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the DON JONES
INDEX… |
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GAINS POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in RED
12/18/23... 14,924.65
12/11/23... 14,905.85 |
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6/27/13… 15,000.00 |
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(THE DOW JONES INDEX: 12/18/23... 37.305.15; 12/11/23... 36,247.87; 6/27/13… 15,000.00) |
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LESSON for DECEMBER EIGHTEENTH, 2023
– “COP OUT!”
It’s the week before Christmas,
one more before twenty twenty four and the planet’s stocking
stuffer to Don Jones is a hearty “good-bye” to Dubai, Abu Dhabai-bye
and that guy who epitomized the COP28 conference, Shiekh
Al (“Fill ‘er up?”) Jaber.
Did the Jonese
of the world reciprocate? Well, that
would depend on one’s perspective of proceedings of the Particulars as well as
their fealty to their own promises... sincere or coerced. That one of their final decisions was to
award the COP29 homecoming trophy to Azarbaijan...
not only another (albeit smaller) barrel of petroleum dripping and leaking rude
crude from the oily well but, as well, a veritable vassal of the diminished but
not finished Soviet Union - such as passes for Russia these days.
One might well imagine, even predict,
that delegates from uppity nations (or uppity delegates from
go-along-to-get-along governments) being quietly “disappeared” by the nite visitors from Moscow inasmuch as there is method
behind Russia’s madness... global warming won’t hurt Mad Vlad and his legions
because Russia is cold, really cold...
and if temperatures soar to the point where the glaciers melt into
(temporarily, geologically) pristine lakes and rivers and Siberia becomes a
tropical paradise where pineapples and mangoes blossom – well, who’s to argue?
And does anyone really believe that the oil sheikhs of
Dubai and Doha and Mecca will really impose a ban on air-conditioning?
Well, COP29 will be what it will
be, since COP28 has gone to the crypt with all of its preceding
crypto-creatures of the catacombs, and the batmen and catwomen
in attendance. And guess what... the
Particulars will be convening in another petro-state, the former Soviet
Republic and current Putin puppet of Azarbaijan –
hitherto known only for its decades long with neighbor Armenia.
See the BBC summary of next
year’s host here.
When we last left COP28 dangling,
standing on the gallows of the future, rope around neck, a week ago, a draft
resolution was being circulated that more or less exonerated fossil fuels as a
source of climate disruption and dissatisfaction.
Tolling the numbers, the New
Yorker noted that greenhouse-gas
emissions from fossil-fuel use this year are expected to total 36.8 billion
metric tons. “Emissions from changes in land use, mostly from chopping down
forests, are expected to add another four billion tons,” added the New Yorker
(Attachment One)
Consequently, some of the effects
of what many scientists say is “dangerous” climate change: extreme heat waves, extreme rainfall, rapidly intensifying hurricanes, ever-increasing melt off of
the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets as well as
insects and diseases, extinctions and, perversely, a higher use of fossil
fueled fans and air conditioning in the well-off nations (while the poor
sweated it out or, in the case of small island nations whose anger was highly
visible at cop, drowned),
In light of this situation, which
might be called “dire,” were the word not too weak (on occasion, the American
media upped the ante to “cataclysmic”, “catastrophic” and, finally, “existential”. “Dozens of countries, including the nations
of the European Union, came to Dubai pushing for an agreement on “phasing out” fossil fuels.” To the
representatives of those small island nations, many of which are in danger of
disappearing under rising seas, the matter was considered an existential one.
Behind the scenes, though, many other countries—in particular, it seems, Saudi
Arabia—were pushing back. (“Almost half of Saudi Arabia’s G.D.P. comes from
selling fossil fuels,” the New Yorker maintains.) On Monday, December 18th,
the president of COP 28, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who also happens to be the head
of the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned oil company, released a draft text
that omitted the phaseout language.
(Attachment “B” One)
The reaction was fierce: “We will
not go silently to our watery graves,” John Silk, the head of the Marshall
Islands’ delegation, said. “COP28 is now on the verge of complete failure,” the
former Vice-President Al Gore tweeted. The draft, he wrote, “reads as if OPEC
dictated it word for word.”
Monday’s draft
ended the presumed thirteen days of cheer and comity... the delegates in Dubai,
at least the official ones, having enjoyed offered luxury hotels with clean
sheets and, of course, air conditioning, limousine transport around town and a
spacious runway for their private jets, the choicest of politically incorrect
repass and, according to the Eastern Herald, the
companionship of comely “comfort workers”, predominantly immigrants desperate
for their share of dinars, deutschmarks or dollars from the Particulars.
The
Emirates having staged a plush and comfy
climate summit, the WashPost asked whether it would
“cushion the anger” of the anti-oilies.
Apparantly not. The
concupiscent Particulars bounded out of their beds on Tuesday morning,
determined to dodge the draft resolution and, when no resolution could be
reached by Tuesday’s declared closing date, the Particulars demanded and
received... Overtime!
A
timeline with takeaways by the United Nations altered its lifespan from
December 12th to the 13th (Attachment Three and here)
The
draft text issued on Monday (with its termination date still slated for
Tuesday) declared that: “The COP28 Presidency has
been clear from the beginning about our ambitions. This text reflects those
ambitions and is a huge step forward. Now it is in the hands of the Parties,
who we trust to do what is best for humanity and the planet.” (COP28.com via
Twitter – or X, if you will)
What those
hands did was to seize the Draft and, with it, wipe their behinds with a
thoroughness that would leave the red and blue Charmin’ bears reeling.
Whereas the
Draft asked that COP “be remembered as a collective COP; (a) COP that
transformed how COPs are conducted,” according to Doctor Sultan Al Jaber... posted in both English and Arabic as
Attachment Four... the response from most of the rest of the world was not the
“Olympics of climate change” as touted but, rather, a document with
problems.
That
Monday (the 11th), Bloomberg.com optimistically reported that the
summit was entering “its final hours” when the so-called “global stocktake” called for countries to reduce not phase out
fossil fuel “consumption and production.”
Butome of the media responses
to the draft (Attachment Five) were less sunny.
These included...
The BBC –
having reporting that a new
draft deal was expected overnight, “after the current text removed a promise to
"phase out" fossil fuels...”
The proposed final draft of the COP28 climate conference
was “pretty much exactly what any informed observer might have predicted” once
OPEC’s oily fingers grasped it, according to Clean Technica...
Countries were “headed for
marathon climate negotiations, after receiving (the) draft decision text,”
concluded Axios.
Al Jazeera said the Particulars “slammed” the draft
for dropping its call to even “gradually” phase out fossil fuels...
PBS surveyed deligates
who said Monday’s draft, known as the “global stocktake”
was “lacking”...
France 24 interviewed Ralph Regenvanu of Vanuatu, whose “low-lying Pacific nation faces
a severe threat” from time and tides...
The Guardian U.K. reported that
text now being considered by governments as the meetings ran into overtime
called for 'reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels'
OnTuesday, CNN predicted “a long day of
painstaking negotiations...”
The AP and Reuters concurred that
the meeting would be “forced into overtime” as “countries were still far apart
on key issues”...
The American Prospect derided the “debacle in Dubai”, saying that “the oil companies and their OPEC allies are the last people we can trust to solve climate change”...
Politico quoted Al Gore as saying “COP28 is now on the verge of
complete failure...”
New Scientist also said the summit
had entered overtime “with a real possibility the talks could end in
failure”...
CBC (Canada) cited long hours,
sleepless nights and deep divisions, and even
Fox derided the stalled COP as a “Super Bowl of virtue signaling”.
The
delegates finally went to sleep, mostly troubled and alone, and on Tuesday, the
Associated Press
reported on the ongoing stalemate – concluding that hopes for finishing a critical climate
summit on time “faded as countries were still far apart on key issues”... and
the Guardian U.K.
reporting that Australia, US and the UK had decided not to sign an agreement
that would be ‘death certificate’ for small islands.
By
sundown
on Tuesday, with the Financial Times reporting that the obstacle was
Saudi Arabia, the COP28 climate summit entered overtime with a real possibility
the talks could end in failure.
The
Guardian (Attachment “A”), Washington Post and BBC continued reporting live timelines
and takeaways that ran deep into the night as countries struggled for a deal on
fossil fuels... whether “reduction”, “phase out” or an immediate ban... or
simply promises to do something, some time, in some measure.
The Post’s all-day Tuesday
timeline (Attachment Six) highlighted the angst undergone by U.S. climate envoy
John F. Kerry – inasmuch as the fears many countries had of “economic suicide” (not to mention political suicide for the participating
parties) if
they gave up fossil fuels “convinced him that a deal this broad would never be
possible.”
And when a Saudi delegate spoke
earlier in the session, it was on behalf of 22 nations that negotiate as a bloc
in the COP process. Its outcomes and programs should support anything that
might be able to reduce emissions, said Albara Tawfiq, chair of the Arab Group, citing carbon capture and
sequestration, a system for removing greenhouse gases from fossil fuel
emissions.
He advocated for the freedom of
each country to address climate change in accordance with its culture, a common
demand for many rich countries where oil and gas production dominate the
economy and for poor ones without the money to quickly shift to clean energy.
The oilies
were joined by China, India and countries in Africa and South America. Many
said current levels of engineering, technology and financing can’t yet
guarantee a complete transition to emissions-free energy — not at least without
risks to their power grids and economic development.
“It is China’s view that climate
action must include ambition and pragmatism,” a Chinese delegate said during
the country’s speaking time in the concluding meeting, in comments relayed
through conference translators.
Jaber, OPEC and some of the
hesitant states threw up a flotilla of alternatives before the end... not only
carbon-capture — or “abatement” as the experts termed it, but hydrogen, and natural gas... both long
pitched as a “bridge fuels” societies could use while they
take years to build up cleaner alternatives. Natural gas, however, still produces carbon-dioxide emissions, and can also be a risk for creating methane emissions, an even more powerful greenhouse
gas. (See below)
Sultan
Al Jaber, Cop28 president,
sounding tired, dealT with the global stocktake text first.
“Through
the night and the early hours, we worked collectively for consensus. The
presidency listened, engaged and guided. I promised I would roll up my sleeves.
I promised I would be with you. You did step up, you showed flexibility, you
put common interest ahead of self interest. Let us finish what we started. Let
us unite, act and now deliver.”
At
02.12 EST he told the Particular plenary: “We have the basis to make
transformations change happen – let us finish what we have started”
But,
after more wheeling and dealing, the resolution was secured; the adoption of the final deal
happening “quickly and unexpectedly” the WashPost
reported (4:15 AM) and while most of the small island nations were not even in
the hall to object.
COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber
read aloud a portion of the deal and asked whether any delegates objected. Acting quickly,
leaving no time for critics to engage in floor debate, he declared that
“hearing no objection, it is so decided” and swiftly
gaveled approval – saying: "It is a plan that is led by the
science.’’ (Fox Business via the
Associated Press, 7:05 AM EST on December 13th, Attachment Seven)
Many people in the room were
confused because they had been bracing for hours of discussion before the
agreement. But once it became clear that the deal had been adopted, nearly
everyone rose in a standing ovation, and cheers echoed throughout the
conference venue. (WashPost, above)
U.S. special climate envoy John F.
Kerry rose from his seat and hugged Dan Jorgensen, Denmark’s minister for
climate, energy and utilities. Jorgensen clapped the veteran U.S. negotiator on
the back.
“Over the last two weeks, we have
worked very hard to secure a better future for our people and our planet,” Al
Jaber said after delegates had taken their seats again. “We should be proud of
our historic achievement. And the United Arab Emirates, my country, is rightly
proud of its role in helping you to move this forward.”
“Humanity has finally done what is
long, long, long overdue,” said the European Union’s climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra. “Thirty years we’ve spent to arrive at the
beginning of the end of fossil fuels.”
United
Nations Climate Secretary Simon Stiell Stiell added the adopted deal is a "climate action
lifeline, not a finish line."
— Representatives of Pacific
Island states expressed frustration and disappointment at the final outcome of
the COP28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates, saying they were left out
of the plenary room when the concluding deal was decided.
“We weren’t in the room when this
decision was gavelled. And that is shocking to us,”
Tina Stege, the climate envoy for the Marshall
Islands, said Wednesday while speaking outside of the plenary. (CNBC, Wed. December 13th, 9:07 AM
EST, Attachment Eight)
“We are a little confused about what
just happened,” complained Anne Rasmussen, the lead negotiator for the Alliance
of Small Island States (AOSIS).
“It seems that you gavelled the decisions, and the small island developing
states were not in the room. We were working hard to coordinate the 39 small
island developing states that are disproportionally affected by climate change,
and so were delayed in coming here,” she said.
“We see a litany of loopholes,”
the AOSIS statement reacting to the deal said. “It does not deliver on a
subsidy phaseout, and it does not advance us beyond the status quo.”
“As a Pacific Islander on the
frontline of the climate crisis, I’m gutted by the outcome of COP28 and was
shocked to see the GST text adopted so quickly,” said Shiva Gounden,
the head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific.
“This decision is a betrayal of
the vulnerable communities who have relentlessly advocated for a swift and fair
fossil fuel phaseout,” Gounden said. “The urgency of
our plight has been met with hollow gestures. Corporate interests have hijacked
the COP28 agenda.”
The COP28 Presidency did not
immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
The COP 28 climate deal reached
with huge fanfare this week in Dubai “is a stab in the back for the nations
most affected by global warming and won't stop temperatures rising beyond
critical levels,” famous (some say notorious) climate activist Greta Thunberg
said on Friday. (See Attachment
Nineteen, below)
Fiona
Harvey of GUK reported that the text that was presented to delegates on
Wednesday morning at Cop28 – and quickly
(perhaps too quickly) adopted - enjoins countries for the first time to embark
on a de facto phase out of fossil fuels. But it cannot require them to do so
and it contains that ‘litany of loopholes”, articulated by those small island
states that are most vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis,
COP28 closed today with an agreement
that signals the “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era by laying the
ground for a swift, just and equitable transition, underpinned by deep
emissions cuts and scaled-up finance.
The
United Nations climate chief, Simon Stiell, after taking
to the stage, and hugging Al Jaber, said: “I want to start by thanking the UAE
for hosting us. We needed this Cop to send clear signals on several fronts. We
needed a green light in renewables, climate and resilience.”
“Whilst we didn’t turn the page on
the fossil fuel era in Dubai, this outcome is the beginning of the end,” said Stiell in his closing speech. “Now all governments and
businesses need to turn these pledges into real-economy outcomes, without
delay.”
And that will become the issue.
Was
1.5°C Just An Attractive Fantasy?
Perhaps it was always somewhat
fanciful to believe that it was possible to limit warming to 1.5 degrees
Celsius David Wallace-Wells, a science and climate writer for the New
York Times, suggested... just as Bill McKibben of Substack said recently... that simply stating the goal
did a lot to shape action in the years that followed the Paris climate accords
by demanding we all look squarely at what the science told us about what it
would mean to fail.
