This is a sobering interview from the UN Climate Change Conference COP 25 in Madrid (2-13 December 2019).
https://youtu.be/oa13KrOvE2s
Dr. Peter Carter founded the Climate Emergency Institute. He served as an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change’s fifth climate change assessment in 2014.
According to Dr. Carter the COP25 conference, like UN climate change conferences before it, are designed to fail.
Since 2013 Australia has been on a path that ensures such failure.
Under Scott Morrison's prime ministership the federal government's willingness to do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry at these conferences is becoming quite noticeable.
The Guardian, 10 December 2018:
As four of the world’s largest oil and gas producers blocked UN climate talks from “welcoming” a key scientific report on global warming, Australia’s silence during a key debate is being viewed as tacit support for the four oil allies: the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait.
The end of the first week of the UN climate talks – known as COP24 – in Katowice, Poland, has been mired by protracted debate over whether the conference should “welcome” or “note” a key report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The IPCC’s 1.5 degrees report, released in October, warned the world would have to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 45% by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5C and potentially avoid some of the worst effects of climate change, including a dramatically increased risk of drought, flood, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.
BBC News, 12 December 2019:
According to the UN, 84 countries have promised to enhance their national plans by the end of next year. Some 73 have said they will set a long-term target of net zero by the middle of the century. In a rare move, negotiators from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) pointed the finger of blame at countries including Australia, the United States, Canada, Russia, India, China and Brazil. They had failed to submit revised plans that would help the world keep the rise in global temperatures under 1.5C this century.
Courier Mail, 14 December 2019:
Australia has come under fire for resisting proposed future emissions targets and changes to carbon markets.
Escalating tensions, Costa Rica’s environment and energy minister Carlos Manuel Rodríguez outright blamed “Australia, Brazil and the US” for the stalemate.
For clarity, obviously all countries are here to advance their national interest. For some that's to stop all their citizens dying. For others it's profit #COP25 https://t.co/CaSy8OzeQU— Patrick Galey (@patrickgaley) December 14, 2019
