COP 28 A sorry tale of climate hypocrisy
Yeah, we’re all whingeing about United Arab Emirates hosting the COP28 Climate Summit, while quietly making sure that their oil industry booms on.
Because we, the righteous Western nations are doing so much to slow down global heating. And we are. the USA has its worthy Inflation Reduction Act- cuts down on the home use of oil gas and coal, and USA promotes renewable energy, heat pumps, electric cars.
Canada has its Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, cutting down on domestic greenhouse gas emissions. Australia is promoting renewable energy and electric cars at home. Norway is big on electric cars, and encouraging climate-friendly systems, at home.
But the reality is- take Australia as an example – the world’s largest exporter of coal, and big exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). USA is a huge exporter of LNG. Canada – oil and natural gas exports. Norway – huge supplier of oil and gas.
All of these national governments approve and support the expansion and export of fossil fuels, while sanctimoniously bleating about “net zero” at home.
Sure, let’s criticise Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber and his lot. But the big Western players are in reality even bigger polluters.
Karina Lester addresses the Second Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW
Karina Lester, second-generation nuclear test survivor and ICAN Ambassador addresses the delegates at the UN Second Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in NYC, November 28th, 2023.
She said “People still suffer to this day. We know our lands are poisoned. We know the fallout contaminated our country and our families, our people who move through those traditional lands…
We want recognition by governments of the day of the harms and what they’ve imposed on our people and on our traditional lands… We want respect and we want to start the conversations on repair. How do we work together to fix the damages that are there?”
She called on states parties to get to work on Articles 6 & 7 and for observers to double their efforts to sign and ratify the #nuclearban. She called on Australia, in particular, to make joining the treaty a top priority.
“Nuremberg Trial” for Israel’s Crimes Against Palestinians?
, https://www.thepostil.com/a-nuremberg-trial-for-israels-crimes-against-palestinians/
Make no mistake. Israel has committed massive crimes in Gaza and in the West Bank against the Palestinians. When will the thousands killed get justice? Or are we all supposed to just go on with our lives and pretend that it’s all the pursuit of “the right of self-defense?” Who are these IDF snipers who anonymously shoot children, and no one is even curious to know who these killers are? Is this the way of war now, according to the “international rules based order” that we should be so proud of in the West, which is supposedly the hallmark of our “civilization?”
A day of reckoning will come. There are good men and women who are wokring to make that a reality.
And what are we to make of our politcal class that utters not a peep about the slaughter that Netanyahu is doing, but who earlier could not get the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for President Putin fast enough, because Putin was assumed to have “kidnapped” Ukrainian orphans that they might have a decent life in Russia. But Netanyahu can kill as many children as he wants, since that is not a crime according to the “rule of law,” so the “jurists” at the ICC stay busy identifying “Russian crimes” that might be spotted at the backs of their cereal boxes.
Kurt Tucholsky was paraphrasing a French joke when he observed that “the death of one person: that’s a catastrophe. One hundred thousand dead: that’s a statistic!”
What Israel has done for over a month in Gaza is now a matter of statistics, for they have killed over 15,000 so far, more than 4000 of them children. It is the Palestinian Holocaust, because there are many more thousands buried under all those pancaked buildings where people once lived. And now that the Israeli assault continues, many thousands more will die.
Given these grim statistics, it becomes more and more important to remember the one person, rather than mention in passing the vast number of the now faceless thousands dead.
One such person was Elham Farah, a Christian Palestinian, living in Gaza, where she had taught music all her life. She was 84 years old and was the daughter of the Palestinian poet, Hannah Farah.
On November 12, 2023, an Israeli sniper shot her in the leg, as she came out of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, where she had been sheltering to escape the bombing. She wanted to make sure that her home had not been hit. A sniper was waiting who are trained to shoot in the leg.