In
Paris at the end of 2015, the Particulars recalled (Attachment Ten), the world
rejoiced when the national representatives from around the planet agreed to try
really, really hard to keep average global temperatures from increasing more
than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. “Of course, in the 1800s when the
Industrial Revolution began, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was
around 300 parts per million. In 2015, carbon dioxide levels were on the verge
of breaking the 400 ppm barrier. Today, with COP28 now in the rear view mirror, the world is experiencing carbon
dioxide levels of 420 ppm.”
It
has taken 28 years and millions of written and spoken words to acknowledge that
fossil fuels are the problem. A young activist from
India may have helped as well. But Wallace-Wells, though relieved that the
issue is now, at least, on the table, is not one of those who is cheering. In
fact, he says what the world got from COP28 was more like an endorsement of the
status quo that reflects the ongoing state of play rather than accelerating it.
At
COP28, Bill Gates described anything below 3 degrees as a “fortunate” outcome.
A few months earlier, former President Barack Obama struck a similar note in
describing how he’d tried to talk his daughter Malia off the edge of climate
despair by emphasizing what could still be saved rather than what had been lost
already through global inaction. “We may not be able to cap temperature rise to
2 degrees Celsius, but here’s the thing, if we work really hard, we may be able
to cap it at two and a half.”
At
least the final draft was better than the original as regards fossil fuels.
There
was less light shone upon other issues.
Factory farming... exposed as an instigator of methane pollutions as
well as being offensive to the virtuous vegan community after... for the better
part of three decades... the final agreements that emerged from the UN’s yearly
climate summits left out the impact food systems have on our climate.
That
changed this year in Dubai. The conference opened with a declaration on sustainable agriculture
signed by more than 130 countries. For the first time ever, it featured a
whole day devoted to food and
agriculture and saw a food systems road map laid out by the UN’s Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Perhaps most strikingly, the final agreement document that was revealed
at the end of the conference acknowledged sustainable agriculture as a part of
responding appropriately to climate change.
(GUK, December 17th, Attachment Eleven)
Beyond
the big announcements, the sense on the ground was that food was a bigger deal than
ever. As a regular Cop attendee since Cop16 in Cancun, Mexico, in 2010,
Danielle Nierenberg, president of Food
Tank, a non-profit think tank, said she’s seen the
conversation around food shift significantly. She was particularly encouraged
this year to feel like there was more interest in food from those working
outside the sector. “I think we broke down some silos. We weren’t just
preaching to the choir,” she said.
Nierenberg
said she walked away “encouraged” by the growing attention to food systems at
the conference, and she appreciated that food systems were mentioned in the
final agreement hammered out at the conference. But she also wished that the
language in the final document had gone further.
The
final agreement sprinkled small mentions of food systems throughout, and
largely couched conversations about food systems in the section focused on
adaptation, rather than mitigation. While adaptation is “very important,
because we absolutely need to figure out what our future food system looks
like, and be ready for that”, said Yvette Cabrera, a food waste expert at the
Natural Resources Defense Council. “We
also need to take steps to mitigate the emissions that are happening now as
well.”
Others
put it more harshly. “The glaring omission of food system transformation and
agriculture emissions in the final text is a stark betrayal of urgency … We
cannot afford another lost year for food and climate action,” said Emile Frison, an expert speaking on behalf of the International Panel of Experts on
Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food).
Rather than
denouncing the entire COP as a Communist plot, Big Agriculture, like Big Oil
and Big Plastics (Big Coal excepted) promoted “alternatives” or “transitional”
fuels.
Reuters
(December 14th, Attachment Twelve) examined three major
alternatives... hydrogen, carbon capture and wind (natural gas also being
promoted as, at least, less polluting
than unnatural coal and oil and, as noted in last week’s Lesson, Kerry allowed
as nuclear energy also had to be on the table).
The summit’s push for the
acceleration of low-carbon hydrogen - which typically means hydrogen produced
by electrolyzing water in a process powered by clean-energy sources like solar
and wind – was dismissed by Reuters (Attachment Twelve) because the process is
so expensive.
Reuters next explained carbon
capture as a technology that would theoretically allow users of oil gas and
coal to keep their emissions from reaching the atmosphere by capturing them at
the source, and storing them permanently underground.
But lots of people are skeptical about
carbon capture,
Reuters adjudicated. “It is expensive
and has yet to be proven at the scale needed to impact climate change. And
environmental groups call it a false flag that justifies continued drilling.”
More
dedicated environmentalists are more sympathetic to solar, wind and water as
energy generators (especially abetted by the foaming-at-the-moutn
denunciations issued by the ‘drill, baby, drill’ lobby).
So, to achieve the renewable
target, “countries will need to bet big on solar and wind” proposed Politico
(December thirteenth, Attachment thirteen).
POLITICO crunched the numbers and here's what we found: While the
renewable energy target is well within reach, progress on energy efficiency has
been a lot slower.
Countries would need to cut their
energy intensity — the amount of energy used per unit of GDP — at least twice
as fast between 2023 and 2030 as they did in previous years, which calls for
major investments and substantial changes in individual behavior. Solar and wind (water deferred) are “set to
account for around 90 percent of new capacity additions, due to their
increasing availability and decreasing costs.”
We
have already noted John Kerry’s qualified support of the nuclear power option
in last week’s Lesson. Goundon (Attachment
Eight, above) calling even the final document’s
transition language “feeble,” and “full of loopholes” that “leave the door open
for false solutions like carbon capture and storage and nuclear.”
So... how about natural gas? Kerry said at a press conference on Wednesday
that his definition of transitional fuels is natural gas, produced in such a
way that its greenhouse gas emissions are captured during production. Except, perhaps, for his own flatulence – DJI
Gas, however, has been a tricky
topic since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, Reuters proposes, because
“the Ukraine War has triggered a massive increase in European imports of U.S.
liquefied natural gas.” And as Mister
Dylan once declared: “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”
And
the conservative Washington Examiner simultaneously denounced COP as intrusive
(the right wing stance) and a “pipsqeak” affair. They quoted scientists whose contempt might
just as well have emanated from the Guardian or Slate... “In the context of these previous,
truly significant COPs, Dubai is a pipsqueak,” said Princeton University
climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer, who is also a professor of international
affairs.
The agreement language was “like
promising your doctor that you will ‘transition away from doughnuts’ after
being diagnosed with diabetes,” said University of Pennsylvania climate
scientist Michael Mann. “The lack of an agreement to phase out fossil fuels was
devastating.”
With the revised historical
expressions upon COP sliding into the negative, even accommodationist bogma, the Examiner did find some Particulars who defended
the conference, Jaber and the sponsors as having tried to do the right thing, (Washington
Examiner, December fourteenth, Attachment fourteen)
“I think (CO) ranks very high,”
said Zambia Green Economy and Environment Minister Collins Nzovu,
who headed his nation’s delegation. “Loss and damages is there. GGA (the
adaptation agreement) is there. We talked about fossil fuels, as well. So I
think we’re going somewhere.”
German climate special envoy
Jennifer Morgan, who has attended all these talks either as an analyst,
environmental activist and now negotiator, said it was “very significant” and
not just for the list of actions agreed to.
Power Shift Africa’s Mohamed Adow also thought it ranked highly - second only to Paris:
“This COP saw the loss and damage fund established, it finally named the cause
of the climate crisis - fossil fuels - for the first time and it committed the
world to transition away from them, with action required in this decade. That
is a lot more than we get from most COPs.”
And Johan Rockstrom,
a scientist who heads the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in
Germany, praised what happened (but like so many others who ranked it high,
also saw problems).
“Finally, we have a plan the world
can work with towards a phase-out of oil, coal and gas. It is not perfect, by
far, and not entirely aligned with science, but it is something we can work
with,” Rockstrom said in an email. “Will it deliver
1.5°C (even if implemented)? The answer is no.”
“This year, in a state flush with
oil money, (COP) managed to get much stronger wording,” in its final
resolution, MSNBC acknowledged, “... but that’s all it (was): words.” (Attachment Fifteen)
“The focus on fossil fuels (was)
understandable,” wrote the peacock’s Ben Adler, “in part because the harm they cause
goes far beyond climate change. Oil and gas drilling and coal mining wreak ecological havoc on the communities where they
occur, befouling the air and water, killing animals — and even sometimes
people. Transporting fossil fuels is dangerous and can cause disasters when
they spill or ignite. And when they are burned, they emit other forms of air
pollution in addition to CO2.”
But other pollutants... plastics,
methane and the like... were insufficiently addressed, and Adler believes that
there are even more unmentionables, still lurking, undisturbed and unmentioned,
in the green shadows. His choice was
cobalt... “essential for electric car batteries,” whose extractions in the
Congo have led to “toxic dumping that is polluting water and
contaminating crops.”
Jean Su, energy justice director
at the Center for Biological Diversity, told CNN’s quartet of researchers that
“cavernous loopholes threaten to undermine this breakthrough moment.”
(Attachment Fifteen)
“The agreement falls short of
requiring the world to “phase-out” oil, coal and gas — which more than 100
countries and many climate groups had been calling for, language which was
included in an earlier version of the draft.
“Instead, the agreement “calls on”
countries to “contribute” to global efforts to reduce carbon pollution in ways
they see fit, offering several options, one of which is “transitioning away
from fossil fuels in energy systems … accelerating action in this critical
decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050.”
But CNN brought up the ubiquitous
Kerry to assure Don Jones that all was right with the world as he called the
deal a success and a “vindication of multilateralism.”
“All of us can find a paragraph or
sentences, or sections, where we would have said it differently,” he said in an
earlier speech after the deal was agreed. But, he added, “to have as strong a
document as has been put together, I find is cause for optimism, cause for
gratitude and cause for some significant congratulations to everybody here.”
“I think there were times in the
last 48 hours where some of us thought this could fail,” Kerry told reporters
Wednesday. But ultimately they “stepped up and said, ‘we want this to succeed’”
adding that the agreement was “much stronger and clearer as a call on 1.5 than
we have ever heard,” referring to the internally-agreed ambition to restrict global
heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial
levels, a threshold beyond which scientists say humans and ecosystems will
struggle to adapt.
“The message coming out of this
COP is we are moving away from fossil fuels,” Kerry led the cheering posse.
“We’re not turning back.”
A different message was being transmitted, shouted and blogged by the
youngest…
A delegate from the Children and
Youth observers said the agreement had “written her obituary at the age of 16”.
In a fiery joint speech, the two delegates criticised
leaders for applauding the Global Stocktake despite
its flaws. They also criticised the countries in the
room for funding war while failing to spend enough on stopping climate change.
“Not in our name. For shame.”
Al Jaber immediately responded
to their critique that the process had not been inclusive. “You are central to
the prosperity of this world. That is why we have worked hard ensuring the
inclusivity of everyone… and will continue to work very hard to ensure you have
an effective role in this process.”
And
the indigenous…
A delegate representing Indigenous peoples criticised
the number of fossil fuel lobbyists, which outnumbered the number of Indigenous
representatives, and stressed the role of Indigenous people as stewards of
nature. “Our peoples have been sounding the alarm and science has finally
caught up with what Indigenous peoples have been saying for decades. You must
listen.”
The
Guardian’s Damian Carrington stayed behind to interview the scholars and
stragglers still in Dubai and found cause to examine the methods and motives of
its supporters and dissenters.
Wednesday
morning’s screed (GUK, Attachment Seventeen) allowed that the COP28 decision text had been greeted as “historic”,
for being the first ever call by nations for a “transition away” from fossil
fuels but, also, as “weak and ineffectual” and containing a “litany of
loopholes” for the fossil fuel industry. His examination of the text was
offered to help explain this contradiction.
The
revised draft having been submitted, delegates were being asked to attend the
“plenary session” where they would allegedly vote upon the document – in
reality, as noted above, Shiekh Jabar
simply gaveled the motion to order while many (particularly the islanders) were
still waiting outside, announced its ratification and accepted congratulations
from some, while other sat in stony silence.
Carrington’s
analysis of the final draft... soon to become law (but without enforcement
protocols, a major failing to many who’d attended) highlighted and passed
judgment on these sectors...
Reducing
fossil fuel use
The previous draft suggested
measures that countries “could” take. The final agreement is somewhat stronger
and “calls on” countries to tripling renewable energy
capacity globally and double the global average annual rate of energy
efficiency improvements by 2030. But
enforcement protocols were vaporized by China and India.
Accelerating efforts towards
the phase-down of unabated coal power
This was no stronger than the text
from Cop26 in 2021 – the snake in the grass being the words “phase-down” and, subsequently, “transitioning
away” rather than “phasing out”. Will “transitioning away” send a strong
enough signal to halt fossil fuel investments? Probably not, but at least the
direction of travel is finally clear.
This was just one example of what convention-goers called...
The
‘litany of loopholes’
The idea that the resolution would
allow fossil fuel firms to continue anything like business as usual was a “fantasy”, said
the boss of the International Energy Agency.
What was missing...
What was missing from the text is as
important as what is in it, most importantly on finance. Money is needed to
build out clean energy (mitigation), prepare vulnerable communities for
escalating climate impacts (adaptation) and for recovery after disasters (loss
and damage). “The text acknowledges that trillions of dollars of investment
will be needed, but fails to provide numbers on what will be provided and when.
Without funding, all talk of climate action is cheap.”
Reservations noted, Shikh al-Jabar nonetheless gaveled down acceptance, leavinga the small islanders waiting outside anc critics unsure of what to do next. The answer was simple... go home. And they did so.
Revised
draft passed
There
had been confusion in the plenary hall when Sultan Al Jaber passed the text
without hearing any statements from countries or parties, wrote another Gukster, Patrick Greenfield. “We
had all been expecting a lengthy day of debates about how the text might be
changed for one final version. But this is not happening. The gavel is down and
the agreement has passed.”
On Thursday, with Abu Dhabi rapidly emptying,
Carrington reiterated the point that Cop28 “was hosted by a petrostate,
the United Arab Emirates, and run by the boss of its state oil company, Adnoc.” Sultan Al
Jaber, at least, had delivered a historic first mention of a fossil fuel
transition. “But his pitch was that, as
an oil baron, he could drag the industry on to the path to climate salvation.
He could not, and now returns to Adnoc,
which has the biggest net-zero-busting plans of any company on Earth.”
Calling
the fight “existential” for both the fossil fuel industry and the rest of civilisation, GUL (and many delegates) averred that only one could
survive, let alone prosper. “We are facing a confrontation between fossil
capital and human life,” the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, told delegates
in Dubai. But
petrostates fought fiercely against the call from 130 nations at Cop28 for a fossil
fuel phase-out because, Carrington wrote, “they are engaged in a colossal
fossil fuel phase-up, already working on double the extraction that the planet can cope
with.
The
petrostates came to Cop28 to fight “by all means necessary... pouring hundreds
of billions of dollars into extracting more oil, gas and coal (and) betting
that the world will not curb emissions and therefore not curb its
trillion-dollar profits.”
So
Carrington, and other, devised several strategems to
kill, baby kill. Or, at least, tax the petro-profits – as is being
“seriously discussed after the establishment of a new taskforce at Cop28.
