Something very predictable is happening with the COP summits. COP stands for “Conference of the Parties”. We are at the 29th (COP29). They are the product of a treaty under the auspices of the UN between many countries which obliges their leaders and team members to attend annually at an agreed location to enter into negotiations to set out plans to curb climate change going forward.
These summits started in 1995 believe it or not (not a lot of progress – talk and no walk). I think anybody who’s been observing them would agree that they’ve been unsuccessful. More a very expensive and polluting junket.
Perhaps worse than unsuccessful because in attending them there is always a spike in global warming gases being emitted into the atmosphere because of the large number of private jets coming into the country hosting the summit. They contribute to global warming 😢. And they hardly present a good example to the rest of the world to do their best to curb global warming.
That’s one of the farcical natures of the COP summits. To add some details to that I can refer to the current one in Baku in Azerbaijan. It is a country rich in oil and gas. The leader of that country, President Aliyev, is a climate change sceptic and is the last person on the planet to agree to take steps to stop burning oil because his country needs to sell the stuff.
The country is wedged between Russia and Iran and has been ruled by the family of President Aliyev for more than 30 years (de facto dictatorship perhaps). Baku the capital city of Azerbaijan was chosen to host the COP29 talks this year because Moscow used its right of veto to prevent countries opposed to its invasion of Ukraine from staging the event. You can see, therefore, how the COP summits are corrupted already by the presence of Russia.
Azerbaijan is a corrupt country as well which reportedly jails dissenters of which more than 300 are currently held as political prisoners. It’s reported that President Aliyev told COP29 that Azerbaijan’s extensive reserves of oil and gas were ‘a gift of God’.
The country earns tens of billions of dollars from oil and gas sales annually including to EU countries. Azerbaijan plans to increase oil and gas production by one third over the next decade. The exact opposite of what is desired to curb global warming. Why the heck is this country hosting the event?! Ah, I forgot, Putin wanted it. The man who is poisoning the world.
And for many years it is also reported that the country has been destroying forests and polluting the Caspian Sea.
The staging of COP29 in Baku is being used to the advantage of its president to green wash the country’s image. The man doesn’t believe in climate change as mentioned. It is somewhat of a farce more so because the number of arrivals at this conference is considerably lower than last year’s and I believe previous years after many government heads shunned the event including those of the 13 biggest emitters of carbon dioxide among them China’s Xi Jinping, Joe Biden, the outgoing US President and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Although 67,000 people had registered to attend the event! They are all going to talk about climate change, or are they?
Last year’s conference was, it seems, a meeting place to do oil deals. That was the accusation made against the chief executive of the conference. You can see why it happens. You have a huge conglomeration of leaders and ministers attending the conference and they are all involved in oil and gas production in some sort or other. It is an opportunity to do deals concerning oil and gas but not do deals to curb climate change.
There seem to be an extraordinary number of jets travelling to COP 29. It’s reported that the number of arrivals by private jet at COP29 “puts front and center the hypocrisy of using a private jet while claiming to be fighting climate change. An executive taking the long-haul private flight will burn more carbon dioxide than several normal people do in an entire year.”
The quote comes from Denise Auclair of the Travel Smart Campaign. They aim to reduce corporate travel. Private jets are 5 to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes per passenger and 50 times more polluting than trains according to her as well.
You can begin to see the absurdity of these summits. The latest one has a reduction in the number of leaders attending perhaps because they see the farce of the situation and the fact that it is not producing results. If leaders are not interested in meeting to discuss climate change then there is little chance of it being curbed. It appears that many leaders have lost hope with the COP process.
Donald Trump also doesn’t believe in climate change. What percentage of leaders do? He regards it as a hoax and the President of Argentina, Javier Milie, walked out of COP29 and ordered Argentian officials to withdraw on Wednesday. At the time of the report there were no specific reasons given for this withdrawal but it is known that he spoke with Donald Trump shortly before he walked out of the conference taking his staff with him.
I think we can agree that the COP process is disintegrating before our eyes. This is indicative of a lack of commitment to the process which has been mounting in intensity over recent years. In Paris (COP21 – 2015) there was hope that they could make progress but sadly not.
The world is becoming more autocratic. Donald Trump is somewhat like a dictator working within a democracy. He will severely damage the US’s reputation as a country doing their bit to curb climate change. He wants to increase oil and gas production in America and make it more dominant than Saudi Arabia in that marketplace. He has no intention in any way to tackle climate change. With the world’s leading economy taking that stance, what chance of progress in curbing global warming gas emissions?
My personal strong feeling is that the COP process is coming to an end. It’s nearly dead as it is and it wouldn’t surprise me if it fizzles out almost entirely over the next five years. Something new and more productive needs to replace it.
Why does there have to be a physical presence? The polluting private jet flights could be removed and the meeting held virtually over the internet. But wait! That’s not what they leaders want. The want the junket. COP has become a playground for leaders.
More: climate change
The COP is the supreme decision-making body of the Convention. All States that are Parties to the Convention are represented at the COP, at which they review the implementation of the Convention and any other legal instruments that the COP adopts and take decisions necessary to promote the effective implementation of the Convention, including institutional and administrative arrangements. – from the UN website.
