ARTICLE ON COP 28'S PRESIDENCY

 

They must think we’re stupid (COP 28 PRESIDENCY)

Editor.  mronline.org (7-15-23).     (sEE OMNI  https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2023/11/omni-reporting-2023-united-nations.html  

The fox is in charge of the chook house. Dracula is guarding the blood bank. And the CEO of one of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world will preside over the big United Nations climate conference at the end of this year. 

KENNY STANCIL.    “130+ US and EU Lawmakers Demand Removal of Oil Executive From COP28 Presidency.”  Common Dreams (5-23-23). 

"Big Oil interests have contaminated our climate for decades," said Democratic U.S. Sen. Ed Markey. "They shouldn't be able to control our climate negotiations for a livable future."

The ongoing campaign to oust Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber from his role as president-designate of COP28 picked up steam Tuesday when more than 130 lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic published a letter calling for the oil boss to be replaced as chair of the annual United Nations climate summit, set to take place this fall in the United Arab Emirates.

The host nation's move "to name as president of COP28 the chief executive of one of the world's largest oil and gas companies—a company that has recently announced plans to add 7.6 billion barrels of oil to its production in the coming years, representing the fifth largest increase in the world—risks undermining the negotiations," says the letter signed by 133 members of the United States Congress and the European Parliament.

"For billions of people, the outcome of COP28 and ensuing international climate negotiations will make the difference between life and death, chaos and solidarity."

"Different leadership is necessary to help ensure that COP28 is a serious and productive climate summit," the transatlantic group of policymakers told U.S. President Joe Biden, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, and Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Notably, Biden's top climate diplomat, John Kerry, has faced criticism for celebrating al-Jaber's selection. More than two dozen progressive members of Congress have pushed Kerry to advocate for the designation of a new COP28 president who doesn't have ties to the industry most responsible for fueling the climate emergency.

In addition to urging the four addressees of the new letter to "engage in diplomatic efforts" to pressure the UAE to withdraw its appointment of al-Jaber—head of the country's Abu Dhabi National Oil Company—as president-designate of COP28, signatories implored the executive leaders of the U.S. and the European Union as well as UNFCCC leadership to "take immediate steps to limit the influence of polluting industries, particularly major fossil fuel industry players whose business strategies lie at clear odds with the central goals of the Paris agreement," at all U.N. climate talks.

"Current rules," the lawmakers wrote, "permit private sector polluters to exert undue influence on UNFCCC processes." They continued:

We request that you institute new policies for corporate participation at COPs and UNFCCC processes more broadly, including requiring participating companies to submit an audited corporate political influencing statement that discloses climate-related lobbying, campaign contributions, and funding of trade associations and organizations active on energy and climate issues. These statements should be reviewed, publicly disclosed, and scrutinized prior to any engagement in UNFCCC climate policymaking processes.

The UNFCCC should also consider additional measures to establish a robust accountability framework to protect against undue influence of corporate actors with proven vested interests that contradict the goals of the Paris Agreement; such a framework was proposed last year with broad-based international support from over 450 organizations around the world and five UNFCCC constituencies representing thousands of organizations and millions of people. These reforms would bring much-needed transparency to corporate climate-related political influencing activities around the world, and would help restore public faith that the COP process is not being abused by companies as an opportunity to greenwash.

The demand to crack down on corporations' open corruption of international climate meetings comes as government representatives prepare to gather in Germany next month for the U.N.'s Bonn Climate Change Conference—a crucial precursor to COP28, which is scheduled to begin in late November in Dubai.

"It is essential that we seize the opportunity to take actionable steps to address and protect climate policy from polluting interference by adopting concrete rules that limit the influence of the fossil fuel industry and its lobbyists in the UNFCCC decision-making process," says the letter. It was endorsed by Kick Big Polluters Out, a global network of more than 450 organizations led by Corporate Accountability and Corporate Europe Observatory, which made a similar appeal to Guterres in January.

"Big Oil interests have contaminated our climate for decades—they shouldn't be able to control our climate negotiations for a livable future," U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement. "As leaders from around the world come together to envision a world that promotes clean energy and climate justice, not pollution and profiteering, we must shut the door on the fossil fuel industry and keep COP28 free from their influence." Markey was one of six Senate Democrats to sign the letter. He was joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), 27 House Democrats, and 99 European MPs.

