), about the new year shortly to transition away from 2023.
Wishful thinking aside, we should all be able to recognize the sign that something is wrong with this picture. I’m no harbinger of doom but rather a humble observer who writes about the little inconsistencies. The fact is that everybody dies one way or the another, but from what I see, the writing is not only ultimately on the wall for us as a species, but first in the words that we choose to write about it.
I am talking specifically about the Cop28, hosted by the UAE – the same group of countries bloated by the extreme wealth that fossil fuels have brought them. These gracious hosts brought concerned world leaders around large banquet tables to talk virtuously about the climate crisis while hammering out deals behind closed doors to enrich themselves on the opportunities evolving from the unbridled exploitation of fossil fuels in the first place.
This was a header quote from the official webpages at the conclusion of the 28th meeting in UAE – note the language specifically:
“With an unprecedented reference to transitioning away from all fossil fuels, The UAE Consensus is delivering a paradigm shift that has the potential to redefine our economies,” the summit’s UAE presidency said on social media.”
In the bullshit bingo stakes, this really takes the biscuit. Let’s get into it. ‘An unprecedented reference to transitioning away from all fossil fuels’ Ok…this is the point in the Hans Andersson story, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ where the small child shouts out that the emperor has no clothes. If no ‘unprecedented’ references were made to ‘transition away from all fossil fuels’ in the last 27 meetings, what on earth were they all talking about all that time? Then of course, the euphemistic ‘transition away from’ – how does that strike you? I intend to transition away from drinking alcohol – I know it’s bad for my health but let’s have that discussion in another ten years, OK?
Then of course, if you have any connection to corporate communications, the ‘paradigm shift’ is common parlance for big things ahead but it’s probably so abstract, you will miss it. The only real honesty in the statement is at the end where they offer the potential (but not the reality) to redefine our economies – that presumably being the UAE economies predicated on the vulgar wealth earned through oil making lucrative deals with pie in the sky carbon capture service providers to trap all the hot air flowing out of the next Cop-outs 29 ad nauseum.
You couldn’t make it up – but that’s the point, instead of making real commitments to change and a possible future where the biosphere doesn’t collapse, they’ve put lawyers and PR people to spin euphemisms to comfort and bemuse a bewildered but increasingly disengaged public.
The latest quasi-scientific bullshit term is decarbonization but why don’t they just say to stop burning oil and gas? It sounds like someone taking the turkey out of the oven before it’s too late. Carbon capture is also a ridiculous euphemism, not because it isn’t a technological attempt to solve a crisis, but simply for the fact that using machines to do so would require another bullshit bingo term ‘hyperscaling’. What that means effectively is ramping up into WW2 levels of manufacturing to bring down CO2, which we should all know is unfeasible given the timeframe we are living in.
Planting forests and stopping the cutting of existing ones would be a better option – the original and best carbon capture.
Some parties with the eye on the money will undoubtedly make a tidy profit trying to sell a technological solution though, much in the same manner as all those who sold dodgy PPE equipment to governments for vastly inflated profits.
Come the crisis, come the grifters and snake oil salesmen.
As a person who earns his living through writing, I feel deep shame for my colleagues out there who have taken their ill-gotten shekels in the service of misinformation and sophistry.
The United Nations under the auspice of which, COP has been created has shown in all its glory the futile path to hell that good intentions will lead you to. They have no power to stop wars (never again, but never say never) and they have very little power to address the climate elephant in the room either, instead pandering to the rich and powerful.
If you want to understand where we are going, I will leave you with a vision of all future cop-outs in all its multi-stakeholder led glory, not one of positive action but rather a better version of the meeting itself where real-world impact is possible, but highly improbable:
Sabrin Rahman (Director, Partnerships, COP28) explained: “Collectively, we had the opportunity to create the blueprint of what we feel should represent a COP of the future, an innovative, multi-stakeholder-led process that really makes real-world impact.”
