Last week was supposed to be a day off and I didn’t take it. This week I was supposed to take a day off and here I am writing again, with very little inspiration behind me but I will persevere if only because I need to prove to people that I work hard every week. That said, this is going to be short and meandering because I have no theme this week.
First, a bit of a mea culpa. Last week I intimated that the redevelopment and repair of the White Rock Pier was being pushed as one of the Major Projects Office mandates. This of course isn’t true. I mean obviously so. It’s not a project of generational significance to Canada. Which of course is why it was all over the media for two days while a bunch of already in progress “major projects” (not including an oil pipeline) were announced with the pomp and circumstance of a pre-school graduation ceremony.
So I apologize for misleading everyone. I will not however apologize for pointing out the inherent hypocrisy.
And I have already moved on, because one of my favourite events of the environmental year is winding down. That’s right. It’s November so it’s time for the annual Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – a two-week boondoggle held every year in some far flung and often tropical location, attended by the elite of the elite environmental crew. A veritable who’s who of private jet flying green warriors and very earnest government types and United Nations change-makers all coming together to solve all the world’s climate change problems and shake down rich countries.
This year, the thirtieth such conference, the event is being held in Belém, Brazil. And no, I had never heard of it before either. Apparently, it is a quaint provincial capital city in Brazil located at the mouth of the Amazon. Population is about 1.5 million and it is apparently a busy port.
It also doesn’t quite know what hit it – first it was all the infrastructure upgrades and new highways. Apparently the Brazilian government cleared 100,000 acres of Amazon rain forest so that Al Gore could come to Brazil and complain about deforestation.
But back to the conference. This COP30 is ON FIRE!!!! Like literally. On. Fire. Fortunately no one was hurt so we can actually laugh about it, but yesterday a fire broke out at the conference facility, forcing delegates to scramble and evacuate the building, presumably into the over-run city that they hadn’t yet visited while taking private shuttles from their swanky hotels to the conference.
What’s that? There are no swanky hotels? Well then where did people stay? Apparently they stayed on two massive cruise ships that were parked off shore for the duration as some form of “floating hotels” and, of course, late night party and fun zone. Call them the “Green Love Boats”. The irony of course here is that cruise ships, whether idling or sailing, get their power from giant diesel engines. Thus for the entire duration of this, the 30th climate conference, held in a deforested Amazon River port city, attended by private jet traipsing “very important people”, these floating hotels idled away, burning the very fossil fuels being decried 24/7 by attendees, belching noxious fumes into the air.
No matter – a very important conference was held at which many important things were decided, aside from which cruise ship restaurant to have dinner at.
How’d they do then?
Well every year the big outcome from the COP is some form of memo put out by the host country that summarizes the key commitments being made by the attendees. Past memos have called for massive transfers of wealth to fund green initiatives in the third world (it’s pretty much a given for inclusion) and others have called for the elimination of fossil fuels or the reduction of emissions. Sometimes the memos are so powerful and unifying that they become synonymous with the collective environmental objectives they stipulate. Think “the Paris Accords” and similar proclamations.
To be honest, I think we may well passed peak COP. Each successive year it gets more watered down and the ambition falls increasingly short of the rhetoric. I don’t know when the COP jumped the shark, but the lack of participation from the United States and Donald Trump’s dumping of the Paris Accords has put a real dent in the fun. Never mind Bill Gates pulling a 180 on his climate strategies – moving from eliminate to accommodate is a pretty significant change in tone. Plus, I think they are running out of cool places to go. I mean Belem? What’s next? Tecoluca, El Salvador? I hear they have a nice new facility there that can handle up to 40,000 “delegates” – meeting rooms, food and accommodation. Hmm. Maybe.
This year’s memo, that at the time of writing was still unfinished, is calling for a tripling of financial support available for climate change mitigation from 2025 levels by 2030. No one knows where the money is going to come from or who it will be paid to, but presumably the direction will be from rich to poor. Well except anything from the United States since they declined to even send a delegation.
Strangely absent from the currently circulating draft is any mention of fossil fuels as a cause of climate change or any plan to wean the world off of coal, oil and natural gas. Of the 200 countries represented, there are about 80 developing countries that are opposed to this exclusion. On the other hand, the balance of the countries in attendance, including obviously most of the oil producing countries, are just fine with the exclusion because, well, I mean do I even have to explain why?
Adaptation to climate change is getting an emerging seat at the draft memorandum table, which is good and presumably influenced by the aforementioned Mr. Gates. A new topic making an appearance is trade concerns, which many countries want addressed, presumably to knock down climate change related trade barriers such as the EU Carbon Border Levy.
At any rate, any draft memorandum that doesn’t include an unenforceable plan around fossil fuels seems like a bit of a joke and a massive step down from the heady days of the Paris Accords, which will make for an interesting COP31, to be held in November 2026 in… Antalya, Turkey which is a Mediterranean beach resort and the gateway to Turkey’s famed Turquoise Coast. Oh well.
Oh, and since enquiring minds will no doubt want to know, Canada is indeed present at COP30, with the notable absence of climate change finance activist Prime Minister Mark Carney. The delegation is nowhere near as large as it has been in prior years, most likely due to the attractiveness of the location not meeting the standards of prior years and not reflective of any fiscal prudence or the like. But I could be wrong. Canada does have a pavilion though. As a side note, Canada’s delegation includes about a dozen energy sector representatives and lobbyists. It is estimated that one in 25 delegates to COP30 is from the fossil fuel industry (well played!).
To be honest, it feels like COP30 overall is just kind of mailing it in this year. I can’t even get adequately worked up over it anymore.
Who agrees though that it would have been a killer boondoggle if Donald Trump had been invited to give a keynote.
Happy weekend everyone and to my American readers – Happy Thanksgiving and a tariff-free Black Friday!
