By Paul Homewood
The fun has started at COP29!
For years successive COPs have papered over the cracks, but the cracks have now become unbridgeable chasms.
The West wants the world to give up fossil fuels. The developing countries want money, lots of it that the West can’t afford.
Meanwhile, China and the rest of Asia want a free pass both from cutting emissions and paying money out. And the major oil producing countries have said “On your bike!”
So far at Baku, the West has promised to pony up $250bn a year by 2035 in climate aid. But when inflation is taken into account, this is barely more than the $100bn agreed at Copenhagen in 2008. The third world wanted $1.3 trillion.
China still refuses to pay a cent, and Azerbaijan has made it clear that it will not abandon its God-given gift of oil and gas.
As for cutting emissions, the whole idea has had to take a back seat to this unseemly scrabble for money.
Meanwhile everybody knows the whole thing is a charade, because Trump won’t merely pull out of the Paris Agreement next year, he will take his money with him.
The whole thing is, of course, hilarious. All we need now is for Ed Miliband to try eating a bacon buttie again!
