Files Suggest UN Climate Summit's Leader Is Using Event to Promote Fossil Fuels | Hacker News Reader

Files Suggest UN Climate Summit's Leader Is Using Event to Promote Fossil Fuels

nytimes.com

52 pointsboringg34 comments

My toddler is currently at the wings and wheels stage of fascination with machinery, so I've become pretty familiar with the Cars franchise as a result, and find it more than a little ironic that this allegation nearly matches the plot of Cars 3, minus the anthropomorphized vehicle assassinations and explosions.

Hah good point! I am in the same boat, but FYI it is Cars 2 you're thinking of, in which Sir Miles Axlerod promotes Allinoil biofuel by running it in the World Grand Prix but colludes to blow up the race cars to give the alternative fuel a bad reputation. Cars 3 is when Carmen the trainer becomes Lightning McQueen's racing protege. (edited: sp)

Crikes, don't tell my kid I fumbled one of the most crucial Dad performance review questions!

From the article:

> A leaked document has talking points for the president of the United Nations climate conference, who is an oil executive in the United Arab Emirates, to advance oil and gas deals.

While they install GWs of solar to save the petroleum to sell into the global market.

https://www.gem.wiki/Al_Dhafra_solar_farm

https://web.archive.org/web/20231128203004/https://interesti...

https://web.archive.org/web/20231128203049/https://old.reddi...

https://www.google.com/maps/@24.1374243,54.4949076,6821m/dat...

Everyone trying to get out the door before the fossil fuel valuations plummet.

why is a UAE oil exec the climate conference president

> the president of the United Nations climate conference, who is an oil executive in the United Arab Emirates

How does such an obvious case of the fox guarding the hen house come to be?

What a farce...

What is the United Nations other than one large hen house protected by foxes whos desire to each hens is only exceeded by their desire to prevent other foxes from feasting.

Principally to prevent a fox from getting their hens nuked.

Happy to be a living hen.

Then let's eliminate the rest of the BS at the UN. Iran chairs the UN human rights council, UAE hosting and using the climate summit to get sweet deals for their oil production...

What do we get next, China chairs the anti-slavery council? USA the social health council? Make Russia the head of the peace keepers?

90% of what the UN does is a farce.

I think you may be gravely undervaluing the importance of all world leaders coming together under one roof to get their grievances on the record.

But no, it's not a utopian organization, it's just the best we can do atm.

.. because you have to engage all stakeholders.. that is not to say "agree" or "compromise" but yes, engage; including prominent speaker slots, exchange of position papers, building long term relationships.

It is disappointing to see dismissive comments about the Conference of Parties.. do you really think that those representatives are aiming to be futile? or puppets? no

>... do you really think that those representatives are aiming to be futile? or puppets?

Yes. Hard yes. You're asking us to assume that an industry that has given us countless reasons to not trust it should be trusted, now, to act in our best interest.

There might be a bit of sense to it.

Like tobacco companies getting involved in cancer research. If they ‘solve’ lung cancer in a way that doesn’t necessitate stopping smoking, the tobacco exec will make out like a bandit.

Similarly, if the oil exec figures out how to ‘solve’ the negative effects of climate change without affecting oil output… drill baby drill!

He will solve the negative effects of climate change at a week-long conference?

No, but attending multiple such conferences will expose the oil exec to the areas of research, and help prioritize their funding.

Just like lung cancer isn’t solved, but Philip Morris etc still throw money at the research.

In an ideal world I would agree with you without reservations. Maybe I am too jaded, but find it hard to trust an UAE oil exec not to have an ulterior motive.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m in the same boat as you wrt skepticism about motivations, but there is a plausible explanation for how this kind of situation could come about.

I guess this answers the question: "Cop28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels" (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/03/back-int...)

Yep, NYT reporting as well:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/04/climate/cop28-aljaber-fos...

Can only access the NYT piece in reader mode, but the Centre for Climate Reporting broke the story a couple of days ago (alongside the BBC). They have the documents embedded in the story. “breathtakingly hypocritical” being the choice quote.

https://climate-reporting.org/cop28-president-oil-climate/

https://archive.ph/cpXCu

It's the UN. It basically exists to save us all from the nuclear war apocalypse. It's been very effective. That's why we keep it around. Otherwise, it's a bunch of nonsense and full of silly committees with fake titles that often are accomplishing the opposite of what they are pretending to accomplish and have no real power.

Earlier post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38429603

color me surprised.

Climate Summit: As in a bunch of 1%er billionaires fly their private jets to eat expensive food and drink lavishly while figuring out how to lecture everyone else about climate change?

I mean if international leaders meeting in person achieves even minute national changes in longterm climate policy then that private jet ride will have paid itself off many times over.

Then they should lead by example and buy carbon offsets from a reputable source.

AFAIK, Bill Gates is the only 1% er who does this.

Carbon offsets are largely bullshit financialized products.

Do they... all I see is evidence of more oil lobby entering the room. Oil lobby will never ever lobby for them losing long term profits, so be always extremely wary of their activities, I mean its not quantum physics rather just trivial 'follow the money' approach.

What I often see even with smaller national oil refineries are more in style of 'we lose this tiny battle and sell it 100x over via massive PR campaigns, while quietly pushing through this nefarious additional oil something something'.

Political leaders don't care, they get their cut of the pie now and next election cycle is up in the stars anyway and desperately hope they and their offsprings will have one of top positions in future world. Peasants be damned.

Now with these simple facts cleared, what heart-warming message do they have for the plebs?

Woah there, let's calm down a second. There is no need to advocate for the profitability and ethics in kidnapping private jets with billionaires on board. I'm sure if we just vote then we won't need violent revolution to avoid billions of people being displaced from climate change.

Tried that. It got us here. It's plane-snatching time.

Arguably they already figured out how to lecture us: "We can't scale back extraction so we might as well go for geo-engineering." Though they are probably still working out how to balance scare tactics with learned helplessness.

It's pretty disturbing too that these billionaires are enjoying a growing base of support for these kinds of actions, private jets for he but not for thee:

>There's nothing wrong with socialist leaders taking bigger slices of pie because of the good they do for the movement [1]

>You want meat to be a thing only rich people can afford? And you justify this by saying you want to help the poor? [2]

I'm not sure if their constituents are just useful [3] or if they think their master will toss them some crumbs from the table.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/s2g90...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37053096

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

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