I don’t think 2 short planks comes close myself.
he was on TalkSport? Wow, I doubt he’d even know where Birmingham is.
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We’ll see. But good intentions. Let us hope that those states that signed up for it actually walks the walk on this. Very skeptical that Brazil will honour this.
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While this can be criticised and definitely should, let us not pretend that no one in the delegation was strong enough to carry her. If she thinks being carried is demeaning, well I can perhaps understand, but that’s another issue called pride. I mean, to lift someone in a wheelchair is not impossible, I have done it on more than one occasion. You need two people. Use the Mossad guy in the delegation for something useful. Extremely typical of Bennet to make a drama out of it (I have an enormous loathing for that absolute gargantuan asshole, having read Haaretz and Jerusalem Post for years), suits his character perfectly. That having been said, it ought to be relatively easy to please them and get hold of some ramps, which ought to be done immediately.
I am cynical enough to immediately suspect that this Bennet’s threats is for Israeli domestic consumption. The UN is a favorite scapegoat for Israel and it’s people are conditioned to view it with extreme skepticism. Bennet is playing for his Nationalist base. That’s what I suspect anyway.
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Hardly the biggest venue problem. With distancing rules, the largest conference room has a maximum capacity of 150. There are 193 delegates.
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Really ? That seems…awkward and like quite bad planning indeed.
The venue was selected pre-covid, the main conference room would be suitable in normal times. But yes, it is quite problematic. Add in UNFCCC and delegation support staff, and you would probably have 250 people in there at any given time. I have no idea how security (which checks for the required level of accreditation on entry) will be able to track how many are in the room at any given time. You can more or less expect around Day 10, some LDC delegation will scream blue murder about being denied entry.
There is a brutal irony to having it hosted in Glasgow at a time when distancing and ventilation is critical. In a place like Bali, it would not have been particularly problematic.
It’s a public venue. Forget the UN, it has a legal obligation to be accessible for wheelchair users. What’s gone on here?
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With everything that has happened over the last 18 months, venue size/capacity is not an issue, and we have seen that the technology is there to be able to host in the main room for key personal and then the smaller satelite rooms can be set up for all of the support staff and they are still able to comunicate via zoom or whatever communication set up they decide to use.
Not having wheelchair access though is pretty bloody poor for a supposedly 1st world country
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95 of age, and still a razor-sharp mind and ability to express himself well enough to convey his important message. I have unmitigated admiration for this gentleman. In my humble opinion, he must be one of the most influential individuals in the second half of the XXth century and the beginning of this one.
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Decided to post this here rather than the science thread given the importance in it. I came across this with just my normal fascination in science. Lots to digest in here on where we are with fusion energy. Basically anyone thinking that this is a solution had better think again.
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Right, but there are 193 delegates, forget support staff. Which 43 Parties don’t belong in the room because they are not ‘key’? Who decides that? There is an enormous amount of side conversation/negotiation/discussion going on inside the main conference room, it isn’t just a room full of people listening to speakers. When it comes time to draft and negotiate the various documents, already one of the most tedious processes imaginable, there is simply no way someone not in the room is going to be participating meaningfully.
By comparison, wheelchair access affects the dignity of individual delegates, which is shameful, but restricting access to some parties fundamentally alters the process.
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Lots of optimistic headlines about two developments, India committing to net zero by 2070, and the US (re)joining the High Ambition coalition - both of which the pathological need for the extended community of the UNFCCC to declare every COP a success.
i) Coal power plants have an asset life of 40 years. India just announced they will be building coal plants as normal for at least another decade.
ii) The US joined that coalition the last time, then got very little through Congress and what little was achieved in policy terms by Obama was unwound by Trump. Biden has nowhere near as secure a footing as Obama, and certainly did not start his term with Democratic control of Congress the way Obama did. The climate progess the US has made since 2008 is a function of two things: price decline of renewables, and cheap natural gas displacing coal.
It is exasperating that there have only been two COPs recognized as genuine failures, but the long arc of what has been achieved in the UNFCCC process clearly says otherwise, particularly because the nature of the recognized failures was not really decisive in setting outcomes.
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The India commitment to net zero by 2070 was extremely disappointing. The commitment to end deforestation by 2030, particularly one signed up to by Brazil, was welcome even if well overdue.
I have to say I have diminishing sympathy for arguments from developing countries that they ought to be indulged on fossil fuel consumption due to large developed nations already advancing their economies by exploiting such resources.
I understand the equitable arguments, specifically on economy, but the majority of the fossil fuel exploitation was done decades before we were aware of the impact on climate and the environment and at a time when there simply weren’t other scaleable renewable alternatives beyond windmills and watermills.
Lastly, I’m not a fan of Thunberg. I find her annoying, sorry. But she’s right about these summits. They’re talking shops, largely ineffective, just enough to allow politicians to say they’re not ignoring the issue ENTIRELY. Blah, blah, blah.
At least the UK has tried to set the appropriate mood. Johnson’s “minute to midnight” remarks and particularly the powerful addresses by Attenborough and The Queen.
Still…we need to see a whole lot more.
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Agreed about the ‘historical contributions’. The argument is not completely wrong, but the simple fact of the matter is the vast majority of the CO2e that is in the atmosphere has been put there since the Rio conference in 1992. The emissions of the 19C industrial revolution approach irrelevance now.
I also find Thunberg, and indeed most of the ENGOs, rather annoying. Thunberg is at least less hypocritical than average, but has nothing useful to actually contribute. The ENGOS and press will shriek about the private jets (fine). The private jets thing bothers me less, for leaders at least, than the sheer mass of attendees, most of whom don’t do much more than party and attend a couple of events. The size of the Canadian delegation is ludicrous, massively taxpayer funded, and it serves no purpose. The actual delegates are a tiny minority. The logic of flying people over an ocean or two to hold signs and chant just escapes me.
If I see one more goddamn CBC story about amazing youth activist(s) going to Glasgow for the climate conference, I am gonna lose it. WTF does anyone think they accomplish there? The actual delegates are almost universally under no illusions about the importance of an agreement, except from places like Saudi who don’t give a fuck about protestors anyway. Meanwhile. these people are emitting umpteen tonnes of CO2…goddamn Greenpeace has damn near 600 people going across all the delegations. Granted, a good chunk are from the UK, but still
Kahnawake, which for emissions purposes is a smallish Montreal suburb of 8000 people, is sending a youth group of 5.
As a past participant at COPs. this guy absolutely nailed it, except for missing the Stage 7 declaration of triumph.
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Would it be possible for the UK, Europe and the US to commit to selling only fully electric cars by 2025? Even by 2030? If not why not?