On the other end, “ending the insanity of the $7tn (£5.5tn) a year
in subsidies that benefit fossil fuels would cut
global emissions by 34% by 2030 – a large chunk of the 43% cut needed – and is starting to happen,
from Nigeria to Canada.” (Attachment
Eighteen, Thursday, 0612 EST)
International
regulations, like the EU’s carbon border tax, can also be imposed to penalise dirty producers. “Methane limits can block the import of gas produced with excessive
methane leaks. Climate clubs of nations can accelerate green action
together, and exclude or penalise free-riding
polluters... (p)eople can confront the fossil fuel
industry too. Protests can stop projects and help destroy the industry’s social
licence to operate. Voting for climate-positive
politicians narrows the space in which it can operate.
Then
again, there are simple... if illegal... remedies like visiting oily executives
in their offices and mansions and giving them a taste of lead poisoning, like
the Ecuadorians are accused of doing to American children eating their
applesauce pouches. But, as Richard
Nixon said, that would be wrong.
Short
of violent worldwide revolution but greated than some
of the “transitional” remedies that even GUK allows (electric cars, choosing
trains over planes), António Guterres, had a clear parting message to the
petrostates. The UN secretary general said: “To those who opposed a clear
reference to a phase-out of fossil fuels in the Cop28 text, I want to say that
a fossil fuel phase out is inevitable whether they like it or not. Let’s hope
it doesn’t come too late.”
"This text is toothless and
it is nowhere even close to being sufficient to keep us within the 1.5 degree
limit," Thunberg told Reuters outside Sweden's parliament where she and a
handful of other protesters were calling for climate justice. (Above and Attachment Nineteen, December 15,
202311:01 AM EST)
Thunberg, 20, who shot to teenage
fame as the face of climate activism in 2018 after she started staging weekly
protests in Sweden, said the pact was not designed to solve the climate crisis
but as "an alibi" for world leaders that allowed them to ignore
global warming.
"As long as we don't treat
the climate crisis as a crisis and as long as we keep lobby interests
influencing these texts and these processes, we are not going to get
anywhere," she said.
The Alliance of Small Island
States, which includes countries most affected by climate change like Fiji,
Tuvalu and Kiribati, also said the agreement was full of loopholes and was "incremental
and not transformational".
“This process has failed us,” Samoa lead negotiator and chair of the Alliance of Small
Island States Anne Rasmussen, said... still outraged after Jaber gaveled
the summit over and done while Asios was not in the
room when the text was announced as being agreed to.
Some
of the other Particulars
weighed in on whether the thirteen days of COP had been an
“historic occasion” as the Shiekh maintained, or a waste
of time.
Reactions from countries can take a while to come though, GUK noted on
its timeline, “and silence is just as important as noise. With the last
version, the Pacific island states were among the first to comment, dismissing
the text as a death sentence for their countries. The EU, Brazil and other
states took much longer to publicly comment but still gave it the thumbs
down.” India and Saudi Arabia were among
those that remained silent, although the Saudis finally gave a mild statement
of support.
Some of their conclusions included...
A prediction that ‘the age of fossil fuels will end’
came from AUSTRALIA’S Chris Bowen, who hailed the Cop28 agreement. “You
promised a strong result and today you are delivering a strong result,” the
Aussies hailed.
A
representative for BANGLADESH
thankied and congratulated the Cop president’s
team. The spokesperson notes that he had
warned Al Jaber that this Cop was going to be a litmus test for
multilateralism.
BOLIVIA
addressed the summit with a focus on climate justice
and historic responsibility.
Marina
da Silva, BRAZIL’S minister of the
environment and climate change, welcomes the deal
and said the focus now has to be a just transition, so the world can move
towards an end to fossil fuels. “The
challenge of delivering this 1.5 mission will depend on everyone.” She looks forward to celebrating this at
Cop30 in the Amazon.
The CHILEAN delegate expressed concern about the wording on
fossil fuel subsidies and transitional fuels. Several countries have said that
gas should not be considered a transitional fuel from coal, but rather a
methane-heavy fossil fuel that needs to be phased out entirely. There is much work ahead regarding the global
goal on adaptation, he said, lamenting the inclusion of the words “where
possible” in the text, which he said should not be relevant there.
Susana Muhamad, COLOMBIA’S environment minister, is giving her reaction to the plenary... “The text reflects the
political reality of this plenary. President Petro defines the struggle of this
century between fossil capital and life
The CUBAN delegate
told the plenary: “We recognise the importance and results
achieved in this conference. This has been one of the most difficult and
complex Cops since Paris. The increase in emissions and closing windows to keep
global warming within 1.5C has been characterised as
our north star.”
The GERMAN
delegate thanked “the dear Cop president” for “the great ending of this
conference”.
“[In
reaching this agreement], we thought at one moment of our family. What would
they ask us?”
“We have
decided now on a transition now to phase out fossil fuels ... This Cop (was)
also about deciding that we are walking the path of climate justice together.”
GUATEMALA’S representative spoke on behalf of the Ailac
group of Latin American and Caribbean countries, and said they align themselves
with the position of the G77 developing countries and China bloc.
The delegate for HONDURAS spoke out strongly on behalf the
alliance of countries with the tropical forests on the desperate need for the
carbon markets
The INDONESIAN delegate celebrated the agreement but said there were hard compromises
made. She wants it to be understood that different countries must take
different approaches. She also laments the shortfall in the conditions around
Indigenous people.
Mary Robinson, chair of the Elders and former president of IRELAND, has also reacted, saying:
The Cop28 agreement, while signalling the need
to bring about the end of the fossil fuel era, falls short by failing to commit
to a full fossil fuel phase out.
If
1.5C is our ‘north star’, and science our compass, we must swiftly phase out
all fossil fuels to chart a course towards a liveable
future.
Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein, the king of JORDAN, linked the climate emergency to
the war happening in Gaza. He said: “As we speak the Palestinian people are
facing an immediate threat to their lives and well being. Tens of thousands
have been injured or killed in a region already on the frontline of climate
change. The massive destruction of water makes the environmental threats of
water scarcity and food insecurity more severe.”
William Ruto, the president of KENYA said that his region was already
facing the horrific effects of climate breakdown. “In eastern Africa, catastrophic flooding has
followed the most severe drought the region has seen in over 40 years,” he
said, adding that studies indicated droughts were now more than 100 times more
likely in parts of Africa than in the pre-industrial era.
Gitanas Nausėda, president of LITHUANIA, said the Russian president,
Vladimir Putin, has committed “ecocide” in his war against Ukraine and should
not be about to get away with it.
A representative for the MARSHALL
ISLANDS gave a very moving
reaction to the agreement. “I came from
my home islands to work with you to solve the greatest challenge of our
generations, to build a canoe.
“We have built a canoe with a weak and leaky hull.
Yet we have to put it into the water because we have no other option. We must
sail this canoe. It has a strong sail. We must be honest: there has not been
inclusion, the fact that this decision was gavelled
[without discussion] is unacceptable.”
“We need to phase out fossil fuels.
NORWAY’S minister for climate and the environment, Espen
Barth Eide, said the new draft was the first time that the world had united around
“such a clear text on the need to transition away from fossil fuels”.
The delegate for PARAGUAY welcomed the agreement as “auspicous”
but pointed out that “we need to see a big increase in climate financing”. She also worried about curbs on methane and
how that will affect Paraguay’s economy which is very dependent on agriculture.
She wants the contributions of developed and developing countries to be
differentiated. “Developing countries can not give up the right to development
- this is an inalienable human right.”
SAUDI ARABIA
simply said that “The
Arab group is proud and appreciates your great efforts. We congratulate you on
this great success.”
SENEGAL, meanwhile, also raised concerns about climate
finance, which, their delegate said, must be of key importance. “We are
concerned by the latest version of the text.
We are fighting for our survival, and we are fighting for climate justice.”
The SOUTH KOREAN delegate is said the creation of the
loss and damage fund was a big step on the first day of the summit, and
welcomed the money pledged to the fund so far.
Tupou VI, the King of TONGA said it was “painful” for small
developing island states to see that Cop28 “may not be the milestone moment we
were all hoping for” and that progress on the Paris agreement had been far too
slow. Tupou said that over 50,000
Pacific island people were displaced every year as their homes are lost as a
result of climate breakdown. He told the conference: “We are ocean people, the
ocean is our lifeblood, it feeds us, is our mode of transportation and is a
deep part of our culture.”
The delegate from TURKEY said that “we witnessed a very successfull organisation in every aspect.”
UGANDA, which is expecting billions in revenue from fossil fuel developments,
has made it very clear that they want financial support for the transition away
from coal, oil and gas.
Despite being at war with Russia, UKRAINE
announced that it has signed a
deal at Cop28 with Danish renewable energy company Vestas to supply (wind)
turbines to build in the country - for Mad Vlad to blow
up.
The UNITED KINGDOM prime minister, Rishi Sunak,
dropped in, but his decision to push ahead with new oil and gas drilling in the
North Sea and rowing back on key climate measures has not got down well and,
consequently, King Charles – who addressed delegates telling them “I pray with
all my heart that Cop28 will be [a] critical turning point towards genuine
transformational action” – received unroyal scoldings.
“It is a document that reflects
two years of work by all parties from every part of the globe...” John Kerry,
speaking for the UNITED STATES, said. “While nobody here will see
their views completely reflected, the fact is that this document sends a very
strong signal to the world. We have to adhere to keeping 1.5 in reach. In
particular, it states that our next NDCs will be aligned with 1.5. It reflects
what the science said, we have to urgently peak GHG emissions and have them
fall.”
VENEZUELA said
that it wished to thank the presidency of the UAE. “We are thanking them for
their efforts for getting us to this step.”
Speaking
from the VATICAN, the pope had planned to visit the conference and
deliver a speech but was kept at home with bronchitis. The delegate said he was concerned that the
hopes of future generations have not been completely met, and that there has
not been a response fully in line with the science. He said a growing number of
countries have committed to a science-based transition, but that all countries
should follow suit.
He added that the principles of equity and common
but differentiated responsibilities are vitally important to make sure this
process is just.
“We must also consider intergenerational justice and
our responsibility to do all we can,” he said: “It is important to give hope
and secure a liveable common home for our children.”
ZAMBIA’S president, Hakainde Hichilema,
hit back at suggestions that a wave of carbon offsetting deals in African
countries by a UAE sheikh, which include his country, are a new “scramble for
Africa” and added that there had been “climate love.”
Emmerson Mnangagwa, the president of ZIMBABWE, said “economic sanctions placed
on our country are hindering climate action”. He demanded the lifting of what
he described as the “heinous sanctions” put in place by the US, UK and EU in
2022 because of human rights violations such as murdering protesters, and not
respecting democracy and the rule of law.
Also
commenting were scientists, other academics, experts, hobbyists and lobbyists
and organizational representatives including Nicholas Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics, Scientist Bill Hare, at Climate Analytics who scowled that: “Overall,
the text looks like a major victory for the oil and gas producing countries and
fossil fuel exporters,” and, of course, Shiekh
Al-Jaber who beseeched the departing and departing:
“Colleagues and friends, it has been a personal privilege to guide this
conference.”
Tom Goldtooth, director of the Indigenous Environmental Network and
Cop veteran, said:
The UN
climate change conference is failing humanity and Mother Earth. We are seeing
firsthand the fossil fuel polluters and wealthy governments manipulating
developing countries to undermine real action on climate change. Indigenous leadership,
Indigenous knowledge holders, and youth spoke with one voice demanding a rapid
transition for a phase out of fossil fuels at source. Falling on deaf ears of
the governments, instead more false solutions are being pushed to accelerate
climate change and deforestation including carbon capture and storage, carbon
markets and offsets, nature based solutions, hydrogen and nuclear power.”
The fact that fossil fuels got a
mention at all is a triumph, said Ani Dasgupta, president and CEO of the World
Resources Institute, a non-profit research organization focused on climate
change. The draft text went through multiple iterations over the course of the
negotiations, and the draft version, supported by oil and gas producing
nations, dropped a reference to the root cause of climate change entirely. But
pushback from the U.S., the E.U., and AOSIS saw fossil fuels put back in at the
last minute, even though the final version lacked the concrete term “phaseout”
that many nations, including Samoa, wanted to see. “Fossil fuels finally faced
a reckoning at the U.N. climate negotiations after three decades of dodging the
spotlight,” said Dasgupta, in a statement. “This historic outcome marks the
beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era.”
(Time, Attachment Twenty)
Unofficial spokesman but former Vice President and climate catalyst
emeritus Gore said that “the decision at Cop28 to finally recognize that the climate crisis is, at its heart, a
fossil fuel crisis is an important milestone. But it is also the bare minimum
we need and is long overdue. The influence of petrostates is still evident in
the half measures and loopholes included in the final agreement.”
Presumably back home, he drafted a draft of his own – a composition for
the New York Times “reflecting” on his trip to Abu Dhabi (Attachment Twenty
One) After Timester
Lisa Friedman made note of responses by a couple of oily royals, she wrote
that: “Not
everyone is convinced.”
Prince Abdulaziz
bin Salman, the energy minister of Saudi Arabia, said in an interview with Al
Arabiya, a Saudi-owned television network, that the deal would not affect his
country’s ability to sell its crude oil.
And Jaber, more or less renouncing
his labors in president over the climate summit, told The Guardian in an
interview that the United Arab Emirates national oil company would also
continue to invest in petroleum.
“Can they sell their crude today,
tomorrow, next week, next year?” Mr. Kerry said. “Sure.”
But, he added, “They’re going to,
like everybody else, have to transition away from fossil fuels.”
“You can speak with bravado and
say, Yeah, we’ll continue to make some investments,” Mr. Kerry said. “But if
people do what they’ve pledged to do, this will be a diminishing effort over
time. And there’ll be more and more investments going toward renewable, clean
energy.”
Mr. Kerry also said the fight to
control climate change will require confronting the world’s still-rising thirst
for oil and gas. In the United States, oil production is surging, and the Biden administration is
facing a looming decision over whether to expand its liquefied natural gas
exports.
The transition to renewable energy
“isn’t going to happen magically because everybody sits there and does business
as usual,” Mr. Kerry said. “The business as usual has to change.”
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Our
Lesson: December 11th through 18th, 2023 |
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Monday, December 11, 2023 Dow:
36,404.93 |
It’s Wonka Week. With the
strike done and Hollywood’s finest let loose to promote their canned and
bottled-up movies, TV and streaming series-es, there is such a glut of
product on the market at a time when Joneses are too busy to consume them
all, the flops are starting to fall – to be ground to quick dispatches to
lesser cable firms and what remains of the DVD market beneath the cold, cruel
heels of Barbenheimer. At least there will be trophies, for some,
if not revenue. On to the work of the week
and the United (sic) Nations was gored by, of all Security Councileers, the United (sic) States, which deemed their
resolution for a MidEast cease fire not only too
pro-Palestinian but also anti-Semitic.
