PAST PROMISES, PROMISES, PROMISES ON CLIMATE CHANGE HAVE ALL BEEN BROKEN

Glasgow climate summit is a hotbed of hypocrisy

 

By  Ariel Kahana  

 

Israel Hayom

November 2, 2021

 

 

 

On November 1, 2021, during his address at the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference, President Joe Biden apologized about former President Trump pulling the US out of the Paris Accords

 

The cold penetrated one's bones in the two-hour line as if it wanted to test the mettle of the 30,000 participants in the COP26 climate summit. Not that there's anything surprising in temperatures of 5 degrees Celsius during a Glasgow autumn, but the combination of the UN's organizational incompetence and the British bureaucracy was certainly challenging. And chilling.

Representatives from almost everywhere in the world gathered at the OVO Arena. British police with heavy accents rushed European, Asian, African, and American faces to have the results of their mandatory COVID tests ready. This is how the world works now.

On the bridge over the Clyde River a Scottish man in a kilt announced sarcastically, "Welcome. It's good to waste taxpayers' money on this summit." Behind him, the noise from demonstrations demanding that world leaders do much more, much faster to "prevent global warming" echoes.

The questions of how much the earth is heating up, whether people are responsible for it and can do anything to stop the trend, are the subject of dispute. What is not is the intention of world leaders and the world's wealthy to invest trillions into the green economy. What also cannot be denied is the pretense.

The presidents, prime ministers, princes, and kings, the children and the activists, spoke in lofty terms about urgency, about a "last chance" and about degrees that must be cooled. China and Russia, some of the top emissions producers in the world, did not attend the summit at all, and most of the countries that did are not meeting their own goals to reduce greenhouse gases.

COVID and the too-fast transition to green energy sources have sent the world energy market into a tizzy. Wind and sun are not meeting the supply that humans are demanding, which has caused many countries to fall back on the old familiar fuel sources. The crisis in the summit's host country is the most symbolic.

Long days of a fuel shortage and the collapse of 14 gas companies ahead of the British winter have prompted British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to renew coal mining – the most polluting fuel source. This step did not keep him from declaring on Monday that if climate change were not taken seriously "today," it would soon be too late.

The good thing is that Israel isn't losing its mind. For now. Prime Minister Bennett did announce in his speech in Glasgow that Israel was committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, and would phase out the use of coal by 2025, but there is no reason to believe that this will be the promise he'll keep.

There is no chance we will reduce greenhouse gases by 30% by 2030, as has already been decided, senior officials think.

When government plans on the issue are examined closely, one discovers that Israel isn't really moving into green energy – and given the experience of the world, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Today, only 6% of energy in Israel comes from green sources.

Director-General of the Prime Minister's office Yair Pines, who spearheaded the government plan to fast-track projects to help grapple with climate change, stresses that at Bennett's instructions, the issue of climate has become a matter of national security.

Actually, his efforts are aimed at turning Israel into a magnet for green entrepreneurs. He say that "we have an intention and a plan to turn Israel into a 'startup nation' in everything having to do with climate tech. That's what we aspire to be."

In the huge venues, Israeli entrepreneurs can be spotted here and there. Itamar Weizman, representing the VC fund Firstime and a veteran climate activist, has no doubt that the world is heating up and the issue of climate is even one of security.

"You need to understand that hordes of starving climate refugees will arrive on our borders. The Middle East is especially sensitive to changes. The world is about to invest $8 trillion in green economics. Anyone who loves our country will want to keep it green and clean. That's where the world is headed," he says.

We spoke standing next to an electric race car, which he noted was "faster than gas-powered cars." His passion, much like the simplistic videos about natural disasters, was in my opinion a little pretentious.

There is nothing new in natural disasters, and there is no way of knowing if humanity will face more global warming or a new pandemic. With all due respect to the "climatists," previous attempts to engineer humanity did not go well. You can check with the communists.