The ongoing failure to confront the fossil fuel industry and other highly polluting sectors has yielded life-threatening results so far, as the lawmakers explained in their letter:

Last year, many of us attended or followed COP27 in Sharm-al-Sheikh, Egypt. While we applaud the United Nations for bringing tens of thousands of delegates together, leading to a historic agreement that will help developing countries deal with losses and damages from the impacts of climate change, the conference ultimately failed to secure consensus from Parties to cut greenhouse gases in line with the agreed global goals.

It did not escape our attention that at least 636 lobbyists from the oil and gas industries registered to attend last year's COP—an increase of more than 25% over the previous year. When the number of attendees representing polluting corporate actors, which have a vested financial interest in maintaining the status quo, is larger than the delegations of nearly every country in attendance, it is easy to see how their presence could obstruct climate action.

There is no time to waste in sharply cutting carbon pollution on a global scale. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report states that, to limit warming to 1.5 °C, global emissions must halve by 2030. The planet has already warmed over 1.2°C, and our ability to reach the 1.5 °C goal is moving fast out of reach, with the IPCC pegging the current probability at just 38%. Maintaining the status quo would lead to a catastrophic 2.8°C temperature rise by the end of the century.

"In this moment of great urgency, we must unblock the barriers that have kept us from advancing strong global collaboration to address climate change," the lawmakers wrote. "One of the largest barriers to strong climate action has been and remains the political influence and obstruction of the fossil fuel industry and other major polluting industries. We have seen their negative influence in our home institutions; oil companies and their industry cheerleaders have spent billions of dollars lobbying both the European Parliament, other European institutions and member states, and the U.S. Congress in order to obstruct or water down climate policy for years."

"Since at least the 1960s, the fossil fuel industry has known about the dangers of climate change posed by its products and, rather than supporting a transition to a clean energy future, has instead chosen to promote climate denial and spend millions of dollars to spread disinformation," they continued. "Over a half-century later, not one of 39 major global oil and gas companies, with collective market capitalization of $3.7 trillion, has adopted a business strategy that would limit warming to safe levels. Several independent analyses agree that the sector is still not taking meaningful action to avoid the worst impacts of the crisis."

"The fossil industry must give way if there is to be any chance of survival for humanity and this planet."

"Even more outrageous, the global oil and gas industry is expanding amid blockbuster profits to the tune of $4 trillion last year," they added. "The sector has poured $160 billion into exploration for new fossil reserves since 2020, even as the IEA has stated that no new fossil fuel projects are compatible with limiting warming to 1.5°C. In short, in the words of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, 'We seem trapped in a world where fossil fuel producers and financiers have humanity by the throat.' It is time to alter this dangerous course."

E.U. lawmaker Manon Aubrey, who co-organized the letter alongside her U.S. counterpart, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), said that "for billions of people, the outcome of COP28 and ensuing international climate negotiations will make the difference between life and death, chaos and solidarity."

"Corporate greed and lobbyists' lies have led us into this climate crisis," said Aubrey. "We must prevent private commercial interests from interfering in politics and regain ownership of our future."

Aubrey's colleague, Michael Bloss, likewise stressed that "to make progress on climate protection, we need to limit the power of the fossil lobby."

"Instead of letting the fox guard the henhouse, the fossil lobby must be expelled from the conference," said Bloss. "Oil states and fossil industries have always prevented anything that could mean an end to coal, oil, and gas, and put the brakes on global climate protection for destructive profits. The fossil industry must give way if there is to be any chance of survival for humanity and this planet."

Pascoe Sabido, co-coordinator for Kick Big Polluters Out, said that "these upcoming U.N. climate talks are our best chance at tackling the problem head-on, with hundreds of decision-makers on both sides of the Atlantic and both sides of the aisle backing our call for a conflict-of-interest policy."

"So far, the U.S. and E.U. have proven to be major blockers, siding with the fossil fuel industry," Sabido added. "If they want to walk the talk of being a climate leader, it's time to switch sides and back a policy not just at the U.N. but also at home."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

KENNY STANCIL

Kenny Stancil is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #155, NOVEMBER 27, 2023

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #155, NOVEMBER 27, 2023  Compiled by Dick Bennett.

Continued: What’s stopping USA from reversing rising temperature, or at least from slowing it down?

