COP28's 97,000 minus a few hundred were exhausted

COP28 is over and now transformed into grist for an endless number of cynical armchair critics.

If you are reading in the media, and by media that means mostly 'social media' it is nigh unto impossible to find any positive commentary about COP28. This is the time of the "donate here buttons of despair". Don't fall victim to the pirates of doom. I stuck it out for the entire run of COP28, and man are my sore feet telling me I am too old for this. However, as much as the vast majority of humanity is unwilling to invest shoe leather to save this blue planet, it is the very least that is required.

While I found plenty to complain about during CO28, I choose to focus on the good parts. I was truly inspired by the fact that this meeting has been hosted and taken place in the heart of the world of fossil fuel. What better location to work than within the very heart of the issue.

Dr. Sultan Al Jaber is a hero for laying his heart open within his own home to the slings and arrows of so many critics. I am sure it will take him some time to pull those arrows from his back. He has represented an intelligent grip on reality with passion and courage. His statement that there is no science behind the notion that stopping fossil fuel being either the single solution or even the most important means to cure the harm of climate change is perfectly true.

We've never tested that STOP hypothesis. Indeed, since we are burning more fossil fuels than ever before we are testing the opposite. At the heart of the issue of fossil fuel is that the world is suffering real and present harm from yesterday's legacy CO2/GHG. Will we save or heal our world today by marketing our egos and "donate here buttons" on a distant future solution when fossil fuels have been eliminated? If the British Royal Society is correct, following the end of fossil fuel use, we will discover whether the climate and environment recover in a mere 2-20 centuries.

When I brought this Royal Society "best-of-science" dire time-line up at one of the sessions as the reason we need to focus on healing today's harm, ouch! I was making the point that this means we must set our critical priorities in a functional order as opposed to solely proclaiming the stopping fossil fuels, which can only yield results in the distant future. Several prominent panel participants chided me in response by saying in their most arrogant pundit voices...

"If we accept that, we might as well go home."

I wish they had stayed home! That sort of fallacious argument is right out of propaganda 101! Come on professors, give us a bloody break. But it was not merely a few who were determined to avoid work on healing our blue planet, it was a large majority at this COP28 plankton bloom, 97,000 strong. There is still a major propaganda theme playing that refutes any work on healing of present-day harms as a ploy that diminishes and distracts from the fight to Stop Fossil Fuels.

In that same session where this pompous chiding was so forth-coming, the organizers of the session had predicated it by requiring all of the panel members to swear fealty to Stop Fossil Fuels in their opening statements. This quintessential Blue Zone session proposed to offer "visions" for the future, but the visions were forcibly framed in dogmatic bullshit! It is enough to make one look for reasons for such insanity... the old adage 'follow the money' comes to mind.

COP28 Delivered A Path Forward!

The final wording on emission reduction, aka Stop Fossil Fuels, is being shredded by petulant persnickety climate critics as not being strong enough. It states:

“For countries to quickly shift energy systems away from fossil fuels in a just and orderly fashion… Countries also are called to contribute to a global transition effort — rather than being outright compelled to make that shift on their own.”

The marvelous key to this statement is that it recognizes the most important element of the Paris Treaty, that being that each treaty nation is recognized as having sovereign capability and responsibility to deliver on their treaty contributions. This sovereign aspect of the Paris Treaty, as opposed to the power-broker authority that stalled action and killed the Kyoto Accord for 20 years, is vitally important.

Already there are renewed calls from nations, that consider themselves more exceptional than others, that the Paris Treaty must throw out that part about Sovereign Equality of earnest and honest competence, intentions, and compliance that respects all Paris Treaty members as equals. Academics and institutions are lining up to pervert this treaty into their typical loudmouth, do-nothing, high-priced mediocre meritocracies that do nothing but talk. Don't listen to them!

There was so much good work and progress at COP28, dive in, find it, understand it, and feel inspired!