FLOP28 and the annual COP Pantomime

Same old, same old

When times are tough, there's nothing like a bit of winter sunshine to cheer you up. And boy, are there a lot of people who need to get away from the rain and sleet back home. This year, no fewer than 90,000 have abandoned their credibility, boarded their jet planes, and made their way to the bright lights of Dubai for the gabfest that is the annual Conference of the Parties (usually referred to as a ‘COP’) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

By all accounts, it has been a lot of fun, tables groaning with gourmet burgers and fine wines, with only slightest seasoning of guilt over the enjoyment of all this excess at a time when most of us are struggling.

As we at Net Zero Watch like to point out, the COPs have long followed an entirely predictable pattern. Each year, hundreds of posturing delegates and thousands of protestors, celebs, and assorted hangers-on fly in from around the world to lecture us all on our carbon footprints. They then start up the negotiations, rapidly reach deadlock, before announcing a last-minute breakthrough. Then, in the cold light of day, everybody accepts nothing has been achieved beyond expanded waistlines and serious hangovers for all the delegates.

Who can now doubt that the climate COPs have become a charade, a meaning-less ritual with a comfortable and familiar liturgy that makes everyone involved feel good about themselves, but in which no- body really has the slightest faith?

Take a look, and see what we mean (click on image below to enjoy the panto).