Australia dodged a bullet with COP going to Turkey, so let Chris Bowen enjoy his second best prize
The estimated cost of staging the event – up to $2bn – can now be used to fund the ongoing electricity rebates that are likely to be deemed necessary because renewable energy is the cheapest way to generate electricity. Or is it? Alternatively, we could not spend it at all.
These annual knees-ups are largely irrelevant, providing a generous gravy-train experience for bureaucrats, NGO hangers-on, green grifters and delusional politicians. Jumped-up diplomatic types madly rush around worrying about the wording of the final communiques, while the rest of the world gets on with business.
Between 50,000 and 70,000 individuals are attending the current COP in Brazil, although not all at the same time. The mind boggles. There have been a series of protests outside the venue, mainly involving disgruntled local indigenous communities. It’s like Davos on steroids.
COP is a potpourri of every left-wing obsession, including the connection between climate change and women, and climate change and indigenous communities. There was an early clash of opinions at this year’s COP on how to define women when it comes to climate change. (I’m not making this up.)
Let’s not forget here that the Paris climate agreement is non-binding and that the statements that emerge from these annual COPs have the shelf life of wrapping for fish and chips.
Attendees get their knickers in a knot about whether fossil fuels can be eliminated – they can’t – or phased down. In the meantime, the global use of coal, oil and gas has reached new peaks.
There are more than 400 Australians attending COP30, which is being held in some relatively remote city in Brazil. It was a bad look that a large swath of the Amazon forest was destroyed to construct a road to enable the conference to go ahead. What’s the message there: destroy the environment to save the environment?
(Hey, that could be a good catchphrase for the wanton clearing of land in Australia so more wind turbines, solar panels and massive transmission lines can be built. Who really cares about the loss of remnant vegetation and native fauna if the planet is being saved as result? Or is it?)
One COP session dealt with the development of green metals in Australia because that’s going so well. The green hydrogen industry is in ICU: it’s only a matter of time until the death certificate is signed.
It could have been a tad embarrassing for the smooth operator, South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas, to admit at COP that his government has ditched its green hydrogen dream (cost about $500m) to save the beleaguered Whyalla steel mill. No doubt he would have pointed to the abundance of renewable energy in the state, along with the highest wholesale electricity prices in the country and constant interventions needed to stabilise the grid.
There is no doubt there are plenty of cabinet ministers who will be sighing with relief at the news. The prospect of an expensive and pretentious boondoggle on climate change taking place in an Australian city in the lead-up to the next federal election didn’t bear thinking about.
Sure, the Adelaide Writers’ Festival crowd would have been a plentiful source of volunteers for the event, but hey – there can only be one winner.
The plan to have Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen take the presidency of the next COP, but only in respect of the actual event, is a pointless consolation prize for someone who really wanted COP to happen in Australia.
It’s a bit like being appointed the captain of debating at an obscure high school. But if it makes him happy, the Prime Minister and other ministers will be more than happy to go along with the charade. Some token participation by Pacific Islands will also be tolerated and paid for by us.
The person who best summed up what is going on in respect of international climate action was Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of the UK. He attended COP for a few hours and made the salient point that “consensus has gone”.
In the meantime, most of the countries attending are still trying to cash in through the creation of special deals – for reforestation, for adaptation, for mitigation – to be paid for by “rich” countries. The net sums contributed to these funds have been disappointing. And now the US is not in the club, the prospect for very large additions in future is low.
But here’s an idea: maybe Bowen could push for these COP shindigs to be held every five years, instead of annually? Just think of the foregone carbon emissions from this one decision alone.
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Adelaide might have missed out on staging the climate COP jamboree next year, but we have all missed a bullet.