People who whitewash and delay consensus and public education of the UN IPCC Reports by recommending additional study of the Assessments.     Example: Steven Koonin.  Unsettled? What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters.  BenBella, 2021.  IPCC Assessments report the conclusions of thousands of scientists in peer reviewed publications; these conclusions are then reviewed by governments and corporations, which can alter the Assessment reports in “Summaries.”   Koonin admits that “the IPCC’s ‘Summaries for Policymakers’ are heavily influenced, if not written, by governments that have interests in promoting particular policies” (200); still, he argues, since  the science is not always entirely settled in the Assessments, additional reviews of IPCC reports should be made.  

 But the Koonins are being overcome by the dependability of the IPCC Assessments themselves and by the world’s vision demanding a habitable and just world.  We know that climate change is happening, we know why, and we know how to reduce or stop it. 

How to reduce or stop warming.  The following essays critical of fossil fuels appeared in one number of The Progressive (July-August 2014). 
Bill McKibben.  “Why Universities Will Divest.”    
Graham Provost.  “Our Surprise Victory at Stanford.”  Divesting from coal.
Nick Surgey.  “How ALEC Fronts for Fossil Fuels.”  Exposes the secret organization  that promotes C02 in state legislatures. 
David Helvarg, “A City [Richmond] Beats Back Chevron.”
Also in this no. of The Progressive thrive many critiques of the Koch brothers: Lisa Graves. “The Koch Cartel”;  Jim Hightower, “Populists Crash the Koch Lobby”; and five other articles denounce them briefly. 

A humanist vision of a world to be achieved strong enough to stop rising temperatures and build a new society is being embraced by more and more people.   Here is one of many books reporting that hope.
Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams.  Creating an Ecological Society: Toward Revolutionary Transformation.   Their conclusion: “The struggle is really about the need to change the balance of forces, to educate others and ourselves about what is needed and what is possible.  The ultimate goal is to replace the system of capital [based on class, inequality, racism, sexism, war, competition, and greed] with an economic-political-social system designed for the purpose of enabling all people to reach their full human potential in ways that respect and preserve a healthy stable biosphere.”   Part One, the present dominant economics has created a planetary emergency.  Part Two, an ecological society is possible.  Part Three, learning from Nature,  Part Four, a new—ecological-- society, examples.

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #155, NOVEMBER 27, 2023

 

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #155, NOVEMBER 27, 2023

What’s stopping USA from reversing rising temperature, or at least from slowing it down?  (A frequent subject in CMM.)

Fossil Fuel Industry
Politics of War, “Cold” and Hot.
Religion: US Evangelicals.
Overpopulation and still growing.

What should each of us do to become an insurgency?

 

Fossil Fuel Industry
Jeremy Brecher.  Against Doom: A Climate Insurgency Manual. 
“…lays out key elements of a far-reaching global-scaled, pragmatic, people-powered strategy to topple the power of the fossil fuel industry and the institutions behind it.”  David Solnit.

Politics of National Rivalry, Russophobia, War.
Loveday Morris and Vanessa Guinan-Bank.  “Germany Seeing Return to Coal.”  Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (8-7-22).    [ It’s politics]:  “It’s part of a pan-European dash to ditch Russian natural gas and escape President Vladimir Putin’s energy chokehold.”  [And the Ukraine War energy pressure.]  “. . .the coal revival may[?] make it harder for the country to meet its climate goals.”

 

Religious Fundamentalism.

Brooke Staggs. “Many U.S. evangelicals still denying climate change.” (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette), Nov 25, 2023.   Many U.S. evangelicals still denying climate change.  Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Nov 25, 2023).   Read more...

 

Overpopulation
Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley.  Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet.  Cato Institute, 2022.  Rev. Free Inquiry (April-May 2023) by S. Keyron McDermott, “Infinity War: Lies, Damned Lies, and ‘Superabundance.”  The rev. concludes:   “In stark contrast to this lushly produced and beautifully bound volume. . . are the glaring realities the book doesn’t address.  . . .The once respectable Cato Institute seems to have shot itself in the foot with Superabundance.   As to that holiest of all abundance essentials, population, the mind boggles.  In mid-November 2022, the eight billionth living human was born.  By most measures, Planet Earth is well past its carrying capacity.”

OMNI REPORTING THE 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference

 

OMNI

REPORTING THE 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference

Thu, Nov 30, 2023 - Tue, Dec 12, 2023

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology  11-26-23

[I sifted this link to eliminate repetitions and what seemed unimportant., and  I brought a dozen items up front.  It’s a weak collection.  You will see how little critical commentary is available, and the Conference only days away.  Send me what you find.  The People around the world must be critically informed in order to intervene for Our Good.   The 28th Conference and still the temperature is rising.   We must do the impossible--to be here and in Dubai simultaneously!   You can bet your fast approaching bottom dollar everyone who can make a profit from the Conference or their representative will be there.  -Dick]

RELATED REPORTS, CONTEXTS

TEMPERATURE RISING

SCOTT DANCE.  Past year classified as modern era’s hottest.  Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.  Nov 10, 2023.    Past 12 months hottest.     Read more... 