Conferring and counseling (but neither condemning nor convincing)
Israel, its President Netanyahu and military IDF, President Joe and his
surrogates essentially greenlighted the continued shelling and strafing of
Gaza civilians. The media, at least,
downgraded their plight somewhat... from “cataclysmic” and/or “apocalyptic”
back down to plain old “dire”. What the United Nations was
unable to do as regards scolding and sanctioning Israel, the Republicans in
Congress were gleefully accomplishing in Washington: holding up aid to Israel
(and Ukraine, too... remember them?) as hostage to some poorly defined or
articulated “remedy” for the migrant crisis at the border – a proposal
problem to which novice Speaker Johson, Senate
minority leader McConnell and all of the elephants in the room are all
waiting for Djonald DisTracted
to pronounce a solution for. The once
and (if the polls are right) future President has been off the campaign trail
somewhat as he deals with his legal “issues”. As elephantine candidates
crisscross Iowa, third (fouth, eighth?) party
candidacies wax and wane. RFK (Junior) is still in, as is Manchin (probably)
but Liz Chaney is wavering after a WSJ poll shows that her appearance on the
balance all but guarantees Trump’s Restoration. Tucker Carlson isn’t running for President,
but he will start and lead a new news Network called, of course,
“Tucker”. And if he makes up with and
merges with Fox, the combination of the two will be “Fu***r”... and if young
Murdoch buys out and converts the left wing, “Mother Jones”, the new network
will be “MotherFu***r”. |
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Tuesday, December 12, 2023 Dow:
36,577.94 |
It’s National Poinsettia Day. With Christmas topiary in
tow, Don Jones is drowning (in the West), shivering (in the East) or hiding
in the basement from tornadoes (the Middle). President Z, arrives in the
cold, cold Capitol to receive an even colder reception from some Democrats
and more Republicans tired of paying his arms and ammo bills – not even with
weasel words the way they want to cut off Israel. “Get used to it,” they say of a Russian
conquest that will send Zelenskyy to party in prison with Navalny, wherever he is.
Back to work in the
interstices between holidays, the courts rule and regulate Americans like
Kate Cox, the Texas lady carrying a dead baby she’s prohibited from aborting
so she does the sensible thing and emigrates to another state... unnamed to
frustrate God’s Army. Next up,
Kentucky. Jack Smith tries speeding up
some of the Trump trials to sabotage his electoral aspirations, while Speaker
Johnson pursues impeachment, even though there’s no evidence of President
Joe’s collusion with Hunter’s nefarious (and, he claims, “former”) lifestyle
of drugs, hookers, porn and dirty Chinese and Ukraine money. And don’t forget Rudy G! |
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Wednesday, December 13, 2023 Dow: 37,090.24 |
And it’s National Cocoa Day. Don and Dow Jones sip a hot cuppa and smile as the Fed fails to raise interest rates
and even hints at cuts in 2024 – which sends stocks soaring. Unemployment is down too, wages up , inflation stalling (except for scarce fire-retarded
Christmas trees). Trump’s lawyers can also
enjoy a drink as lower courts deem his arguments of Presidential (and former
Presidential) invulnerability a fair and logical contention. Jack Smith snarls. Ordinary criminals will have
their day in court too... the Detroit synagogue stabber, The suspected co-ed kidnapper in and
around the University of Arizona remains at large. On the civil end, God’s lawyers conatinue prosecuting abortion pill cases and are oozing
into anti-contraception. Over there (and above), COP28
finally drafts and passes a resolution which John Kerry calls a sea-change
(critics call it something else). |
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Thursday, December 14, 2023 Dow:
37,248.35 |
It’s the eleventh anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre. (635 mass shootings so far this year!) Hamas terrorists, on the run
in Gaza, going global – but badly, cells in Denmark and Germany are shut down
and locked up. In Detroit, a synagogue
stabber is arrested but the authorities deny, deny, deny... he is not a terrorist. Just a poor boy with issues? In Gaza, Israel continues bombing civilians
as President Joe pleads, impotently, that they are losing in the court of
World Opinion... advisor John Kirby ducking questions as Netanyahu orders
Mossad to cancel endeavors by Qatar to broker hostage swap. Otherwise, the Don is happy
because the Dow is happy – and the Dow is happy because inflation is easing,
wages are up and the Fed lets the interes rates
slide for the rest of the year... hinting that 2024 might see
reductions! The news sends shoppers
out to put their Christmas gifts on plastic and, if they’re wealthy, look for
a house to buy. In support of the bull
market, a bull escapes his slaughterhouse and runs down the railroad tracks
in Newark. Popular pressure ensures he’ll
escape the butcher and live out life as a stud. Oprah turns 70, gets a
portrait in the Smithsonian and promotes her remake of “The Color
Purple”. Willie Nelson turns 90, gets
a fatty and promotes his new book/ Congress gives Glad Vlad an
early (Orthodox) Christmas present by yanking aid from the Ukes. “Peace will now come,” he says, “when we
achieve our goals.” |
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Friday, December 15, 2023 Dow:
37,305,15 |
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) kill three suspicious persons in
Gaza... trouble is, they’re escaped hostages, all Israeli. Hostage families outraged. President Joe pulls Kirby, sends Jake
Sullivan in to wheedle Bibi, who is still determined to fight on until Hamas
is destroyed. Hamas terrprosts, instead, extends their Eurocampaign
to the Netherlands... and are foiled again.
“Rats!” With the New Hampshire
primary five months off, Nikki Haley snags a key endorsement, Granite State
Governor Chris Sununu and says that, while The Donald was the right candidate
for
Trump
yawns. But his old attorney, Rudy G.,
gets socked with damages of $148M for defaming two Georgia election workers. Winning in court... Prince Harry gets a
judgment against U.K. tabloids like the Mirror group. His reward?
$180 thousand dollars! Jill Biden presents a modern
version of the Nutcracker with dancing Nutcrackers and ballerinas and a songtrack.
Children adore it, but some adults call it “creepy”. |
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Saturday, December 16, 2023 Dow:
Closed |
Wall Street enjoyed a mighty week.
The Dow hit an all-time high... crashing throught
he 37,000 ceiling; the Fed paused interest rate hikes and said they might
actually lower the tab in 2024;
mortgage rates fell below 7% and wages actually outpaced prices. “We have some great numbers here,” said one
of President Joe’s advisors. Oily drone attacks against
Israel and the U.S. in the Red Sea prompt retaliatory measures. The U.S.S. Kearney shoots down fourteen of
the dity birds.
U.S.P.S. contracts with big boxers to make deliveries of over 70M
packages – up from 60M last year. Flush with big post-Covid
demand, retailers look forward to a banner Chrismas. |
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Sunday, December 17, 2023 Dow: Closed |
It’s the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. Revolutions sweep Latin
America - Chile and Argentina embrace dictatorships. Despite the war, Gaza is quiet on the
political front as President Joe touts a two-state solution... it would be
better if Jordan absorbed the West Bank and Egypt took Gaza but nobody wants
these people and their rubble. Israeli
families protest killing of hostages by the IDF who fired on three escapees
in defiance of orders. An estimated
twenty hostages have been killed to date. On the Sunday talkshows, Nikki Haley brings along Gov. Chris Sununu and
they are optimistic about New Hampshire (because Democrats and Independents
can vote in the Republican primary).
She contends that Trump put us in debt... Sununu says she’ll defend the
Texas politicians who ordered a woman to give birth to a deformed infant that
would desroy her health because: “It’s the law!” And Congress postpones their
vacation (until January 8th!) in order to get to a deal about
border crackdown and liberation of Lord Byron Jones as regards aid to Ukraine
and Israel. |
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Again, the Fed’s decision
to stall interest rate hikes and maybe even start reducing them next year
bolstered the Dow and the Don... the former to an all-time record, the latter
a little bit closer to parity with a decade ago. Congress fled chilly
Washington for their own home states and cities to enjoy Christmas and
welcome the donor class Santa – and Nikki Haley’s friends were especially
generous, especially the Koch dark money family and New Hampshire (and New
Englander) moderate Republicans who follow the Sununu clan instead of The
Donald. But polling remained
unaffected – other than that Li’l Nikki has slipped
into second place ahead of a bewildered and bedeviled Saint Ron. Is her softness on Djonald
UnTouchable a ploy for Veep. Only Chris Christie (still hanging around
at about 5% attacked The Donald. Vivek
Ramaswamy... all but disappeared. The print, broadcast,
social, unsocial and alternate media are all compiling lists of (mostly) nice
and a few naughty names to present their plaudits to, so we’ll finish the
year by mentioning a few of their suggestions. And we’ll reconfigure the Don to begin
2024, too. |
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CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE
ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000 (REFLECTING…
approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013) Negative/harmful indices
in RED.
See a further explanation of categories here… ECONOMIC INDICES (60%)
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SOCIAL
INDICES (40%)
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ACTS of MAN |
12% |
|
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|
World Affairs |
3% |
450 |
12/11/23 |
-0.2% |
12/25/23 |
458.37 |
457.45 |
President
Zelenskyy arrives in DC, begging for guns and money. Republicans tell him go pleasure
yourself. President Joe says Russian
conquest would have... yes... dire
consequences. Chile & Argentina elect
neo-Nazi gumments – latter promptly devalues the
peso |
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|
War and terrorism |
2% |
300 |
12/11/23 |
-0.2% |
12/25/23 |
295.46 |
294.87 |
Israel
Defense Force admits it mistakenly killed three hostages. UN votes 105-10 for pro-Hamas cease fire;
America and Israel say “Nuts!” As
Qataris broker new hostage swap, investigators charge they’ve been funneling
funny funds for Hamas tunneling. Hamas
terrorists captured in Denmark and Germany.
Drones and rockets from Yemen cause shipping companies to desert Red
Sea; supply chain crises predicted.
USS Kearney shoots down 14 of them.
Sen. Chris van Hotten (D-Md) says Putin and
Iran want US to invade Yemen. |
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|
Politics |
3% |
450 |
12/11/23 |
-0.1% |
12/25/23 |
481.88 |
481.40 |
KMac gives farewell
speech: advising “do not be fearful.”
House agrees, then goes home for a month’s vacation. Liz Cheney floats new Conservative Party –
then sinks it after polls say it would guarantee Trump victory. WSJ shows Donald 4 pts. ahead of Biden;
Haley 17 points and on a roll after NH Gov. Sununu endorses – the key issue,
men in women’s sports? Former RNC
chair Reince Priebus says Americans are angry and want “a bigger middle
finger”. Jill Biden presents “creepy”
Nutcracker jazz and tap dancing video some compare to “Hunger Games”. |
|||
|
Economics |
3% |
450 |
12/11/23 |
+0.5% |
12/25/23 |
436.97 |
439.15 |
Inflation
creeps down: 3.2 to 3.1% on cheaper gas, Dow up 12.8% on Fed halting rate
hikes. Christmas retail sales up – and
so is credit card debt. USPS, UPS and
Fed Ex resort to automation to deal with 70M Christmas packages, up from 60M
last year. Mergers & takeovers:
Cigna/Humana called off. |
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|
Crime |
1% |
150 |
12/11/23 |
+0.1% |
12/25/23 |
244.05 |
244.29 |
Killers at
large: 13 year old armed robber shoots victim in Alabama – still on the
prowl. Killers caught: Nebraska
priest murderer, Detroit synagogue stabber (“not a terrorist,” cops say), 85
year old DC man stabs wife in fight over pancakes. Police warn holiday shoppers of gift card
scams. Kidnappers hunting co-eds at U.
of Arizona. Reality show couple
accused of stealing IDs from camera crew. |
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ACTS of GOD |
(6%) |
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Environment/Weather |
3% |
450 |
12/11/23 |
-0.3% |
12/25/23 |
394.63 |
393.45 |
Storms,
floods, tornadoes and freezing temperatures travel coast to coast, reaching
killer intensity on the East coast where holiday travel flights are cancelled
and roadways flooded. |
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|
Disasters |
3% |
450 |
12/11/23 |
+0.3% |
12/25/23 |
420.02 |
421.28 |
Arizona
sends National Guard to border to fight off migrant swarms. Tenants saved in Bronx apartment
collapse. Children playing on freeway
rescued. Jet Blue pilot averts crash
in small airport without traffic controllers. |
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LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX |
(15%) |
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Science, Tech, Educ. |
4% |
600 |
12/11/23 |
+0.1% |
12/25/23 |
635.40 |
636.04 |
Enormous
solar flare rattles communications devices – NASA calls it the largest since
2017. Virtuous wealthy students at
Harvard, Penn and MIT rally against cruel, racist college administrators over
anti-Semitism or anti-anti-Sematism and giving legal answers to moral questions. |
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|
Equality (econ/social) |
4% |
600 |
12/11/23 |
+0.1% |
12/25/23 |
635.55 |
636.19 |
Religious
lawyers work to ban abortion pills; next up... contraception. Protests and training promoted as only 2%
of pilots are black. Protesters win
battle to remove Confederate monuments from Arlington Cemetery. Next step: dig up the traitors’ graves. |
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|
Health |
4% |
600 |
12/11/23 |
-0.2% |
12/25/23 |
474.82 |
473.87 |
Scientists
developing cure for morning sickness.
TV doctors say fat children should get counseling, drugs and surgery
but other doctors warn about negative side effects of weight loss drugs. Tesla takes back 2M self driving cars that
self-crash. Quaker Oats recalls salmonellic granola.
FDA says contaminated applesauce pouches for kids deliberately
poisoned by Ecuadorians. |
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|
Freedom and Justice |
3% |
450 |
12/11/23 |
-0.2% |
12/25/23 |
472.92 |
471.97 |
Jack Smith
urges speedups in 2 of 5 Trump trials.
Texas abortion woman flees state to kill unviable foetus. Rudy G. sued by two slandered Ga. election
workers. They want 43M. They get 148M. Prince Harry gets $180 thousand in slander suit against Mirror tabloids. Fifteen Air Forcers get collateral justice
for their collusion with traitor Texiera. Mother of school shooter gets 2 years for
child neglect, 2 more for gun crime |
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|
MISCELLANEOUS and TRANSIENT INDEX |
(7%) |
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Cultural incidents |
3% |
450 |
12/11/23 |
+0.1% |
12/25/23 |
516.24 |
516.92 |
Ohtani jumps
crosstown, defers most of 700M salary.
Mahomes explodes after Kelcey
TD called back for tickytack penalty. Oprah turns 70, gets a portrait in the
Smithsonian; Willie Nelson turns 90, gets a fattie. Miriam Bialik gets fired from Jeopardy,
leaving Ken Jennings as sole host. RIP actor Andre Braugher
(“Brooklyn 999”)
Coroner says Matthew Perry took Ketamine, passed out and
drowned in hot tub. |
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|
Misc. incidents |
4% |
450 |
12/11/23 |
+0.1% |
12/25/23 |
498.45 |
498.95 |
Bull
escapes from slaughterhouse, runs down subway tracks in Newark = captors send
it to survival farm. Persons of the
Year named or nominated everywhere – some noted next Lesson. Vatican trial snares fraudulent Cardinals
while Pope Frank says he’ll bless same-sex couples (but not marry them). Memphis Devil worshippers trying to set up
“Satan After School” clubs for children, |
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The Don Jones Index for the week of December 11th through December 17th,
2023 was UP 18.80 points
The Don Jones
Index is sponsored by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired Congressman
and Independent Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian
Doohan, Administrator. The CNC denies,
emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well as any of its officers
(including former Congressman Parnell, environmentalist/America-Firster Austin
Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna Finch) and references to Parnell’s works,
“Entropy and Renaissance” and “The Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best,
mere pawns in the web-serial “Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective
legal action against parties promulgating this and/or other such slanders.