Those inside the church tried to rescue her, as she cried out for help, but people were afraid of Israeli snipers who long have had a reputation for being merciless. Elham Farah bled to death over several days. No one came to help her because of the sniping. She had just survived the bombing of Saint Porphyrios, the 850-year-old church in Gaza, which took the lives of 18 other Christians. Is such a death for a gentle old lady acceptable to those who see themselves as “civilized?” And why no one even knows about the crimes of Israeli snipers is unimaginable.
The hell unleashed by the Herod of our time in the Holy Land escapes the mind’s ability to describe horror—to see little children torn apart by bombs, dropped by pilots in their sophisticated flying machines is beyond the reach of words…
Then Herod perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry: and sending killed all the menchildren that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.
Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying:
A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not (Matthew 2:16-18).
Rama” or “Ramah” is the name of several Palestinian towns, and “Rachel” stands in for all mothers whose children have been slaughtered by the powerful. Such killing was “righteous revenge” because the Hamas razzia of October 7th was fabricated as brutal, with beheaded babies and babies in ovens, when it was the IDF that did most of the slaughter of Israelis that day. Why the need to lie by Israel? The full truth about what really happened on October 7th is now coming out: Hamas killed IDF soldiers in combat. It was not a “terrorist” attack:
Thus on October 7th:
The IDF killed anything that moved;- Many Israeli captives were still alive, two days after October 7;
- Israelis were killed by the IDF with heavy shelling of houses and cars;
- Most of the civilian deaths happened because of the IDF;
- It was a razzia by Hamas because most of the captives taken were IDF officers.
And in the West, we have the war enthusiasts, eagerly cheering on Netanyahu and his ilk to kill more, to kill without compunction, for there will be no red lines drawn, because Israel is for “civilization,” because that is how you fight wars, by killing as many babies as you can with bombs.
Perhaps in the months or even years ahead, there will come a time for a “Nuremberg Trial” for the murderers that are now in power in Israel—and for the IDF soldiers snipers who shot down Elham Farah and the two liitle Christian Palestinian boys, and also for the many “journalists” and “scholars” who justified and whitewashed the crimes against humanity now permanently recorded for the world to see. Remember, they did hang Julius Streicher, even though he perosnally had killed no one.
Climate summit in an oil state: can COP28 change anything?
You are going to be hearing a lot about COP28 over the next two weeks. The
world’s most important climate meeting, beginning on Thursday, is being
hosted in Dubai by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – one of the world’s top
ten oil producers. COP28 will be the biggest gathering of world leaders of
the year. King Charles III and Rishi Sunak will be there, along with dozens
of other world leaders and some 70,000 other attendees.
Hosting a climate
conference in a petrostate was already controversial – but the BBC’s
evidence that the UAE team planned to use climate talks ahead of COP28 to
do oil and gas deals has heightened concerns. So, can a summit in one of
the world’s richest oil states deliver meaningful action on climate change?
Campaigner Greta Thunberg has said these UN climate summits are just “blah,
blah, blah” – meaning all talk and no action. But if the COP process did
not exist, we would certainly want something like it.
BBC 30th Nov 2023
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67557533
Special Report: Managing Climate Change. As world leaders meet in Dubai for
the COP28 climate summit, success will depend on whether there is an
agreement to dump fossil fuels. Plus: China under pressure; African nations
unite; EU rewilding plans; cleantech advances; rising sea levels.
FT 30th Nov 2023
Nuclear lobby’s big push to ‘shine’ at COP28.
The nuclear energy industry will be highly visible at the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28), taking place in Dubai over the coming weeks, World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León told delegates at the World Nuclear Exhibition 2023 in Paris.
………..” certainly we are seen as a positive force at the COP meetings”.”
…….. At COP27, held in Sharm El-Sheikh in 2022, there was the first Atoms for Climate Pavilion, a collaboration between the International Atomic Energy Agency and global nuclear trade associations. Bilbao y León said this was “truly a turning point in how nuclear is presented at COP meetings”.
…………….. in order to achieve a trebling in nuclear capacity, the industry needs to “turn this political good will that we are starting to see into actionable and pragmatic policies”. Licensing and regulatory processes need to streamlined and affordable financing must be secured. In addition, the supply chain and human resources must be expanded.