 United Nations Climate Change conference

The 28th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 28) is a United Nations Climate Change conference¹². It will be held in the United Arab Emirates at Dubai Expo City from November 30 to December 12, 2023³¹². The thirteen-day long programme will begin on Thursday and conclude on Tuesday³.

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HE Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber

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They must think we’re stupid

Editor.  mronline.org (7-15-23).

The fox is in charge of the chook house. Dracula is guarding the blood bank. And the CEO of one of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world will preside over the big United Nations climate conference at the end of this year. 

KENNY STANCIL.    “130+ US and EU Lawmakers Demand Removal of Oil Executive From COP28 Presidency.”  Common Dreams (5-23-23). 

"Big Oil interests have contaminated our climate for decades," said Democratic U.S. Sen. Ed Markey. "They shouldn't be able to control our climate negotiations for a livable future."

The ongoing campaign to oust Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber from his role as president-designate of COP28 picked up steam Tuesday when more than 130 lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic published a letter calling for the oil boss to be replaced as chair of the annual United Nations climate summit, set to take place this fall in the United Arab Emirates.

The host nation's move "to name as president of COP28 the chief executive of one of the world's largest oil and gas companies—a company that has recently announced plans to add 7.6 billion barrels of oil to its production in the coming years, representing the fifth largest increase in the world—risks undermining the negotiations," says the letter signed by 133 members of the United States Congress and the European Parliament.

"For billions of people, the outcome of COP28 and ensuing international climate negotiations will make the difference between life and death, chaos and solidarity."

"Different leadership is necessary to help ensure that COP28 is a serious and productive climate summit," the transatlantic group of policymakers told U.S. President Joe Biden, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, and Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Notably, Biden's top climate diplomat, John Kerry, has faced criticism for celebrating al-Jaber's selection. More than two dozen progressive members of Congress have pushed Kerry to advocate for the designation of a new COP28 president who doesn't have ties to the industry most responsible for fueling the climate emergency.

In addition to urging the four addressees of the new letter to "engage in diplomatic efforts" to pressure the UAE to withdraw its appointment of al-Jaber—head of the country's Abu Dhabi National Oil Company—as president-designate of COP28, signatories implored the executive leaders of the U.S. and the European Union as well as UNFCCC leadership to "take immediate steps to limit the influence of polluting industries, particularly major fossil fuel industry players whose business strategies lie at clear odds with the central goals of the Paris agreement," at all U.N. climate talks.

"Current rules," the lawmakers wrote, "permit private sector polluters to exert undue influence on UNFCCC processes." They continued:

We request that you institute new policies for corporate participation at COPs and UNFCCC processes more broadly, including requiring participating companies to submit an audited corporate political influencing statement that discloses climate-related lobbying, campaign contributions, and funding of trade associations and organizations active on energy and climate issues. These statements should be reviewed, publicly disclosed, and scrutinized prior to any engagement in UNFCCC climate policymaking processes.

The UNFCCC should also consider additional measures to establish a robust accountability framework to protect against undue influence of corporate actors with proven vested interests that contradict the goals of the Paris Agreement; such a framework was proposed last year with broad-based international support from over 450 organizations around the world and five UNFCCC constituencies representing thousands of organizations and millions of people. These reforms would bring much-needed transparency to corporate climate-related political influencing activities around the world, and would help restore public faith that the COP process is not being abused by companies as an opportunity to greenwash.

The demand to crack down on corporations' open corruption of international climate meetings comes as government representatives prepare to gather in Germany next month for the U.N.'s Bonn Climate Change Conference—a crucial precursor to COP28, which is scheduled to begin in late November in Dubai.

"It is essential that we seize the opportunity to take actionable steps to address and protect climate policy from polluting interference by adopting concrete rules that limit the influence of the fossil fuel industry and its lobbyists in the UNFCCC decision-making process," says the letter. It was endorsed by Kick Big Polluters Out, a global network of more than 450 organizations led by Corporate Accountability and Corporate Europe Observatory, which made a similar appeal to Guterres in January.

