[Nov 14-20’22] COP27 fail

Our leaders failed us all, FDA approved first lab-grown meat and no phase-down/out of fossil fuels at COP27.

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Weekly Climate 🎉

References: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] and [6].

COP27 is over. The Guardian wrote a very clear picture of what were at stake and a great post on what we got. A few “high”-lights:

• Loss & Damage fund: Good, but a very light start

• Possible loophole for gas or coal with carbon capture and storage to be a part of “clean energy”

• Loophole for carbon credits to be counted more than once.

• 1.5C still official target (but zero policies to back it even remotely up)

Warning! There are some poorly hidden profanity in the next bit. If you’re sensitive to that kind of thing please jump straight ahead into “News you can’t miss”. I apologize but I’m lost for words.

The 600 fossil fuel lobbyists, the Petrol minister, the big ag lobbyists all wasn’t exactly set up for success and we got something pretty far from that. The fact that we should be “happy” about a loss and damage fund, i.e. just the fund, not the financing of it, just the fund, is so mind blowingly ridiculous that it kind of feels like it was just thrown in there just to make sure climate activists wouldn’t go completely full scale rebellion because at least now one high profile topic got sort of checked off. The Loss & Damage fund is like a band aid, while important, will for sure get wet and fall off pretty soon when it comes to financing it.

The key topic of phasing-out fossil fuels were not addressed. In fact formulations surrounding it were even loosened. Now we can get fossil gas and coal with carbon capture under this definition as well. This is so - f*cked - pardon my french that I’m lost for words. Fossil fuels phase-out is THE only thing that matters right now and this COP enabled fossil fuels to be back on the menu. That is insane. That is insane.

To all the politicians, I don’t know how you can live with yourself. You know you have a choice right? You can listen to the science or not. You chose not to. Again.

I don’t believe in politics anymore (again). I’ve written that too many times. I’m fed up of voting climate, yet seeing that the majority of general public just don’t care. People don’t seem to understand that everything they’re afraid of will be multiplied by climate change. Afraid of refugees stealing your jobs? Climate change are multiplying that already. Afraid of wildfires? Climate change are multiplying that already. Afraid of high taxes? How do you think we’re going to pay for the adaptations if not through taxes? Afraid of losing your job? How do you think the economy will react to decreasing food supply, unliveable areas of the planet, wars, refugees, etc? And on and on. Every topic you can think of will be made worse by climate change.

I’m fed up of hoping that maybe they (politicians and the public) will see the light this time. Maybe something will happen at this COP. Maybe finally we’ll get some real action. When in fact we won’t. Politics will not solve this. It can’t it’s too narrow minded focussed on 4 year election cycles to care about what will happen in 70 years. It’s too soiled in fossil fuels and dirt from modern agriculture to ever be able to do anything.

Think about that for a second. I mean it. Really think. The people we in our democracies put in charge via our votes are not able to do the right things to solve the biggest crisis that has ever faced humanity largely because of big fossil fuel and big ag interests are throwing money at them and influencing them on every turn. They explicitly choose to ignore climate protesters and science. Think about that. Meditate on it. Isn’t it f*cked?

So what to do? Katherine Hayhoe so often write that the most important thing you can do is to talk about it. I even end my newsletter with this quote. Talk to your friends and family about it. Get them involved. If nothing else just get them to tweet or toot or whatever about it. On that note I’m deeply thankful for the tireless climate activists who did a great job in pushing for the results we needed.. Thank you 🙏

There are a lot of climate writers that I really deeply respect who write about how it’s not our fault, so it’s not up to us to solve this thing. But I’m afraid that it kind of is, because who the f*ck else?

P.S: While full of despair about the state of our democracies I will never stop voting climate no matter how little I believe in the system.

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Brief practical note: All posts directly related to COP27 will have a #COP27 hashtag in front of them as well as the usual topic hashtag. Note that I was writing the newsletter during the week. So the news are live as I got them, this means that some news might have references to the “COP27 draft”. I’ve done my best to comment whether what I wrote about made it or didn’t make it to the final article. In fact here late Sunday night I’ve removed a few articles that weren’t relevant anymore because stuff got removed or added.

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‼️News you can’t miss

Here’s one important scary/bad (🙀), good (😻), interesting (😼) and fossil (💩) news item.

🙀 Our leaders failed each and every one of us — George Monbiot

😻 FDA has approved the first lab-grown meat

😼 Key outcomes of COP27

💩 No global phase-down / out in COP27 agreement

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👩‍⚕️ Status: Climate & Science

Let’s look at how we’re doing this week!

[#flooding] — A new study calculates that climate change made the recent disruptive floods in Nigeria 80 times more likely. The floods from heavy rain, killed more than 600 people in Nigeria and 200 in Niger and Chad

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📰 The 7 Grand Challenges

⚡️Decarbonize Electricity

Clean electricity is the one do-or-die challenge we must solve.

[#billionaires] — There’s a lot of talk about how billionaires are actually hurting the climate more but here’s a guy who I think is doing it right: Cannon-Brookes just got 4 new directors elected at one of the biggest dirty energy companies in Australia: AGL. His fund has bought up more than 11% of the shares in the company and are using that leverage to get the 4 directors elected. It is now greatly expected that the directors will help push AGL faster towards renewables. Who’s next Cannon-Brookes?