“We are going to need to bring together governments because at the end of the day our policymakers are the ones that are going to set these bold and pragmatic policies and energy markets,”……… https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Nuclear-to-shine-at-COP28,-says-Bilbao-y-Leon
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: A Bright Constellation in a Very Dark Sky
By John Reuwer, World BEYOND War, December 1, 2023 https://worldbeyondwar.org/treaty-on-the-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons-a-bright-constellation-in-a-very-dark-sky/
For those of us unable to bury ourselves completely in our ordinary lives of family, friends, and work to avoid seeing the tragedies of horrific violence unfold all around us, these are dark times indeed. The multiple wars that started after September 11, 2001 have only multiplied, and rarely end, imparting suffering to tens of millions of people around the globe. The risk of nuclear war is greater than anytime since the Cuban missile crisis, with all nine nuclear states building new nuclear weapons, several increasing their totals for the first time in 35 years, and several practicing nuclear war games on each other’s borders. At least one is threatening to use nuclear weapons if anyone challenges its aggression. The global military budget is well over $2 trillion dollars a year to wage current wars and prepare for the next ones. Two nuclear armed alleged democracies seem determined to carry out genocide in Gaza.
So it was wonderful to spend three days at the United Nations in New York amid hundreds of bright people attending the second meeting of states parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The 63 governments who have ratified the Treaty, for whom it is now international law to eschew any activity supporting nuclear weapons and to try to remediate the enormous harms already done by them, meet yearly to see how they are doing, help each other implement the law, and encourage others to join.
Accompanying the diplomats are doctors, lawyers, scientists, activists, scholars, and victims from many organizations, living the antidote to despair – each working hard to advance the sanity of this treaty among a world awash in nuclear madness. Leading the dozens of civil society efforts was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which was the ten-year driving force behind the negotiation of the TPNW in 2017. This was a major international treaty driven primarily by civil society, and a potent reminder that ordinary people can make a huge difference in a world usually dominated by the rich and powerful.
Leaders of civil society organizations were allowed to present their views in the plenary sessions along with the government representives. These statements were supplemented by educational sessions on dozens of topics. Most powerful for me were the young students from many countries who condemned nuclear weapons as creating insecurity and violating their right to life, who demanded more inclusion of youth and women in policy making. Scientists reminded us of the climate and agriculture research predicting that even a limited regional nuclear war will darken the earth’s skies enough to cause mass starvation of billions after the blast and fallout kills the first hundred million people. Representatives of the indigenous peoples who were harmed by weapons production and testing in the U.S., Australia, Khazakstan, and the Pacific gave stirring testimony of the loss of their land and multigenerational health, demanding justice for what they have suffered. The parties to the TPNW formally agree to address their concerns for healing and remediation. Several of the remaining Hibakusha (nuclear bomb survivors) from Japan shared their incredible stories and pleas for never again. Lining the hallways were works of beautiful art from the dawn of the nuclear age to the present. Concerts, vigils, prayer services, and protest marches were held at city venues nearby.
Representatives from the organizations that we count on to rescue us during disasters all made statements that there will be no meaningful help after multiple nuclear explosions . This included the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, the World Medical Association, the International Council of Nurses, and the World Federation of Public Health Associations. All of these bodies agree with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War that the only way to assure that nuclear weapons will not cause an unmitigated disaster for humanity is to eliminate them. The principle means of doing that will be educating as many people and leaders as we possibly can about the threat these weapons pose.
I noticed among the many statements decrying nuclear weapons a sentiment that I heard less frequently at antinuclear events in the past – that war itself is the problem, and that we would do well to oppose all war rather than expend energy supporting one side or the other in any given war. This created the opportunity to introduce folks to World BEYOND War, whose mission is replace war with a just and sustainable peace.
Mingling with capable people dedicated to preserving life and our future through the TPNW illuminated the world that often seems dark with hatred and killing, and energized me to continue the current work of creating space for peace and human dignity.
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 