More ‘blah blah blah’: Cop28 and the pollutocrats
When I sat down to start writing my bit for the December newsletter (it usually takes several attempts), a week or so ago, the pre-COP rhetoric in the media was just starting to ramp up. I wrote that it seemed to be getting more akin to the World Economic Forum in Davos than a serious attempt to save the planet from global warming and suggested five star accommodation in Dubai wasn’t the ideal location and that Butlins, in out of season Skegness, might be more effective when it comes to focusing the mind. Like many, I questioned whether holding it in the UAE was really sending out the right messages but maybe there has been a major sea change. After all, it’s about us all – not us and them.
I woke up this morning to find that not only will all the movers and shakers in the rather questionable world of carbon (emissions and raw, freshly extracted) trading be rubbing air conditioned shoulders over the champagne and canapes but also, that, at the same time, COP28 president, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber would be actively carrying on with his day job – as CEO of ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company). Apparently, his diary is very full indeed with saving the world from himself – or vice versa.
Firstly meat. It’s not 100% carbon related (the benefits are much wider) but it’s never been more clear that eating less meat and dairy products will go a long way to making the world a better and more sustainable place. It’s a complete no-brainer. With 85% of agricultural land devoted to keeping animals or growing food for animals anyone who doesn’t see it is in a state of denial. The diary farmer saying ‘yes, my cows do produce methane but it’s just part of nature’s carbon cycle’ is refusing to acknowledge that that might be the case if the grass was allowed to follow it’s natural yearly cycle of growing, seeding, decomposing and turning dormant until the next year. For the most part, it isn’t. It’s either intensively grazed or cut for silage multiple times every year. That just isn’t a natural cycle. Intensive livestock farming might produce seemingly cheap meat but at what cost. In The Netherlands, the government is buying back dairy farms as a way of reducing animal numbers. It’s not going down too well and there is now a populist ‘farmers party’ that is likely to be part of Geert Wilders’ new coalition. Definitely not the predicted outcome.
And then there’s the monoculture – hectare after hectare of ‘Haber-Bosch’ produced artificial nitrogen dependent, fields of arable crops destined for animal feed. Imagine the benefits if most (and it could be most) were returned to woodland or used for agroforestry, vegetable growing or leisure.
I’m not advocating giving meat up completely. I like it as much as most and don’t want to imagine a countryside without fields of green grass etc but extensively reared, non-polluting, meat does cost more so we need to compensate pocket and planet by eating less. Technology is not going to provide an answer. .
The golom-paper I read (misspelling is the clue if you’re an old-timer like me) has been full of tales of carbon inequality. Oxfam and the Stockholm Environmental Institute have come up with some research that highlights the ever growing disparity of global north/south and rich/poor carbon consumption. The richest 1% responsible for 16% of emissions (equivalent to those of the poorest 70%) and even worse (because that’s most of us), the next 9% bringing that figure up to 50%. I can’t believe I’m the only one who has put off doing things because, at the back of my mind, it seems futile unless everyone else does them too – and most can’t afford to. Well, the reality of the above report blows that one right out of the water. The poor, and Global South don’t need to do anything because they’re not the ones causing global warming. We are!
And the only way to change has to be a carbon usage tax with the proceeds distributed among those adversely effected by climate change. I’ve always been more of a big, than small, government man but let’s face it, it’s taken nearly a decade to come up with any compensation for the adversely effected and the figures are paltry – compared with the size of the problem anyway. If the UK is anything to go by, most First World governments don’t have two pennies to rub together so, for once, I’d be in favour of outsourcing putting things right to the private sector. That’s where both the money and culpability is. Most reel at the idea of a wealth tax so maybe a shame inducing, redistributing carbon tax might twang the old heart strings enough to change behaviour – whether it be jumping on the old private jet or popping down to the shops in the pristinely clean Chelsea tractor.
But they won’t be talking about behavioural change in Dubai. It will be more carbon offsets, carbon capture and more questionable technology that will probably never happen. I do hope I’m wrong.