This is the last week of COP26 and I have to fight against calling it all a joke. Former President Obama seems to agree. See his speech about it at the climate conference:
And then comes the news that 118 private jets winged it to the Climate Conference, (Forbes story here) . . . ostensibly to add to climate change?
“Those taking private jets to and from COP24 include Jeff Bezos, Prince Charles and Boris Johnson, who was criticized for flying back to London to attend a dinner on Wednesday evening. Others made an exit to Cannes in the South of France, and Bern in Switzerland, according to flights tracked by FlightRadar24.”
Then today the US opened up completely to foreign travelers, and the “pent up demand” let to something like 30,000 extra flights, all in one day. If our climate goals are to reduce emissions to net zero by 2030, and this many flights are still taking place (even to a climate conference) then the climate change conference really is all a bad joke.
Drive around any large city in America and see all the thousands of cars on the road – then tell me that the government has a plan of some kind to replace them all with zero emission electric cars. They aren’t going to be voluntarily replaced by the owners. In addition to planes and cars, we have an addiction to fossil fuels. New oil fields are still being searched for, even under the supposed climate leadership of President Biden, and natural gas is nowhere near ending anywhere. COP26 is a joke. Even some protesters are fed up with this climate conference model.
It doesn’t help that the mass media mostly ignores climate change unless the story is about a hurricane or fire or other weather event. So what do we do about it? Something other than annual climate conferences that attract private jets. And speaking of private luxury transportation:
The truth is very bad.
“Jamie Livingstone, the head of Oxfam Scotland, said Cop26 was a “moment of truth in the fight against climate change”. He said: “Global leaders must agree ways to curb excessive emissions and limit global heating and they must do it here and now in Glasgow. Delay costs lives.”
Earlier this year Bezos went to space in his New Shepard rocket, Sir Richard Branson went to the edge of space in his Virgin Galactic Rocket and Elon Musk’s company promises to take humans to Mars. The emissions from a single 11-minute space flight amount to at least 75 tonnes, which would exceed the lifetime emissions of one of the poorest billion people on Earth.”
Read more at The Guardian.
We are in for a world of growing trouble and hurt every year from now on, with no end in sight, as climate change continues to accelerate. Whatever happened at the COP26 conference, it wasn’t nearly enough.
Do you think the ultra-rich are able to restrain their mega-consumption? I don’t.
“The richest 1{4c54daa6e7d390e0c804f6c94b51bf37f68eac95daa3fa7b95874e6915e44c3a} – which is a population smaller than Germany – are on track to be releasing 70 tonnes of CO2 per person a year if current consumption continues, according to the study. In total they will account for 16{4c54daa6e7d390e0c804f6c94b51bf37f68eac95daa3fa7b95874e6915e44c3a} of total emissions by 2030, up from 13{4c54daa6e7d390e0c804f6c94b51bf37f68eac95daa3fa7b95874e6915e44c3a} of emissions in 1990. Meanwhile, the poorest 50{4c54daa6e7d390e0c804f6c94b51bf37f68eac95daa3fa7b95874e6915e44c3a} will be releasing an average of one tonne of CO2 annually.
“A tiny elite appear to have a free pass to pollute,” said Nafkote Dabi, climate policy lead at Oxfam, which commissioned the study by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). “Their oversized emissions are fuelling extreme weather around the world and jeopardising the international goal of limiting global heating,” she said.”
WHY IS NO ONE REGULATING THE MEGA RICH AND THEIR COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY SPACE TOURISM TRAVEL EMISSIONS?