Comments,
complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com.
ATTACHMENT ONE – From the NEW YORKER
WHAT DID COP28 REALLY ACCOMPLISH?
At the end of the day—or
record-hot year—what matters is not what language countries agree to but what
they actually do.
Three decades after agreeing to avoid
“dangerous” warming, the nations of the world today acknowledged that this
would involve “transitioning away from fossil fuels.” This can be found on page
5 of the final document that emerged from the latest round of climate
negotiations—cop28—which just ended, in Dubai. Depending on how you
look at things, the statement represents either a genuine breakthrough that
will allow the globe to avert catastrophe or a point so obvious that what it
really reveals is how far offtrack things have veered.
First up, possibility No. 1: This
year, greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil-fuel use are expected to total 36.8
billion metric tons. Emissions from changes in land use, mostly from chopping
down forests, are expected to add another four billion tons. Meanwhile, the
world is already experiencing what many scientists say is “dangerous” climate
change: extreme heat waves,
extreme rainfall,
rapidly intensifying hurricanes,
ever-increasing melt off of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. (Just in the
final days of the cop, heat
records were set in places as varied as Spain, China, and Mauritius.)
In light of this situation, which
might be called “dire,” were the word not too weak, dozens of countries,
including the nations of the European Union, came to Dubai pushing for an
agreement on “phasing out” fossil fuels. To the representatives of small island
nations, many of which are in danger of disappearing under rising seas, the
matter was considered an existential one. Behind the scenes, though, many other
countries—in particular, it seems, Saudi Arabia—were pushing back. (Almost half
of Saudi Arabia’s G.D.P. comes from selling fossil fuels.) On Monday, the
president of cop28, Sultan
Ahmed Al Jaber, who also happens to be the head of the United Arab Emirates’
state-owned oil company, released a draft text that omitted the phaseout
language. The move was seen as a capitulation to fossil-fuel interests, and the
reaction was fierce: “We will not go silently to our watery graves,” John Silk,
the head of the Marshall Islands’ delegation, said. “COP28 is now on the verge
of complete failure,” the former Vice-President Al Gore tweeted. The draft, he wrote, “reads as if OPEC
dictated it word for word.”
Two days later, a new text
appeared. In this version, under Article II A, nations were exhorted to take
steps to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, including “transitioning away from
fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner.” By
this point, the session had already gone into overtime, and the new draft, dubbed
the U.A.E. Consensus, was quickly adopted. Al
Jaber declared the deal “historic,” adding, “We have delivered a paradigm
shift.”
Some hailed the agreement as a
carbon-intensive version of Nixon goes to China. “That it has taken an
oil-producing country to introduce such a commitment into a Cop outcome for the
first time is remarkable,” Fiona Harvey, of the Guardian, wrote.
“That the president of this Cop is chief executive of the United Arab Emirates’
national oil company, Adnoc, almost defies belief.”
The most upbeat assessments held that the agreement would send a strong
signal—to politicians, to investors, and to activists. (“I think this is a
global turning point,” the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der
Leyen, said.)But how is it possible that twenty-eight
negotiating sessions were needed to agree on what has been self-evident all
along, which is that dealing with climate change will require phasing out or
transitioning away from fossil fuels? It is this question which brings us to
possibility No. 2: “That this deal has been hailed as a landmark is more a
measure of previous failures,” is how James Dyke, the assistant director of the
Global Systems Institute, at Britain’s University of Exeter, put it.
The goal of avoiding “dangerous”
warming lies at the heart of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change, a treaty drafted in 1992. (Virtually every nation in the world is now
party to the convention, hence the Conference of the Parties.) In the years
since the treaty was adopted, the world has emitted more CO2 than
it did in all the prior millennia of human history. This dismal record reflects
failures and injustices of many different kinds; what unites them is a
refusal—largely by the Global North, but also, increasingly, by nations in the
South—to face up to a simple set of geophysical facts. Burning fossil fuels
inevitably produces carbon dioxide. CO2 hangs around in the
atmosphere for a long time—on the order of centuries—and, the more it builds up
in the air, the warmer the world will get. (As an added disaster,
carbon-dioxide emissions are acidifying the oceans.)
The desire to avoid confronting
this unfortunate reality has produced any number of schemes for dealing with
climate change without dealing with fossil fuels. It’s been proposed that
emissions from power plants can be captured and then pumped underground, or
that immense amounts of CO2 can be sucked out of the air with
chemicals, or that it can be removed by planting millions of trees, which will
then get burned, producing emissions that can be trapped, and so on. The final
communiqué from cop28
implicitly endorses these schemes by referring to emissions “abatement,” a word
that, in one form or another, is used four times. (According to an analysis by
the Center for International Environmental Law, at least four hundred and
seventy-five lobbyists working on what’s known as “carbon capture and storage,”
or C.C.S., attended the session in Dubai.) As Bloomberg noted,
the agreement “cemented” a role for C.C.S, even though hardly any C.C.S.
projects actually exist.
At the end of the day—or
record-hot year—what matters, of course, is not what language countries agree
to but what they actually do. When the Saudis tried to block the phaseout
language, they were, it could be argued, simply being honest: they have no
intention of ceasing to export, or use, fossil fuels. Other countries,
including the United States, by this line of reasoning, were being disingenuous
in Dubai; they pushed for a phaseout, but show little evidence of transitioning
away from or even slowing down fossil-fuel production. (In recent years, the
U.S. has become the world’s largest oil producer, pumping out some twenty
million barrels a day, and also the world’s largest producer of natural gas.)
Certainly, everyone should hope
that the outcome of the negotiations in Dubai represents, as Al Jaber put it, a
“paradigm shift.” But, after twenty-eight cops,
and twenty-eight years of rising emissions, skepticism is clearly justified.
Perhaps by next year’s cop, the
significance of the U.A.E. Consensus will be clear. The session is scheduled to
take place in another petrostate, Azerbaijan.
ATTACHMENT
TWO – FROM the WASHINGTON POST
Pollution fueling a sex imbalance among endangered green sea turtles
By Erin Blakemore November 26, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST
Green sea turtles are producing more
females in response to a warming climate — and human-caused pollution is
helping fuel the surge, a recent analysis suggests.
Writing in Frontiers in Marine
Science, researchers say ocean contaminants are contributing to a surge of
female green sea turtles.
Like many other reptiles, sea
turtles’ sex development is influenced by the temperature of their nests. Green
sea turtles incubate in large clutches of eggs their migratory mothers bury in
the sand on nesting beaches. Over the course of about two months, they develop
from embryos into tiny turtles, with warmer sands producing more females and
cooler sands producing more males.
On one hand, this form of sex
determination is a brilliant evolutionary strategy, tipping the scales toward
more offspring-producing females and possibly helping sea turtles adapt to
climate change. But there’s a downside: As global warming increases
temperatures on land and at sea, green sea turtles are producing so many
females that both their genetic diversity and species survival are at risk.
Too many females means fewer males
to mate with, and the female green sea turtle ranks are already booming,
leading to groups that are up to 99 percent female. One of the largest
populations in the world has been producing primarily females for at least 20
years, another study found, threatening the “complete feminization” of
the already endangered animals.
In the current study, researchers
took liver samples from hatchlings, then analyzed them for substances that
might have influenced sex development. They found evidence of contaminants
thought to mimic the female sex hormone estrogen inside the developing embryo,
pushing the odds toward female sex development.
Turtles born with higher
concentrations of these substances — including metals such as chromium, lead
and cadmium and industrial byproducts like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) —
were likelier to be female.
The study points to the compounded
effects of human activities on ocean life. But it could also trigger solutions,
the researchers say.
“Since most heavy metals come
from human activity such as mining, runoff, and pollution from general urban
center waste, the best way forward is to [use] science-based long-term
strategies to reduce the input of pollutants into our oceans,” Jason van de
Merwe, a marine ecologist at Griffith University and the study’s senior author,
said in a news release.
This Fox News host gives
climate skeptics airtime but went solar at home
How humans have altered the
Earth enough to start a new chapter of geologic time
ATTACHMENT
THREE – FROM the UNITED
NATIONS
UN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE -
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Timeline: 30 Nov - 13 Dec, 2023
16:00 As an alternative to
collapse, COP28 has gone into OVERTIME - DJI
13 Dec, 2023
COP28 Agreement Signals “Beginning
of the End” of the Fossil Fuel Era
COP28 closed today with an
agreement that signals the “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era by
laying the ground for a swift, just and equitable transition, underpinned by
deep emissions cuts and scaled-up finance.
In a demonstration of global solidarity,
negotiators from nearly 200 Parties came together in Dubai with a decision on
the world’s first ‘global stocktake’ to ratchet up
climate action before the end of the decade – with the overarching aim to keep
the global temperature limit of 1.5°C within reach.
“Whilst we didn’t turn the page on
the fossil fuel era in Dubai, this outcome is the beginning of the end,” said
UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell in
his closing speech. “Now all governments and businesses need to turn these pledges
into real-economy outcomes, without delay.”
Read the UN
Climate Change press release
ATTACHMENT
FOUR – FROM COP28.com via TWITTER
Official account
of #COP28UAE (Draft Text) – The 28th session of the UN Climate Change
Conference of Parties in the UAE. November 30 - December 12, 2023 at Expo City
Dubai
Dec 11
“The COP28
Presidency has been clear from the beginning about our ambitions. This text
reflects those ambitions and is a huge step forward. Now it is in the hands of
the Parties, who we trust to do what is best for humanity and the planet.”
Dec 11
As we move
from the Presidency’s Action Agenda to the Parties Action Outcomes, find out
more about what’s actually happening in Dubai. Time is running out to keep 1.5
within reach. We must unite, act and deliver.
,
COP28_UAE is akin to the Olympics of climate change, where
the pursuit of environmental excellence is a collective journey. Success is
measured not in medals but in milestones towards a sustainable and resilient
world.
Dec 11
“Let this COP
be remembered as a collective COP. A COP that transformed how COPs are
conducted.” - Dr. Sultan Al Jaber. #COP28 #UniteActDeliver
Dec 3
Today at
COP28, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, COP28 President, met Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, Minister
of Ecological Transition, where they discussed a robust response to the Global Stocktake and delivering ambitious outcomes at COP28.
#DrSultanAlJaber #COP28
#ClimateAction
Dec 11
التقى معالي د. سلطان الجابر
رئيس مؤتمر
الأطراف
COP28، معالي تيريزا ريبيرا وزيرة الانتقال
البيئي والتحدي الديموغرافي
الإسبانية،
حيث ناقشا
ضرورة تنسيق استجابة
طموحة لنتيجة الحصيلة العالمية لتقييم التقدم المحرز في تنفيذ
أهداف اتفاق باريس
في مؤتمر
الأطراف.
Dec 3
Dr. Sultan Al
Jaber, COP28 President, reconnected with Ruslan Edelgeriev, Adviser to the President and Special
Presidential Representative on Climate Issues, where they held discussions on
advancing the COP28 action agenda and securing positive outcomes on key climate
topics.…
·
Dec 11
التقى معالي د. سلطان الجابر
رئيس مؤتمر
الأطراف
COP28، رسلان إيدلغيرييف،
مستشار الرئيس الروسي لشؤون تغير
المناخ لمناقشة دفع التنفيذ
والنهوض بأجندة مؤتمر الأطراف
COP28 والوصول
إلى نتائج
فاعلة بشأن موضوعات
المناخ الرئيسية
ATTACHMENT
FIVE – FROM COP28
climate summit in Dubai – press clips...
COP28 live: Climate talks run into
night as countries seek deal on fossil fuels
A new draft deal is expected
overnight, after the current text removed a promise to "phase out"
fossil fuels.
'Small minority'
of nations blocking progress on fossil fuels at COP28, says at-risk Vanuatu
The COP28 meeting in Dubai is at a
"critical stage", said Ralph Regenvanu,
whose low-lying Pacific nation faces a severe threat from rising...
Mint
(Finance journal)
CoP-28 diary: We
must learn to distinguish signal from noise at climate summits | Mint
A noisy parallel track of panel
discussions and pledges has arisen at CoPs over the years but we should stay
focused on the real...
Guardian U.K.
Cop28 draft
climate deal criticised as 'grossly insufficient' and
'incoherent'
Text now being considered by
governments calls for 'reducing both consumption and production of fossil
fuels'
Global climate
summit is in overtime as bitter division over fossil fuels delays agreement
International negotiators at the
COP28 climate summit are preparing for a long day of painstaking negotiations
likely to stretch into...
COP28 forced
into overtime as fossil fuel phase-out divides countries
COP28 Summit:
Climate talks enter last day with no agreement in sight
Hopes for finishing a critical
climate summit on time faded as countries were still far apart on key issues,
including an agreement on what...
COP28 is not just the Super
Bowl of virtue signaling. It's ...
2 days
ago — ... COP28 was the phase-out fossil fuels. ... A former columnist for the Fiscal
Times, she writes for The Hill and contributes frequently to Fox News.
COP28 heads for
extra time as majority clashes with Saudi Arabia
Inside the plush
COP28 venue that may not cushion the anger
The United Arab Emirates has
staged a plush and comfy climate summit in Dubai. Will it cushion the anger
that is now erupting?
Greens erupt as
fossil fuel 'phaseout' is dropped from proposed climate deal
COP28 is now on the verge of
complete failure,” former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said. But organizers of
the summit in Dubai urged nations...
Anger and
frustration as COP28 draft text omits fossil fuel phaseout
The draft text for a COP28 climate
deal has drawn widespread criticism for not including the phasing out of fossil
fuels.
COP28 draft deal
slammed for dropping call to phase out fossil fuels
A draft deal at the COP28 climate
talks in Dubai stops short of calling on nations to gradually phase out fossil
fuels, whose use is the...
COP28 in
overtime as countries feud over fate of oil and gas
Proposed Final
COP28 Statement Eliminates Any Mention Of Fossil Fuel
Phase Out
Saudi-led fight
against COP28 deal shows 'panic,' German climate envoy says
COP28 success
(or failure) hinges on draft fossil fuel language
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates —
Countries are headed for marathon climate negotiations, after receiving a draft
decision text from the COP...
What It Was Like
Reporting From the COP28 Climate Summit
About 70,000 people arrived in the
United Arab Emirates, one of the world's largest oil producers, for this year's
United Nations climate...
As COP28 climate
talks move closer to final deal, critics say draft is lacking
A new draft released Monday
afternoon on what's known as the global stocktake
called for countries to reduce “consumption and production of...
Even if COP28
fails, it has changed the conversation on fossil fuels
The COP28 climate summit in Dubai,
United Arab Emirates, has entered overtime with a real possibility the talks
could end in failure,...
COP28 Enters
Final Stretch as UAE Pushes Fossil Fuel Deal
The COP28 climate summit in Dubai
entered its final hours as Sultan Al Jaber, the Emirati oil executive who's
presiding over this year's...
