At time of writing there are breathless/shell-shocked accounts on the BBC World Service from Dubai, where the 28th “Conference of the Parties” to the UN Climate Convention is entering overtime (they almost always do).
It turns out that – despite literally decades of denial and predatory delay – people are still surprised that the oil and gas sector acts like a drug pusher who doesn’t want their clients to get clean. I guess we believe whatever we need to…
If you haven’t seen David Simon’s epic TV show The Wire, about Baltimore and its power elites (drug pushers, cops, politicians; not always distinct) then a) you’re functionally illiterate and b) you won’t get the full meaning of ths below.
There can be nice meetings where it seems everyone is getting on, but eventually Marlo loses patience with the pretend. He feels he doesn’t need it any more, given the actions he’s just taken, and the price of the brick goes up….
Addendum – I realised just after posting that what I have just written could very easily be seen as the standard racist/orientalist trope of innocent white people ensnared by wicked/brutish/inscrutable “foreigners.” So, for clarity/the avoidance of doubt, this: if you want to see what true horrific violence and destruction of alternatives look like, take a look at the history of Western imperialism, from the slave trade through the East India Company up to and including Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973 and on and on and on and on.
marchudson.net 
Marc, COP28 has concentrated too much on fossil fuels and CO2, they are only facets of the real issue, which is environmental degradation. I doubt we will ever reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, it will increase with world growth. But the other aspects of world degradation, such as deforestation, water pollution, increasing waste and soil salination, all of which seem to be pushed to the rear by “Climate Change”. Can and should be addressed, just what is the point in having cool, clean air, if we all live on a treeless, junk heap?