At the annual climate shindig, G7 countries were notable by their absence. In fact, no G7 leaders attended…
… at least according to Duck’s AI. You may think it knows nothing, but perhaps it knows more than we think, and is predicting the UK’s future relegation from Division 1. As it turns out, the UK Prime Minister did attend, and gave a vacuous speech in a vacant hall – literally shouting into the void. It is somewhat discouraging to see that in the yearly conference of sadists and masochists, the masochists have slowly dwindled, until the UK is the only one left.
Andy’s speech was sufficiently short that I can paste it in here in its entirety:
Mr President, my fellow leaders, Your Excellencies, good morning, good to be with you.
Britain is back and ready to play its full part. Thank you very much indeed for listening.
(OK, I will admit that there was a bit more than that. I am going to discuss the avocado in the sandwich below.)
What did he really say? He began:
The summer from which Britain recently emerged was not normal.
I spent my first three weeks as Prime Minister responding to the worst wildfires Britain has ever experienced.
I decided then it was important for me to be here to show British leadership in a world where climate issues have taken too much of a backseat.
The climate crisis is not a distant threat. It is upon us all now, devastating lives and livelihoods everywhere.
History records – and this time it looks like Duck agrees –
– that Andy Burnham went on holiday after two weeks in the job of PM. He spent his third week operating a sun lounger, not a fire extinguisher. “Devastating lives and livelihoods everywhere”? No, I don’t think so. Did the wildfires have anything to do with climate change? Alas, the government’s data does not provide a breakdown of causes, beyond “Accidental,” “Deliberate,” and “Not known.” There were, however, very few rural fires. Were any started by dry lightning? Doubtful, but please correct me.
I wasn’t going to mention that bit about “the summer from which Britain recently emerged,” but I can’t help it. Absolutely appalling language. Fire the speech writer. Oh, he writes his own stuff? Oh well. Never mind.
After this, Burnham goes on about wars, and our dependence on fossil fuels. This, though, is a little like bemoaning our dependence on oxygen. We are, of course, dependent on the demon gas, carbon dioxide, too. Which is kinda ironic. What we are dependent on, more than anything, is cheap and plentiful energy.
The message I carry here at my first COP as UK Prime Minister is this. We’re committed to meeting our 2050 net zero target and committed to working with all of our partners to reach theirs.
In that spirit, I am proud to support this COP’s focus on electrification. It matters for three reasons.
In a minute, I’ll tell you what the three reasons are, but you can guess, if you like. It’s Andy’s first COP, well, let’s hope it’s his last, too. His re-commitment to Net Zero is a joke, because it will be cancelled prior to 2050. By whom, and how far in the future? Unknown. So, what are the three reasons?
One, energy security.
It is now plain for everyone to see that if we depend on energy we do not control, then we leave ourselves exposed to prices we cannot control.
The shift to clean energy is the only route to energy security. Electrification is how we protect families from global fossil fuel shocks.
Utter burnham from Bunkum – I mean, bunkum from Burnham. Until we control the wind, we do not control the output from wind turbines. Electrification will boot us naught, unless we can survive a prolonged dark lull. Even then we have to pay the cost of a twin electricity grid and enough backup to survive said lull. What will be the backup when we are no longer dependent on fossil fuels? A billion blue blistering batteries?
Two, good jobs. But in the real world, more jobs in energy provision is a less prosperous society. He mentions the “government-funded” arc furnace, without mentioning what preceded it: a not-government-funded, not arc furnace. It was in fact a clear example of climate policy killing jobs, and then subsidising jobs to prevent a riot.
Three, “electrification lowers people’s bills”.
If you drive a new electric car today in the UK, it costs less than a petrol equivalent. Get on the right tariff and a heat pump can be cheaper to run than a gas boiler. These technologies are becoming cheaper but they are not available to everybody on all incomes.
This plonker is talking about agile tariffs and EVs, while half of the people of sub-Saharan Africa do not even have access to electricity. For example, how many Tanzanians have access to electricity? Wiki tells me, if it can be believed, that Tanzania lies in 195th place out of 210 countries for electrification, at 42.7%. Perhaps a better way for the UK to assuage its post-colonial guilt would be to help on this side. A pledge to bring electricity to all Tanzanians would be better by a mile, and a thousand times cheaper, than a pledge to bring UK territorial emissions down to “Net Zero.” Why Tanzania? No particular reason; I read a story (can’t find it, sorry) recently about Tanzania’s plan to nominate some of its Indian Ocean slave trade locations as UNESCO world heritage sites. Once Tanzania is hooked up (by buried cables, not pylons…), we can move onto the next country.
What next?
This crisis can only be solved in partnership.
I have pledged a new era of British leadership over the next decade.
The consensus we once enjoyed on science and climate has gone, and the reality is now the world will reach 1.5 degrees.
Climate leadership and action have become more urgent.
Britain will answer the call. Climate is a national security issue.
Britain will answer the call? Yes, if someone asks “whose round is it?” we are indeed likely to plead the need to “answer the call” and hope that the table is re-beered by the time we return. I jest of course, because the one thing you can be sure of, is that Britain’s rulers are willing to borrow money on their citizens’ behalf, in order to squander it on boondoggles badged as “tackling the climate crisis” in poor countries. Saith Carbon Brief,
A civil-society tracker shows that only five nations have announced new multi-year pledges, including just one major donor – the UK.
Germany, France and Japan are among the key contributors that have so far failed to set out plans for new climate finance, while none is expected from the US.
As a result, the total amount of public climate finance pledged over the next few years amounts to just $11.7bn a year in spending, down from recent levels of around $40bn.
Experts tell Carbon Brief that global conflict, fiscal constraints and the rise of the far right are all making it harder for developed-country governments to pledge new funds.
It’s quite funny to read that the rise of the far right is hampering climate finance. I’m sure there must be a little nuance that CB has missed. Maybe not wanting to borrow money to set fire to it is now a token of extremism?
The rest is really too bland to mention. Now I’m going to find the speech on YouTube, because by all accounts it was quite the spectacle… Well, here it is at the UNFCCC’s website. Can it be embedded? Nope, doesn’t look like it. Well, here’s the link to the livestream, and helpfully on the sidebar you can see the running order:
https://unfccc-events.azureedge.net/COP31_116747/agenda
Burnham was followed by Battsetseg Batmunkh, UN’s President of Desertification, or rather, combating it. The hall was still empty, and the horrible echoing sound did not conceal that fact. The occasional cutaways to the auditorium showed that everyone was elsewhere. The camera-person managed to find an angle with several people in it during the applause for UK’s time in the spotlight, mostly Burnham’s baggage train, and behind them, the delegation of Kiribati, whose President was due to follow Ms. Batmunkh on the stage.
The COP31 people have already managed to generate 700 videos, several of which have been viewed. This one has received the attention it deserved:
As to the live feed, when I clipped this, the global audience had temporarily broken single digits.
/message ends
