Hypocrisy and climate change seem to go together a lot. That's why it's hardly surprising that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the 10 members of the OPEC+ coalition would agree to resist any efforts on the part of nations at the Conference of the Parties (COP28) to phase out entirely the production and use of fossil fuels.
The agreement was contained in a letter that was leaked to the media on Friday. "OPEC's letter is outrageous. OPEC wants to talk about emissions, but not the source of the emissions," said Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), who is visiting COP28 as part of a congressional delegation.
"It would be like the tobacco industry saying you can talk about lung cancer, but you can't talk about cigarettes. It's outrageous, it's preposterous," he told Axios.
If we're being honest and consistent with the notion of saving the planet, why isn't the conference discussing the phaseout of beef? We've been told for decades that cattle farts are a huge contributor to climate change. As it turns out, both cow farts and cow burps will eventually kill us all.
There's no call to phase out beef production because it would start a revolution in the U.S. and most of the West. Beef is too important to the economies of too many nations to be completely eliminated.
And we're angry because countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar won't destroy their economies so that greens will feel good about what a great job they're doing saving the planet.
The letter, reportedly sent by the OPEC secretary general to all 13 member nations and 10 members of the larger OPEC+ coalition on Dec. 6, warned of the possibility of a tipping point toward a COP28 outcome containing language calling for a phase-out of fossil fuels.
Studies show the burning of fossil fuels has already heated the climate to a dangerous degree, with devastating consequences including extreme weather events and sea level rise.
"We live in an environment in the United States Senate in which the fossil fuel industry essentially has a veto on what public elected officials do with regards to pollution," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), about the fossil fuel industry overall.
"So it should come as no surprise that want to exercise some form of a veto here," he said. "They've got that kind of habit of feeling that they own that kind of clout and democratic policies and outcomes don't apply to them."
What the greens and climate change fanatics can't grasp is that opposition to ending fossil fuels is not based entirely on greed by the oil companies. The developing world cannot build up its solar, wind, and nuclear power sources to replace fossil fuels for many decades, perhaps even a century.
“The development of our countries depends, in fact, on the use of fossil fuels,” said Niger’s Issifi Boureima, who’s executive secretary of the Sahel Region Climate Commission. “It’s not easy for countries like ours to accept a text that agrees to end fossil fuels today. It’s not easy, because what do we do after that?”
“I think that in the dynamic of multilateral diplomacy, we need to avoid egoism, egoism of the north towards the south.”
The same should go for oil-consuming nations toward oil-producing nations. If there was ever any doubt that much of the world does not believe the planet is in imminent danger, this debate proves that. The climate may be changing. But most of the world isn't interested in destroying their economies based on unproven science.
A group of scientists at the COP28 aren't impressed at what's happened at the conference so far.
“The COP28 Presidency has made a very big deal about a whole lot of voluntary initiatives, while adopting an ambiguous and weak position on the central issue of a fossil fuel phaseout,” Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare, co-author of the report, said.
The COP28 president, Sultan Al-Jaber, also happens to be the UAE's environment minister and is the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). Not all leaders at the conference can be selfless climate scientists like Hare who only have the good of the planet on their minds.
