Ya gotta love the ditty that activist Greta Thunberg led protesters in outside the United Nations’ COP26 (Conference of the Parties) in Glasgow, Scotland:
“You can shove your climate crisis up your arse,” sung to the tune of “She’ll be coming ’round the mountain.”
After the song, Thunberg elaborated. “Inside COP there are just politicians and people in power pretending to take our future seriously.” And, “We say no more blah blah blah, no more exploitation of people, and nature and the planet...we’re not going to let them get away with it any more.”
The Swedish teenager has a valid point. Past COPs have produced lofty goals that mostly have been unmet. OK, calling them mostly unmet is a euphemism for abysmally failed.
US President Joe Biden addressed the conference with the oratorical force of a Martin Luther King Jr.
Not.
Sure, he’s a vast improvement on climate-denier Trump but Biden’s listeners must have struggled to stay awake as his monotone droned on as bland as dry toast. His message was fine, but Joe has never learned how to punch up a speech.
Biden criticized China’s Xi Jinping for skipping the conference. China is the biggest polluter in the world with coal plants covering the country, but they are a bit schizophrenic, because they are leading the world in production of solar panels.
It bodes poorly for reversing the climate crisis if the world’s most populous country doesn’t show up. Russia was also too busy repressing the opposition to participate.
The European Union has made strides to reduce its emissions, but its reliance on natural gas (much of it from Russia) with its rising price has hampered a conversion to renewables. You’d think the high price of gas would stimulate the switch to wind and solar, but we’ll see.
Sunny old Greece, for one, is making serious efforts to go carbon-free. Greece has been strapped with ginormous debt for decades but the transition to renewables has started to get its economy moving again.
Snowy old Germany, for another, is now producing over half its power with renewables, mostly wind. However, limits that politicians put on government subsidies will hamper further progress unless they are extended.
Yeah, it’s usually about the money, isn’t it?
The Wall Street Journal Oct. 30 edition featured a full-page story about the trillions of dollars it will cost to get off fossil fuels. Leave it to the bible of bankers to focus on the financials. It’s important to stress the urgency of the climate crisis regardless of the costs, but let’s also rejoice in the jobs juggernaut the conversion will create.
Meanwhile in the USA, executives of Big Oil appeared before a Congressional committee to deny the fact that they knew decades ago their product would cause great harm to the atmosphere. Despite their secret research showing the truth, the oil companies spent many millions on a campaign of disinformation to deceive and downplay the dangers of burning oil.
That was then. So now, are the oil companies really changing their ways to help protect the planet?
Science magazine said in October that only two of the world’s 52 biggest oil and gas companies have even set goals that would meet the emissions standards of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Even in Covid’s mobility-reduced year 2020, the world still consumed 88 million barrels a day. Except for 2020 and the 2009 financial crisis, oil consumption has gone up worldwide every year for decades.
Why would Big Oil change when they are banking billions by being bullies?
So back in Glasgow, do any of the COP26 goals amount to anything tangible?
The pledge to end deforestation is admirable. At least it will be if it actually happens. Those of us who like to breathe would appreciate it. Excuse my doubts, but in 2014 there was also a plan to cut deforestation in half by 2020. Instead, cutting down of forests actually increased dramatically. As before, this agreement isn’t binding.
The new plan for reducing emissions of methane is critical, because methane is far worse than carbon dioxide in causing the greenhouse effect. Again it’s a wish not a requirement and will need the gas and oil companies to cooperate.
Being good citizens of the Earth, those oil and gas companies will do everything they can to help, I’m sure.
Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.” Email: lingofrank@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, December 1, 2021
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