ATTACHMENT
SIX – FROM the WASHINGTON POST
COP28 LIVE UPDATES (Takeaways)
Countries clinch unprecedented deal to transition away from fossil
fuels
Updated December 13, 2023 at
9:47 a.m. EST|Published December 12, 2023 at
10:37 p.m. EST
DUBAI — Nearly 200 countries
struck a breakthrough climate agreement Wednesday, calling for a transition
away from fossil fuels in an unprecedented deal that targets the greatest
contributors to the planet’s warming. The deal came swiftly — with no
discussion or objection — in a packed room in Dubai following two weeks of
negotiations and rising contention. It is the first time a global climate deal
has specifically called to curb the use of fossil fuels.
s
·
The ‘beginning
of the end’ for fossil fuels
·
Kerry: Many
parties ‘would have liked clearer language’ on fossil fuels
·
Samoan delegate:
Deal was gaveled through when small island nations weren’t in the room
Here's what
to know
Countries agreed to transition
from fossil fuels “in a just, orderly and equitable manner” while “accelerating
action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping
with the science.”
After the deal was gaveled, the
lead negotiator for small island nations said they hadn’t been in the room for
the decision. Though they objected to aspects of the text, the group said it
wouldn’t try to undo the agreement.
The deal came after
through-the-night meetings, some 24 hours after talks were supposed to end.
9:47 a.m. EST
For years,
John Kerry doubted this type of climate deal was possible
By Timothy PukoClimate correspondent covering politics and policy
Diplomacy is tough.
It takes years to forge progress,
and the big deals that seem possible along the way can evaporate on the brink
of success.
In COP28’s waning hours, U.S.
climate envoy John F. Kerry thought several times that the summit might fail,
he told reporters Wednesday as the event wound to a close. And over the past several
years, the fears many countries had of “economic suicide” if
they gave up fossil fuels convinced him that a deal this broad would never be
possible.
But the types of compromises at COP28
have made other deals happen, like the Paris accord, and they’ve all become
essential to subtly pushing shifts in society, he said. Consumers are demanding
clean energy. Investors are committing money to build it. Now the new direct
signal to wean out fossil fuels will accelerate that effort, too, he said.
“It takes a long time before the
ship turns. … But I think it’s speeding up by the day,” he said late Wednesday
afternoon, hours after the agreement was reached. “The message coming out of
this COP is: We are moving away from fossil fuels. We’re not turning back. That
is the future.”
9:06 a.m. EST
The COP28
conference venue is finally emptying out
By Maxine Joselow
Reporter focusing on climate
change and environment
DUBAI — Empty pavilions, eerily quiet
streets and cleaned-out snack cases have replaced the once-bustling atmosphere
that characterized the COP28 conference venue here.
On Wednesday evening local time,
several hours after the final deal was struck, the only commotion was outside
China’s pavilion. There, more than a dozen people were waiting to snap a
picture with Chinese climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua and a giant panda statue.
The venue is set to transform into
a winter wonderland in the coming days, with the Winter City festival scheduled
to begin here Friday. The festival also has a green message: Its website urges visitors to “join Santa’s team on a quest
to become eco-heroes and save the North Pole” from melting.
8:17 a.m. EST
Just how
significant is the COP28 deal, anyway?
By Maxine Joselow
Now that negotiators have struck a
deal to curb fossil fuels at COP28, many journalists, activists and business
leaders are starting to ponder and debate its significance. Many agree on one
thing: Its impact will depend in large part on whether countries actually take
steps to implement it in the coming decade.
In a sign of the challenges that
lie ahead, some of the countries that advocated for strong language on
restricting fossil fuels — including the United States, Canada, Norway and
Australia — simultaneously have been expanding their oil and gas production.
For instance, while U.S. special
climate envoy John F. Kerry was pushing for a fossil fuel phaseout, the United States —
already the biggest oil producer in the world — has been churning out record amounts of oil this year.
“Whether this is a turning point
that truly marks the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era depends on the
actions that come next,” former vice president Al Gore said in a statement.
6:43 a.m. EST
The wins for
fossil fuels in the COP28 deal
The carefully crafted language of
Wednesday’s climate deal gives fossil fuels space to keep working, even in a
world where countries have all agreed they need to start cutting back.
This COP28 deal gets far more
specific than any prior COP on the options for cleaning up the world’s energy
systems. And in many cases, those options are tied to fossil fuels.
One such section calls on
“accelerating zero- and low-emission technologies,” with the “low emissions”
language itself opening the door to fossil fuels. The deal then suggests the
options for doing that could be “abatement and removal technologies such as
carbon capture and utilization and storage, particularly in hard-to-abate
sectors, and low-carbon hydrogen production,” more nods to fossil fuels.
Hydrogen burns with little greenhouse-gas emissions — but
often it is made with natural gas or other fossil fuels, producing
greenhouse-gas emissions during the process. In its raw form it can also cause chemical reactions that trap heat in
the atmosphere, raising questions about how climate-friendly it is if leaks are widespread.
Carbon-capture — or “abatement” —
systems have been pitched as technological solutions that can strip the
greenhouse gases out the emissions from fossil fuels. But they, too, come with environmental risks and uncertainty, including how effectively they work or how much energy they use in
the process.
And in the COP28 deal, scroll down just five short points from the
call to transition away from fossil fuels to find language likely to be used to
justify their continued use. The agreement, “Recognizes that transitional fuels
can play a role in facilitating the energy transition while ensuring energy
security,” it says.
Transitional there is almost
certainly a nod to natural gas, which burns cleaner than coal or oil and has
long been pitched as a “bridge fuel” societies can use while they take years to build
up cleaner alternatives. Natural gas, however, still produces carbon-dioxide emissions,
and can also be a risk for creating methane emissions, an even more powerful
greenhouse gas. But many countries, especially, in Europe, have grown more reliant on as energy prices have
soared and Russia has tried to leverage the power of its energy exports against
its enemies.
That language might be vague and
open to interpretation. But that’s a feature, not a bug for diplomats trying to
craft a broad compromise in a dangerous world full of economies not yet ready
to phase out fossil fuels entirely.
5:44 a.m. EST
More than
just oil-rich countries worked to protect fossil fuels
Saudi Arabia took a lot of the
heat for fighting against fossil fuel curbs at COP28, but as the conference
unfolded, it became clear many others didn’t want a fossil fuel phaseout either.
Conference advisers and national
delegates heard objections from China, India and countries in Africa and South
America. Many said current levels of engineering, technology and financing
can’t yet guarantee a complete transition to emissions-free energy — not at
least without risks to their power grids and economic development.
“It is China’s view that climate
action must include ambition and pragmatism,” a Chinese delegate said during
the country’s speaking time in the concluding meeting, in comments relayed
through conference translators.
And when a Saudi delegate spoke
earlier in the session, it was on behalf of 22 nations that negotiate as a bloc
in the COP process. Its outcomes and programs should support anything that
might be able to reduce emissions, said Albara Tawfiq, chair of the Arab Group, citing carbon capture and
sequestration, a system for removing greenhouse gases from fossil fuel
emissions.
“We must use every opportunity to
reduce emissions regardless of the source,” he said, in remarks relayed through
translators. “We must choose all technologies to this effect.”
He advocated for the freedom of
each country to address climate change in accordance with its culture, a common
demand for many rich countries where oil and gas production dominate the
economy and for poor ones without the money to quickly shift to clean energy.
5:17 a.m. EST
What happened
when the final deal was adopted?
The adoption of the final deal happened
quickly and unexpectedly. In case you missed it, here’s a summary of what went
down in that watershed moment.
COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber
read aloud a portion of the deal and asked whether any delegates objected.
Then, abruptly, he declared that “hearing no objection, it is so decided” and
banged his gavel.
Many people in the room were
confused because they had been bracing for hours of discussion before the
agreement. But once it became clear that the deal had been adopted, nearly
everyone rose in a standing ovation, and cheers echoed throughout the
conference venue.
U.S. special climate envoy John F.
Kerry rose from his seat and hugged Dan Jorgensen, Denmark’s minister for
climate, energy and utilities. Jorgensen clapped the veteran U.S. negotiator on
the back.
“Over the last two weeks, we have
worked very hard to secure a better future for our people and our planet,” Al
Jaber said after delegates had taken their seats again. “We should be proud of
our historic achievement. And the United Arab Emirates, my country, is rightly
proud of its role in helping you to move this forward.”
4:16 a.m. EST
The
‘beginning of the end’ for fossil fuels
This was a paradigm-shifting day
for climate talks. That says as much about the past decades of negotiations as
it does about Wednesday’s agreement.
Though many countries, including
the United States, said the deal’s language on fossil fuels could have been
more stringent, they noted that never before had any global climate agreement
specifically targeted coal, oil and gas. Even the 2015 Paris accord focuses on
the need to decrease emissions without naming the primary source of planetary
warming.
“Humanity has finally done what is
long, long, long overdue,” said the European Union’s climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra. “Thirty years we’ve spent to arrive at the
beginning of the end of fossil fuels.”
But the deal hardly means an
immediate end to those sources of energy.
Though it calls on countries to
accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels in this decade, they are given
clearance to consider their own “national circumstances, pathways and
approaches.”
The chief global goal of the text
is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, but even in that scenario, there would
be a limited use for oil and gas. The text also mentions the need to ramp up
technologies “such as carbon capture” that could be used in tandem with fossil
fuels to capture emissions.
3:36 a.m. EST
Kerry: Many
parties ‘would have liked clearer language’ on fossil fuels
After the deal was agreed to, U.S.
climate envoy John F. Kerry acknowledged that “many, many people here would
have liked clearer language about the need to begin peaking and reducing fossil
fuels in this critical decade.”
He framed the agreement as a
compromise and a hard-fought diplomatic achievement. He referenced wars and
frayed global trust that many predicted at the outset of the talks could
complicate efforts to strike a meaningful deal.
“I think everybody here should be
pleased that in a world of Ukraine and the Middle East war and all the other
challenges of a planet that is foundering, this is a moment where
multilateralism has actually come together and people have taken individual
interests and attempted to define the common good,” Kerry said. “That is hard.
That is the hardest thing in diplomacy, the hardest thing in politics.”
Kerry, who turned 80 during this
event, appeared to be wearing the same tie as the day before — reflective of
through-the-night talks.
“While all of us can find a
paragraph or sentences or sections where we would have said it differently,
where we would have liked it not to appear, or something else to appear. But in
a multilateral venue, to have as strong a document as has been put together, I
find is cause for optimism, cause for gratitude and cause for some significant
congratulations to everybody here,” Kerry said.
3:19 a.m. EST
Samoan
delegate: Deal was gaveled through when small island nations weren’t in the
room
By Maxine Joselow,
Timothy Puko and Naomi Schanen
Samoa: COP28 deal agreed on
without small island nations
Samoan delegate Anne Rasmussen on
Dec. 13 said the COP28 climate agreement was gaveled through when diplomats
from small island nations were not present. (Video: COP28 Host Broadcaster via
Reuters)
In a moment that injected drama
into the summit’s finale, a Samoan delegate said the deal was gaveled through
when diplomats from small island nations were not in the room. Had they been
present, they would have voiced strong objections, she said.
“It seems that you just gaveled
the decision and the small island developing states were not in the room,” said
Anne Rasmussen, an official with Samoa’s Ministry of Natural Resources and
Environment and the lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, which
represents 39 low-lying island countries vulnerable to rising seas.
“We were working hard to
coordinate the 39 small island states, developing states, that are
disproportionately affected by climate change and so we were delayed in
arriving here,” she said. “This process has failed us.”
After her remarks, Rasmussen wiped
tears from her eyes. Several other delegates walked over and hugged her, and
about half of the room gave her a standing ovation.
However, a spokeswoman for the
Alliance of Small Island States later clarified that the group would not seek
to block the final deal. “We weren’t given the opportunity and will not now,”
the spokeswoman said in a text message.
2:53 a.m. EST
U.S.-China
relationship steals the spotlight
DUBAI — With COP28 leaders seated
and waiting onstage and the crowd ordered to sit, the world’s superpowers, the
United States and China, managed to steal a moment in the spotlight.
Longtime friends U.S. special
climate envoy John F. Kerry — just off his 80th birthday — and Chinese special
climate envoy Xie Zhenhua,
on the verge of his retirement, met in the front row, luring a gaggle of
delegates and photographers around them. They spoke briefly — out of this
reporter’s earshot — and shook hands before going their separate ways to
assigned seats on opposite sides of the plenary room.
2:13 a.m. EST
This is it …
maybe
It’s a nervous time at COP28, with
a compromise deal on the brink.
Many in the process, from leaders
down to activists, expect the new draft agreement released Wednesday morning to
be a near final deal. The plenary — still yet to start, 50 minutes delayed —
could lead to a final vote.
But there are still hours to go in
that process. Many countries will probably want to have a say, and it’s still a
distinct possibility that at least one of them pushes the process back to the
drawing board for a new, third draft agreement.
Summit hosts the United Arab
Emirates have been pushing for a timely conclusion, and one thing they have on
their side now is fatigue. Many delegates, advisers and observers are saying
they’ve slept only an hour or two. Ultimately, everyone involved may just want
this to end.
2:09 a.m. EST
Small island
nations signal they may reluctantly accept a deal
By Maxine Joselow
DUBAI — The Alliance of Small
Island States, which represents low-lying island countries vulnerable to rising
seas, suggested that while the latest draft deal does not address all of its
concerns, the group may reluctantly accept it as the final agreement.
The text “is an improvement and
does indeed reflect a number of submissions made by small island developing
states,” the alliance said in a statement released Wednesday morning local
time.
“However, our world’s window to
keeping 1.5 alive is rapidly closing, and we feel the text does not provide the
necessary balance to strengthen global action for course correction on climate
change,” the group added, referring to the global goal of limiting warming to
1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.
While the language is “certainly a
step forward,” it stops short of calling for a phaseout or phasedown of fossil
fuels — a key demand of island nations and other vulnerable countries, the
statement concluded.
The statement appears to signal
that the island nations are willing to adopt the deal later Wednesday, rather
than objecting and forcing delegates back to the negotiating table.
1:44 a.m. EST
What is
powerful and squishy in the new deal on fossil fuels
It’s not as absolute as some
environmentalists and vulnerable countries had pushed for, but the draft deal that is being discussed Wednesday at COP28
would be a historic first — and it is gaining early support.
STRONG POINTS
The agreement calls on countries
to start “transitioning away from fossil fuels,” a step never before accepted in the 30-year history of the summit.
It does not adopt the full fossil-fuel “phaseout” many activists and nations
had pushed for, but the language “calls on” countries to take this step. It
is widely considered to be stronger than the language in the first draft
agreement released Monday.
It also puts a timeline on the
effort, something missing in the first draft. The transition should include
“accelerating action in this critical decade.” Climate advocates and many
countries, including the U.S. delegation, have made clear that emissions
reductions by 2030 are crucial to stop the accumulation of greenhouse gases in
the atmosphere.
THE WIGGLE ROOM
The transition applies only to
“energy systems,” and fossil fuels are used for a lot more than just energy.