"Big Oil interests have contaminated our climate for decades—they shouldn't be able to control our climate negotiations for a livable future," U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement. "As leaders from around the world come together to envision a world that promotes clean energy and climate justice, not pollution and profiteering, we must shut the door on the fossil fuel industry and keep COP28 free from their influence." Markey was one of six Senate Democrats to sign the letter. He was joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), 27 House Democrats, and 99 European MPs.

The ongoing failure to confront the fossil fuel industry and other highly polluting sectors has yielded life-threatening results so far, as the lawmakers explained in their letter:

Last year, many of us attended or followed COP27 in Sharm-al-Sheikh, Egypt. While we applaud the United Nations for bringing tens of thousands of delegates together, leading to a historic agreement that will help developing countries deal with losses and damages from the impacts of climate change, the conference ultimately failed to secure consensus from Parties to cut greenhouse gases in line with the agreed global goals.

It did not escape our attention that at least 636 lobbyists from the oil and gas industries registered to attend last year's COP—an increase of more than 25% over the previous year. When the number of attendees representing polluting corporate actors, which have a vested financial interest in maintaining the status quo, is larger than the delegations of nearly every country in attendance, it is easy to see how their presence could obstruct climate action.

There is no time to waste in sharply cutting carbon pollution on a global scale. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report states that, to limit warming to 1.5 °C, global emissions must halve by 2030. The planet has already warmed over 1.2°C, and our ability to reach the 1.5 °C goal is moving fast out of reach, with the IPCC pegging the current probability at just 38%. Maintaining the status quo would lead to a catastrophic 2.8°C temperature rise by the end of the century.

"In this moment of great urgency, we must unblock the barriers that have kept us from advancing strong global collaboration to address climate change," the lawmakers wrote. "One of the largest barriers to strong climate action has been and remains the political influence and obstruction of the fossil fuel industry and other major polluting industries. We have seen their negative influence in our home institutions; oil companies and their industry cheerleaders have spent billions of dollars lobbying both the European Parliament, other European institutions and member states, and the U.S. Congress in order to obstruct or water down climate policy for years."

"Since at least the 1960s, the fossil fuel industry has known about the dangers of climate change posed by its products and, rather than supporting a transition to a clean energy future, has instead chosen to promote climate denial and spend millions of dollars to spread disinformation," they continued. "Over a half-century later, not one of 39 major global oil and gas companies, with collective market capitalization of $3.7 trillion, has adopted a business strategy that would limit warming to safe levels. Several independent analyses agree that the sector is still not taking meaningful action to avoid the worst impacts of the crisis."

"The fossil industry must give way if there is to be any chance of survival for humanity and this planet."

"Even more outrageous, the global oil and gas industry is expanding amid blockbuster profits to the tune of $4 trillion last year," they added. "The sector has poured $160 billion into exploration for new fossil reserves since 2020, even as the IEA has stated that no new fossil fuel projects are compatible with limiting warming to 1.5°C. In short, in the words of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, 'We seem trapped in a world where fossil fuel producers and financiers have humanity by the throat.' It is time to alter this dangerous course."

E.U. lawmaker Manon Aubrey, who co-organized the letter alongside her U.S. counterpart, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), said that "for billions of people, the outcome of COP28 and ensuing international climate negotiations will make the difference between life and death, chaos and solidarity."

"Corporate greed and lobbyists' lies have led us into this climate crisis," said Aubrey. "We must prevent private commercial interests from interfering in politics and regain ownership of our future."

Aubrey's colleague, Michael Bloss, likewise stressed that "to make progress on climate protection, we need to limit the power of the fossil lobby."

"Instead of letting the fox guard the henhouse, the fossil lobby must be expelled from the conference," said Bloss. "Oil states and fossil industries have always prevented anything that could mean an end to coal, oil, and gas, and put the brakes on global climate protection for destructive profits. The fossil industry must give way if there is to be any chance of survival for humanity and this planet."

Pascoe Sabido, co-coordinator for Kick Big Polluters Out, said that "these upcoming U.N. climate talks are our best chance at tackling the problem head-on, with hundreds of decision-makers on both sides of the Atlantic and both sides of the aisle backing our call for a conflict-of-interest policy."

"So far, the U.S. and E.U. have proven to be major blockers, siding with the fossil fuel industry," Sabido added. "If they want to walk the talk of being a climate leader, it's time to switch sides and back a policy not just at the U.N. but also at home."

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KENNY STANCIL

Kenny Stancil is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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