Contrasting reactions to COP28

First, let’s take the less-hopeful, but more-sober article COP28 climate summit exposes the dead end of fighting climate change under capitalism by Brian Dyne (WSWS). It writes,

“The end of COP28 was also applauded by John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate. Kerry said of the draft resolution, “While nobody here will see their views completely reflected, the fact is that this document sends a very strong signal to the world.”

“That signal is that capitalist governments can and will do nothing to fight climate change. Any genuine mobilization would cut across their national interests and corporate profits. It is significant that while most other heads of state attended at least part of the conference, US President Joe Biden did not, ostensibly too busy prosecuting war in Ukraine and genocide in Gaza.”

“Current greenhouse gas emissions are putting Earth on track for a 3-degree Celsius warming, twice as much as the current benchmark presented as a “point of no return.” In such a scenario, an estimated one billion people would be forced from their homes a result of sea level rise, on top of the billion now who are currently under threat from dying as a result of starvation, disease and thirst.”

Yes, but none of those billions of people are us. We have arrogated all of the things unto us. Maybe our climate will be less-good than it was, but we don’t really care—because rich people stay indoors, in their apartments in big cities, or in air-conditioned palaces in the nicest parts of the countryside and world. Those places will take decades before they degrade. At that point, we can begin to tackle the climate crisis in earnest because then, you see, it will be important humans who will be affected.

Until then? It’s somebody else’s problem. COP28 might as well have sold T-Shirts that say, “We can’t stop it now, so why bother?” It would only mean that we have to restrict ourselves and it probably wouldn’t even work. So why risk it? Why reduce my personal perceived comfort for an uncertain benefit that doesn’t even accrue only to me? What do I look like, an idiot?

So that’s the exceedingly sarcastic picture I’ve got of attendees of COP28.

Let’s see what else we have.

Oh, here’s something…

The article This Year’s Climate Summit Ended on a Hopeful Note by Bill McKibben (Jacobin) is here to set me straight. The author, made sure to title his piece in a way that lets liberals smugly keep doing what they’re doing, safe in the knowledge that their elected leaders have got a handle on everything. He seems to have made that his job in the last decade or so.[1]

“The world’s nations have now publicly agreed that they need to transition off fossil fuels, and that sentence will hang over every discussion from now on — especially the discussions about any further expansion of fossil fuel energy. There may be barriers to shutting down operations (what the text of the agreement obliquely refers to as “national circumstances, pathways, and approaches.”) But surely, if the language means anything at all, it means no opening more new oil fields, no more new pipelines, and no more new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals.”

Hans Guck in die LuftJFC Bill. Talk about setting yourself up for disappointment. “Surely”, it means all of that. No, it surely doesn’t. There are going to be five times as many LNG terminals in Europe in ten years. The “green wave” is horseshit. And you know where that LNG is going to come from? The U.S., Bill.

Joe Biden has merrily opened up more territory for fossil-fuel exploration than any president before him. Do you know why? Because it’s still wildly profitable. And because he gives less of a fuck what the world thinks than Netanyahu. YOLO.

McKibben goes on to note that there were two other hopeful moments in climate-change history. In 1995, the world finally acknowledged that it existed. Progress! In 2015—20 years later!—came a pledge to do something about it. Eight years later, the third hopeful moment was calling for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly, and equitable manner.” Fifty years after having learned about climate change, with the last two years having seen the highest CO2 emissions of all time, and also being the two greatest increases of all time. But, sure, Bill; go ahead and be “hopeful”.

McKibben ends with,

“[…] today’s agreement is literally meaningless — and potentially meaningful. The diplomats are done now, so the rest of us are going to have to supply that meaning.”

They’re not going to do anything, Bill. There’s not a chance in hell of sticking a landing under 1.5ºC. How can you even suggest that that’s realistic? The system will not allow it. Their greed will not allow it. Their devotion to piracy will not allow it.

They cannot stand to see anyone have something that they do not have. They squabble like chimps. There is no possibility for a way forward with these people in charge, from cultures like this.

The OECD—led by the U.S.—will bury the world. I used to think the planet would be just fine without us, but we’re seemingly determined to take down most other higher-order life on Earth with us.