Plastic and fertilizer makers use fossil fuels to make their products, and
environmentalists say this likely leaves them unaffected and potentially still
contributing to greenhouse-gas emissions, ocean trash and other types of
pollution.
The language for “a just, orderly
and equitable” transition from fossil fuels could help poor countries and
protect consumers from soaring costs. But it also opens the door to the types
of “cavernous loopholes” environmentalists say could
undermine the deal’s effectiveness.
Many governments — including rich,
Western nations — have frequently cited the need for stability to justify record-high fossil-fuel subsidies. If the current text is
approved, interpreting its vague diplomatic language could be a source of
friction between industrialized nations and poor countries — and possibly trip
up future implementation and progress.
12:35 a.m. EST
What happens next?
By Maxine Joselow
Now that the COP28
presidency has released the latest text, delegates from each country are
heading to a plenary, where they will deliver speeches signaling whether they
will accept the language as the final agreement.
The United Nations operates by
consensus, meaning any single nation has the power to sink the deal.
12:20 a.m. EST
Parsing the
small words that can make or break a climate agreement
DUBAI — It can make all the
different when “could” becomes “calls on.”
For years, climate talks have
often turned on matters of word choice, and after a new draft text was released
Wednesday morning at COP28, negotiators looked at the small print, comparing it
with language from a widely panned draft released Monday.
In the crucial passage pertaining
to fossil fuels, countries originally were told that they “could” take the
step, among others, to reduce the consumption and production of fossil fuels.
The new draft “calls on” nations to “transition away from fossil fuels in
energy systems.”
“ ‘Calls on’ is much stronger,”
said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at the climate think tank E3G and a
veteran of climate summits and the U.N. jargon that goes with it. He said the
United Nations sometimes uses even stronger language, “urging” countries to
take action. “But that has been a red line for India and China and others,” who
have said they don’t want policies to be dictated to them.
Another much-discussed phrase pertaining
to fossil fuels — the “phaseout” — does not appear in the text.
“Transitioning away is definitely
weaker than a phaseout,” Meyer said.
He said countries like Saudi
Arabia could spin the text as a success, saying they thwarted that phaseout
language.
“You can see the tortured
language” that aims to bridge the huge gaps between nations, he said.
11:56 p.m. EST
Activists
grade draft deal as a B-, not an F
Catherine Abreu discusses the new
text to members of the media at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit on Wednesday in
Dubai. (Kamran Jebreili/AP)
DUBAI — At a news conference here,
four climate activists were asked to grade the draft agreement released
Wednesday morning. After rating the initial deal released Monday evening as an
F, most gave the update a B-, signaling a notable improvement.
Catherine Abreu, founder and
executive director of Destination Zero, said the deal deserves a B or B-
because it “calls on” countries to transition away from fossil fuels, rather
than giving countries the option to do so. “I do think that makes it stronger,”
she said.
Caroline Brouillette,
executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, agreed. But Jean Su,
acting co-executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the
deal deserves a C+ because it has some “loopholes,” including language on
phasing out fossil fuels from the energy sector but not necessarily other
sectors.
“That actually cuts us off from
dealing with plastics and fertilizers and other sectors that continue to
pollute the planet,” Su said.
11:47 p.m. EST
Activists
cheer move to ditch fossil fuels in proposed agreeement
Climate activists and environmental
groups, many of whom sharply criticized earlier drafts of a global pact at the
U.N. climate summit in Dubai, offered cautious optimism that the latest
proposed language would speed the world’s shift away from fossil fuels.
“This sends a clear signal that
the world is moving decisively to phase out fossil fuels,” Jake Schmidt, a
senior strategic director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said of an
updated proposal that emerged early Wednesday local time.
“It puts the fossil fuel industry
formally on notice that its old business model is expiring.”
Leaders from nearly 200 countries
have been grappling with how to solidify the first-ever global commitment to
abandon the burning of fossil fuels — the main driver of climate change. The
draft agreement circulating Wednesday calls for nations to ramp up action this
decade and to strive for net-zero emissions by 2050.
The latest text shows that “a
sharp turn away from fossil fuels toward clean energy in this critical decade
and beyond, aligned with the science, is essential to meet our climate goals,”
said Rachel Cleetus, a policy director for the Union
of Concerned Scientists.
Climate activists continued to
argue that the prospective agreement does not compel countries to move fast
enough and doesn’t do enough to ensure that the world’s energy transition
happens fairly and equitably.
“It sends a signal that the fossil
industry’s days are numbered,” Teresa Anderson, global climate lead at
ActionAid, said in a statement. “But the wealthiest countries have clearly
refused point blank to offer any new finance to help developing countries make
these targets a reality on the ground.”
Between that shortfall and various
other “loopholes,” she said, “it maps a rocky road towards a fossil free
future.”
11:28 p.m. EST
How a
potential second Trump term loomed over global climate talks
DUBAI — U.S. officials at
the U.N. Climate Change Conference here have tried to hammer home one message since Donald Trump left the White
House: The United States is fully committed to the fight against climate
change.
But while Biden administration
officials were sharing such assurances inside the U.S. pavilion on Friday,
outside the pavilion, a former Trump White House climate adviser was forecasting a potentially seismic shift in
international climate politics.
George David Banks, who traveled
to Dubai with a group of Republican lawmakers, predicted in an interview that
Trump would use a second term to again withdraw the United States from the Paris climate
accord. “My guess is that pulling out of the Paris agreement will be considered
in the first few weeks,” Banks said. “My guess is that they’ll have an executive
order already written. I think that’s a real scenario that people need to
consider.”
10:45 p.m. EST
Inside the
plush COP28 venue that may not cushion the anger
By Chico Harlan
DUBAI — For nearly two weeks and
counting, the lanyard-wearing negotiators taking part in global climate talks
have started their mornings with a transporting journey. They have left behind
their hotels and Airbnbs in Dubai’s haze-cloaked
skyline. They have traveled past the belching smokestacks and aluminum plants
along the coast. Then, finally, they have arrived at a distant, extraordinary,
self-contained world — an event venue that has already pulled off an unlikely
achievement.
It’s managed to make the
contentious talks a little more pleasant — although now everyone is in the
midst of a combative finale that could overshadow the carefully-cultivated
surroundings.
More on
climate change
Understanding
our climate: Global
warming is a real phenomenon, and weather disasters are undeniably
linked to it. As temperatures rise, heat waves are more often
sweeping the globe — and parts of the world are becoming
too hot to survive.
What can
be done? The Post is
tracking a variety of climate
solutions, as well as the Biden administration’s actions
on environmental issues. It can feel overwhelming facing the impacts
of climate change, but there are ways to
cope with climate anxiety.
Inventive
solutions: Some people
have built off-the-grid
homes from trash to stand up to a changing climate. As seas
rise, others are exploring how to
harness marine energy.
What
about your role in climate change? Our climate
coach Michael J. Coren is answering questions
about environmental choices in our everyday lives. Submit
yours here. You can also sign up
for our Climate Coach newsletter.
ATTACHMENT
SEVEN – FROM FOX BUSINESS
COP28 climate delegates agree to 'transition away' from fossil fuels
United
Nations secretary general tells those critical of COP28 deal that 'fossil fuel
phase out is inevitable whether they like it or not'
By Danielle
Wallace, Published December 13, 2023 7:05am
EST
Al Gore is the root of all climate insanity: Steve Milloy
Steve Milloy
discusses how Al Gore thinks the mental health crisis is linked to fears of not
solving climate change on ‘The Bottom Line.’
JOHN KERRY UNDERMINES AMERICAN INTERESTS EVERYWHERE HE GOES: SEN. DAN
SULLIVAN
UN climate summit serving gourmet burgers, BBQ as it
calls for Americans to stop eating meat.
'The
hypocrisy of the global elites never ceases to amaze,' GOP Rep Mike Flood tells
Fox News Digital
United
Nations climate change negotiators came to an agreement Wednesday to
"transition away" from fossil fuels during the COP28 annual summit
hosted in the United Arab Emirates.
Acting
quickly, leaving no time for critics to engage in floor debate, COP28 President
Sultan al-Jaber, who is also CEO of the UAE’s oil company, swiftly gaveled
approval Wednesday of a central document that takes aim at the burning of coal,
oil and gas without asking for comments.
"It is a
plan that is led by the science,’’ al-Jaber said, according to The Associated
Press. "It is an enhanced, balanced, but make no mistake, a historic
package to accelerate climate action. It is the UAE consensus… We have language
on fossil fuel in our final agreement for the first time ever."
The deal,
which also calls for tripling the use of renewable energy and doubling energy
efficiency, marked a milestone for the summit that’s been debating the issue
for nearly 30 years.
United
Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement championing the
deal to phase out fossil fuels, warning critics that the move is
"inevitable whether they like it or not."
"For the
first time, the outcome recognizes the need to transition away from fossil
fuels – after many years in which the discussion of this issue was
blocked," Guterres said in closing out the Dubai summit that stretched
from Nov. 30 until this week. "Science tells us that limiting global
heating to 1.5 degrees will be impossible without the phase out of all fossil
fuels on a timeframe consistent with this limit. This has been recognized
by a growing and diverse coalition of countries."
"To
those who opposed a clear reference to a phase out of fossil fuels in the COP28
text, I want to say that a fossil fuel phase out is inevitable whether they
like it or not," Kerry added. "Let’s hope it doesn’t come too
late."
President
Biden’s special envoy on climate change, John Kerry, said the agreement
demonstrates multilateralism can still work despite what the world sees with
wars in Ukraine and Israel. SWITCH
"I am in
awe of the spirit of cooperation that has brought everybody together,"
Kerry said, according to The Associated Press. "This document sends very
strong messages to the world."
JOHN KERRY PLEDGES TO SLASH EMISSIONS
FROM AC UNITS, REFRIGERATORS TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE
Kerry
previously indicated that the United States "largely" supports
phasing out the burning of coal, gas and oil to limit the average global
warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius about preindustrial levels, the New York Times
reported. The globe has already warmed to 1.2 degrees Celsius, according to the
newspaper. "We’ve got to do what the science tells us to do, and the
science has been clear," Kerry told reporters earlier during the summit on
Dec. 6.
United
Nations Climate Secretary Simon Stiell told delegates
Wednesday their efforts were "needed to signal a hard stop to humanity’s
core climate problem: fossil fuels and that planet-burning pollution. Whilst we
didn’t turn the page on the fossil fuel era in Dubai, this outcome is the
beginning of the end," according to the AP. Stiell
added the adopted deal is a "climate action lifeline, not a finish
line."
After the
deal was gaveled in, Samoa's lead delegate Anne Rasmussen, who was speaking on
behalf of small island nations, rebuked how they weren't even in the room when
al-Jaber said the agreement was complete, according to the AP. She said
that "the course correction that is needed has not been secured,"
criticizing the agreement as a business-as-usual approach instead of
exponential emissions-cutting efforts. She said the deal could
"potentially take us backward rather than forward." Meanwhile,
Bolivia also reportedly criticized the deal as a new form of colonialism.
ATTACHMENT
EIGHT – FROM CNBC
Pacific Islands lash out at COP28 presidency: ‘We weren’t in the room’
when deal was announced
By Natasha Turak PUBLISHED WED,
DEC 13 2023 9:07 AM EST
KEY POINTS
·
“We weren’t
in the room when this decision was gavelled. And that
is shocking to us,” Tina Stege, the climate envoy for
the Marshall Islands, told media on Wednesday.
·
For Pacific
Island nations and many other island and low-lying coastal states vulnerable to
rising sea levels, the final COP28 deal falls severely short.
·
“We see a
litany of loopholes,” the AOSIS statement reacting to the deal said. “It does
not deliver on a subsidy phaseout, and it does not advance us beyond the status
quo.”
·
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates —
Representatives of Pacific Island states expressed frustration and
disappointment at the final outcome of the COP28 climate summit in the United
Arab Emirates, saying they were left out of the plenary room when the
concluding deal was decided.
“We weren’t in the room when this
decision was gavelled. And that is shocking to us,”
Tina Stege, the climate envoy for the Marshall
Islands, said Wednesday while speaking outside of the plenary.
Anne Rasmussen, the lead
negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), told the COP28
Presidency in a closing statement: “We are a little confused about what just
happened.”
“It seems that you gavelled the decisions, and the small island developing
states were not in the room. We were working hard to coordinate the 39 small
island developing states that are disproportionally affected by climate change,
and so were delayed in coming here,” she said.
“So, we will deliver the statement
that we were going to deliver before this text was adopted without us.”
After days of intense negotiations
that included a full-day extension beyond the summit’s official end date,
government ministers representing nearly 200 countries agreed on
Wednesday to a deal that calls for a transition away from
fossil fuels. A previous draft proposal was met with widespread
backlash.
The COP28 UAE Presidency praised
the agreement as a “paradigm shift that has the potential to redefine our
economies,” making a first-ever reference to the need for transitioning away
from all fossil fuels.
For Pacific Island nations,
however, and many other island and low-lying coastal states vulnerable to
rising sea levels, the deal falls severely short.
“We see a litany of loopholes,”
the AOSIS statement reacting to the deal said. “It does not deliver on a
subsidy phaseout, and it does not advance us beyond the status quo.”
“We do not see any commitment or
even an invitation for Parties to peak emissions by 2025,” it said. “It is not
enough for us to reference the science and then make agreements that ignore
what the science is telling us we need to do. This is not an approach that we
should be asked to defend.”
For the Pacific Islands, climate
change poses an existential threat.
During the COP27 summit in 2022,
leaders of the group of islands urgently pointed to climate change as “the
single greatest existential threat facing the Blue Pacific” and emphasized the
immediate need to limiting the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees
Celsius “through rapid, deep and sustained” reductions in greenhouse gas
emissions.
The 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold
is the aspirational global temperature limit set in the landmark 2015
Paris Agreement. Its importance is widely recognized because
so-called tipping points become
more likely beyond this level.
At this year’s summit, Big Oil
sought to shift the focus to reducing emissions through improved technology
rather than the phasing out fossil fuels — the burning of coal, oil and gas
— which account for more than three-quarters of global greenhouse gas
emissions.
Many countries and activists had
pushed for the COP28 outcome to show that “we
are truly at the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era,” and a draft text
Tuesday that omitted the demand for phasing out the fuels sparked anger.
‘Our survival line’
“Where it stands, the science
tells us that 1.5 degrees is our survival line. And in order for us to make it
to 1.5, we need a phase out of fossil fuels,” Brianna Fruean, a Samoan climate
activist with the Pacific Climate Warriors, told CNBC.
“We weren’t able to see those
words ‘phase out,’ we weren’t able to see the timeline or even mechanism in
which countries are responsible to phase out. The fossil fuel industry still
expands to this day, they’re making billions. And that’s not enough for us.”
“A good indication of how we’ve
been listened to in this process is that the final deal was gavelled
while some of the small island states were still trying to get in the room,
because we received the text so late, and we were trying to coordinate and see
where all of these islands stand on the text,” Fruean added. “So from their
coordination room into the plenary, some of them weren’t even able to make it,
they were walking in as there was a standing ovation.”
