Will the never-ending annual COP show series ever get to grips with the utter inadequacy of renewables? Or of the uselessness of blaming trace gases for the weather, as the globe-trotting hordes of delegates produce ever more of them to get to and from the venue?
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The president of the upcoming COP28 climate talks in Dubai called on Sunday for governments to abandon “fantasies” such as hastily ditching existing energy infrastructure in pursuit of climate goals, reports Phys.org.
“We cannot unplug the energy system of today before we build the new system of tomorrow. It is simply not practical or possible,” Sultan Al Jaber said during the opening session of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Climate Week, a UN-organized conference hosted in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
“We must separate facts from fiction, reality from fantasies, impact from ideology, and we must ensure that we avoid the traps of division and distraction.”
Much of international climate diplomacy revolves around the thorny issue of how and when to quit fossil fuels.
At COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, countries agreed to phase down “unabated coal”, the first time a fossil fuel was explicitly mentioned in a final text.
But efforts since then to extend such a target to all fossil fuels have foundered, most recently at last month’s G20 summit in India.
Climate activists have criticized the appointment of Jaber to lead the COP28 talks which kick off in Dubai in November, given that he is also head of the Emirati state-owned oil firm ADNOC.
But Jaber has garnered the support of COP parties including US climate envoy John Kerry, partly by emphasizing his belief that “the phase-down of fossil fuels is inevitable”.
Energy officials in the United Arab Emirates and other oil-producing countries—notably Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter—have argued for continued investments in fossil fuels to ensure energy security even as they eye an eventual transition away from them.
Finding funds
The vast and fractured landscape of climate finance is the other major stumbling block in climate negotiations.
Full report here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
The Green Mob is a religion, not based in fact. There is no amount of fact and science that will dissuade these zealots from their idiocy. They are supported by grifter “scientists” like Mann and others plus the greedy power mongers in various governments.
“No amount of science and technology will ever overcome fear and superstition.”
Ed Miliband’s net zero plan is a disaster waiting to happen
While Rachel Reeves set out a bold vision for growth, the shadow energy minister was busy undermining it
9 October 2023
Ed Miliband is pledging to fully decarbonise Britain’s power system by 2030. It’s difficult to see how this can be achieved without tremendous cost and eye-watering energy bills of the sort that could undo so much of the good planning liberalisation could achieve.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/09/ed-milibands-net-zero-grid-is-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen/
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There may well be eye-watering ‘energy’ bills, but there won’t be enough energy i.e. electricity to go round, even if all the materials, workforces, planning permissions, finance etc. to build Ed’s wild schemes miraculously became available.
When I ask neighbours ‘what happened at COP26’ they don’t know what i’m talking about. Most home counties middle class educated. But I would have thought that by now the endless tale of COPs since Berlin COP1 in 1995 and their extravagant futility would have reached a level of public visibility and contempt. COP 28 sited at the world capital of oil production is even funnier than the Katowice COP held in a snowstorm on top of a coal field! Oh, what happened to the 1.5C scare?