For Shiva Gounden,
the head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, the COP28 agreement —
known as the global stock take (GST) — felt like a betrayal.
“As a Pacific Islander on the
frontline of the climate crisis, I’m gutted by the outcome of COP28 and was
shocked to see the GST text adopted so quickly. The final outcome falls short
of what’s needed in terms of fossil fuel phase out and finance,” she told CNBC.
Gounden called the document’s transition
language “feeble,” saying it fails to align with the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal
and is full of loopholes that “leave the door open for false solutions like
carbon capture and storage and nuclear.”
Those technologies have been
promoted by many major companies and advocacy groups, as well as oil and gas
producers, as solutions for reducing emissions. Their safety and efficacy
remains a matter of heated debate in the energy and climate world.
“This decision is a betrayal of
the vulnerable communities who have relentlessly advocated for a swift and fair
fossil fuel phaseout,” Gounden said. “The urgency of
our plight has been met with hollow gestures. Corporate interests have hijacked
the COP28 agenda.”
The COP28 Presidency did not
immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
In a social media post immediately
following the final deal’s announcement, the UAE summit presidency praised it
as a “global goal to triple renewables and double energy efficiency” and said
that “more oil and gas companies stepping up for the first time on methane and
emissions. And we have language on fossil fuels in our final agreement.”
ATTACHMENT
NINE – FROM THE UNITED
NATIONS
UN Climate Change Conference -
United Arab Emirates
30 Nov - 12 Dec, 2023
16:00
13 Dec, 2023
COP28 Agreement Signals “Beginning
of the End” of the Fossil Fuel Era
COP28 closed today with an agreement
that signals the “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era by laying the
ground for a swift, just and equitable transition, underpinned by deep
emissions cuts and scaled-up finance.
In a demonstration of global solidarity, negotiators from nearly 200 Parties
came together in Dubai with a decision on the world’s first ‘global stocktake’ to ratchet up climate action before the end of
the decade – with the overarching aim to keep the global temperature limit of
1.5°C within reach.
“Whilst we didn’t turn the page on the fossil fuel era in Dubai, this outcome
is the beginning of the end,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell in his closing speech. “Now all governments and
businesses need to turn these pledges into real-economy outcomes, without
delay.”
Read the UN
Climate Change press release
ATTACHMENT
TEN – FROM COP28 The
End Of The 1.5°
In Paris at
the end of 2015, the world rejoiced when the national representatives from
around the planet agreed to try really, really hard to keep average global
temperatures from increasing more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Of
course, in the 1800s when the Industrial Revolution began, the amount of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere was around 300 parts per million. In 2015, carbon
dioxide levels were on the verge of breaking the 400 ppm barrier. Today,
with COP28 now
in the rear view mirror, the world is experiencing carbon dioxide levels of 420
ppm.
In order for all
the happy talk in 2015 to mean anything, CO2 levels should have been declining
since then. The fact that they have risen instead means the promise of the
Paris climate accords was a mirage. Pessimists at the time suggested the good
news was an illusion and history, unfortunately, has proven those “the glass is
half empty” types correct.
There was
much celebrating in Dubai when the final communique from COP28 contained an
historic phrase that proclaimed for the first time ever that the nations of the
world should focus on “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems,
in a just, orderly and equitable manner.” That is the first time in 28 tries
that the words “fossil fuels” have been included in such a statement, which is
pretty astonishing when you realize these annual events are about global
warming. It has taken 28 years and millions of written and spoken words to
acknowledge that fossil fuels are the problem. A young activist
from India may have helped as well.
Sultan Al
Jaber is being celebrated for getting those words into the final document after
they were omitted from a
prior draft and for standing up to his oil-soaked colleagues
who felt betrayed by that language. But David Wallace-Wells, a science and
climate writer for the New York Times,
is not one of those who is cheering. In fact, he says what the world got from
COP28 was more like an endorsement of the status quo that reflects the ongoing
state of play rather than accelerating it.
Global sales of internal
combustion engine vehicles peaked in 2017, he writes, and investment in
renewable energy has exceeded investment in fossil fuel infrastructure for
several years running. In 2022, 83 percent of new global energy capacity was
green.
“The question isn’t about whether
there will be a transition, but how fast, global and thorough it will be. The
answer is: not fast or global or thorough enough yet, at least on the current
trajectories, which COP28 effectively affirmed. To limit warming to 1.5 degrees
Celsius now requires entirely eliminating emissions not long after 2040,
according to the Global Carbon Project, whose ‘carbon budget’
for 1.5 degrees Celsius will be exhausted in about five years of current levels
of emissions. For 1.7 degrees Celsius, it’s just after 2050, and for 2 degrees
Celsius, 2080. And despite Al Jaber’s claim that COP28 has kept the 1.5 degree
goal alive, hardly anyone believes it’s still plausible.”
In fact, Wallace-Wells writes,
most analysts predict a global peak in fossil fuel emissions at some point over
the next decade, followed not by a decline but a long plateau — meaning that in
every year for the foreseeable future, we would be doing roughly as much damage
to the future of the planet’s climate as was done in recent years. The expected
result will be that by the end of this century, average global temperatures
will have risen by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
“Not so long ago, this was a
future that terrified us, but now we are not just coming to accept that future
and, in some corners, applauding it as progress. Over the last several years,
as decarbonization has made worst case scenarios seem much less likely, a wave
of climate alarmism has given way somewhat to a new mix of accommodation and
optimism.”
Imagining 3°C
At COP28
At COP28, Bill Gates described anything
below 3 degrees as a “fortunate” outcome. A few months earlier, former
President Barack Obama struck a similar note in describing how he’d tried to
talk his daughter Malia off the edge of climate despair by emphasizing what
could still be saved rather than what had been lost already through global
inaction. “We may not be able to cap temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, but
here’s the thing, if we work really hard, we may be able to cap it at two and a
half.” Scottish data scientist Hannah Ritchie gives a shot of optimism to those
caught in a panic about warming and environmental degradation in a new book
called “Not the End of the World.”
Wallace-Wells tries to remain
guardedly optimistic but believes COP28 will be remembered as the moment the world
finally gave up on the goal of limiting warming to degrees and encourages his
readers to think what passing that threshold will mean.
“Global warming doesn’t proceed in
large jumps, for the most part, and surpassing 1.5 degrees does not bring us
immediately or inevitably to 2 degrees. But we know quite a lot about the
difference between those two worlds — the one we had once hoped to achieve and
the one that now looks much more likely. Indeed, in the recent past, a clear
understanding of those differences was responsible for a period of intense and
global climate alarm.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change “Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 Degrees Celsius,”
published in 2018, collated all the scientific literature about the two warming
levels. Between 1.5 and 2 degrees C, it estimated more than 150 million people
will die prematurely from the air pollution produced by the burning of fossil
fuels. Flooding events that used to arrive once a century will become annual
events.
Most scientists believe that
amount of warming would be a death sentence for the world’s coral reefs. And
many believe that, in that range, the planet will lock in the permanent loss of
many of its ice sheets, which could bring, over centuries, enough sea level
rise to redraw the world’s coastlines.
If warming grows beyond those
levels, so will its impacts. At 3 degrees, for instance, New York City could be
hit by three 100 year flooding events each year and more than 50 times as many
people in African cities would experience conditions of dangerous heat.
Wildfires would burn twice as much land globally and the Amazon would cease to
be a rain forest but become a grassland. Potentially lethal heat stress, almost
unheard of at 1.5 degrees, would become routine for billions at 2 degrees,
according to one recent
study, and above 3 degrees would impact places like the American
Midwest.
“In some ways, these projections
may sound like old news, but as we find ourselves now adjusting to the
possibility of a future shaped by temperature rise of that kind, it may be
clarifying to recall that, almost certainly, when you first heard those
projections, you were horrified. The era of climate reckoning has also been, to
some degree, a period of normalization, and while there are surely reasons to
move past apocalyptic politics toward something more pragmatic, one cost is a
loss of perspective at negotiated, technocratic events like [COP28]”
Was 1.5°C
Just An Attractive Fantasy?
Perhaps it was always somewhat
fanciful to believe that it was possible to limit warming to 1.5 degrees
Celsius. Wallace-Wells suggests. As Bill McKibben
said recently, simply stating the goal did a lot to shape action in
the years that followed the Paris climate accords by demanding we all look
squarely at what the science told us about what it would mean to fail.
The Dubai consensus that renewable
energy should triple by 2030 is one sign that, in some areas, impressive change
is possible. “But for all of our temperature goals, the timelines are growing
shorter and shorter, bringing the world closer and closer to futures that
looked so fearsome to so many not very long ago,” Wallace -Wells cautions.
The Takeaway
We must not allow broiling
temperatures, more powerful storms, more frequent wildfires, and the
disappearance of rain forests to become the new normal. We need to keep the
vision that emerged in Paris in 2015 alive and intact, even if it was largely a
fantasy. We need to keep the pressure on governments and fossil fuel companies
to sharply reduce their carbon emissions by honoring the spirit as well as the
letter of closing statement from COP28.
The struggle is far from over.
Every tenth of a degree of increase in average global temperatures prevented
will avoid untold suffering for millions of humans.
There is another consideration
here. Much of the turn toward extreme right wing governments around the world
from the United States to the Netherlands, Italy, New Zealand, and the UK is
directly connected to a desire to keep black and brown people from becoming
unwelcome immigrants. It is in the selfish best interest of wealthy nations to
control climate related migration by controlling global temperature increases.
If we think climate migration is rampant now, we ain’t
seen nothing yet.
ATTACHMENT
ELEVEN – FROM GUK
‘Food is finally on the
table’: Cop28 addressed agriculture in a real way
Roughly a
third of global greenhouse gas emissions are due to food systems, but Cop had
avoided agreements until now
By
Whitney Bauck Sun 17 Dec 2023 12.00 EST
Food systems – what we eat; how we grow, ship
and cook it; and how we dispose of (and sometimes waste) it – are responsible
for roughly a third of global
greenhouse gas emissions. But for the better part of three decades, the final
agreements that emerge from the UN’s yearly climate summits have left out the
impact food systems have on our climate.
That changed this year in Dubai. The conference opened with a declaration on sustainable agriculture signed by more than 130 countries. For the first time ever, it featured a whole day devoted to food and agriculture and saw a food systems
ATTACHMENT
TWELVE – FROM REUTERS
What
are the loopholes in the COP28 climate deal?
By Valerie
Volcovici December 14, 20233:04 PM
ESTUpdated 2 hours ago
One
of them is the inclusion of a phrase calling for accelerated deployment of
carbon capture.
What
are transitional fuels? Well, they are fossil fuels.
Reporting
by Valerie Volcovici in Dubai Editing by Richard Valdmanis in Matthew Lewis
ATTACHMENT
THIRTEEN – FROM POLITICO
THE
PRICE TAG OF COP28’S RENEWABLE ENERGY PLEDGE
To
achieve the renewable target, countries will need to bet big on solar and wind
BY GIOVANNA
COI DECEMBER 13, 2023 11:54 AM CET
Predictably,
the promise came with some high-flying rhetoric.
Pricey,
perhaps, but still probably cheaper than environmental catastrophe.
Karl
Mathiesen contributed reporting.
ATTACHMENT
FOURTEEN – FROM the Washington
examiner
Experts
at odds over U.N. climate talks in Dubai; ‘Historic,’ ‘pipsqueak’ or something
else?
By
Seth Borenstein - Associated Press - Thursday, December 14, 2023
Scientists
were among those who ranked the UAE deal low.
Gore
and others still have hope, though.
ATTACHMENT
FIFTEEN – FROM MSNBC
Why
the historic COP28 climate deal comes up short
Symbolic
statements declaring war on fossil fuels can't be the main focus of climate
activism.
By Ben
Adler, Climate and politics journalist
Dec. 14, 2023, 5:38 PM EST
Enter your email to sign up for the Stress, but less newsletter.
What
the deal asks countries to do
Key
takeaways: What does the COP28 deal say?
Kerry
called the deal a success and a vindication of multilateralism.
Deal
gives fossil fuel industry ‘escape routes’
ATTACHMENT
SEVENTEEN – FROM GUK
Cop28
failed to halt fossil fuels’ deadly expansion plans – so what now?
By
Damian Carrington Thu 14 Dec 2023
06.12 EST
ATTACHMENT
EIGHTEEN – FROM the GUARDIAN U.K.
Good
Cop, bad Cop: what the Cop28 agreement says and what it means
By
Damian Carrington Environment editor Wed
13 Dec 2023 07.19 EST
The
text states the huge challenge with crystal clarity:
Accelerating
efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power.
India
needs burn coal. China will burn Taiwanese - DJI.
Another
weasel word is “transitional fuels” – it is code for fossil gas.
After 30 years of waiting, Cop28 deal addresses the elephant
in the room
One
last concern relates to ending the destruction of forests.
ATTACHMENT
NINETEEN – FROM REUTERS
COP28
climate deal 'stab in the back', activist Greta Thunberg says
December
15, 202311:01 AM ESTUpdated 6 hours ago
"It
is a stab in the back for those most vulnerable."
COP28
Ends With Historic Deal to ‘Transition Away’ From Planet-Warming Fossil
BY ARYN
BAKER / DUBAI DECEMBER 13, 2023 2:56 PM EST
Read
More: Why Colombia’s President is Determined to Ditch the Country’s Oil
Wealth
Read
More: What Happens When You Put a Fossil Fuel Exec in Charge of Solving
Climate Change
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY ONE – FROM the
NEW YORK TIMES
U.S.
Climate Envoy Reflects on Recent Deal, and What Comes Next
By Lisa Friedman Dec.
15, 2023, 3:54 p.m. ET
Mr.
Kerry insisted those statements do not point to loopholes in the climate
agreement.
“Can
they sell their crude today, tomorrow, next week, next year?” Mr. Kerry said.
“Sure.”
But,
he added, “They’re going to, like everybody else, have to transition away from
fossil fuels.”
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY TWO – FROM FOX
NEWS (YAKIMA, WA)
‘Weak
tea’: Climate scientists push back against COP28 cheer
by Issam
Ahmed, December 13, 2023 5:40 pm
'COMMAND AND CONTROL': Nations at COP28 agree to
transition from fossil fuels
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY THREE – FROM GUK
Failure
of Cop28 on fossil fuel phase-out is ‘devastating’, say scientists
Climate
experts say lack of unambiguous statement is ‘tragedy for the planet and our
future’
By
Damian Carrington Environment editor Thu 14 Dec 2023 12.00 EST
Cop28 failed to halt fossil fuels’ deadly expansion plans –
so what now?
Cop28 is a farce rigged to fail, but there are other ways we
can try to save the planet
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY FOUR – FROM GUK
Cop28’s
winners and losers: from fossil fuel firms to future generations
By
Jonathan Watts Thu
14 Dec 2023 07.30 EST
Cop28
president Sultan Al Jaber
Future
generations and other species
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY FIVE – FROM GUK
Cop28
leaves the highway to climate hell wide open
Maxime
Beaugrand
Director, IGSD Paris office
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY SIX – FROM ARS
TECHNICA