Opinion by Mathew Carr

Nov. 28, 2023 — The BBC was either played, sinister or gormless when it published its “exclusive” on COP28 yesterday.

Here’s the lead and second par and the whole story is still worth reading:

The United Arab Emirates planned to use its role as the host of UN climate talks as an opportunity to strike oil and gas deals, the BBC has learned.

Leaked briefing documents reveal plans to discuss fossil fuel deals with 15 nations.

–BBC and Center for Climate Reporting

BBC folks etc, the climate talks are about speeding a transition to a clean economy.

By definition, this means doing deals to decide which fossil fuel projects will need to get done as demand for coal, oil and natural gas declines. And which ones won’t.

Antitrust imperatives do mean talks do need some transparency. These markets are meant to be competitive and perhaps the lack of competition is the real story here. Still, the rigged nature of oil markets is not really news.

On climate, Brazil, for instance, has much lower emissions per capita historically. It’s quite right that Brazil should be able to produce or refine new fossil fuels, if anyone is.

Deals need to get done in the frame of saving the climate. The problem of the past 35 years has been doing oil deals without that frame.

Do we want a fossil-fuel non proliferation agreement or not? What do you think that looks like, BBC?

False outrage

I have no information other than what was in the story and a bit of experience, but I’m willing to bet a small sum that the provider of the “leaked documents” was from an envious wealthy nation missing out on the money because China, Brazil and the UAE are going to get the money, instead.

I hope I’m wrong. Rich countries talk the talk of multilateralism and rules-based order. But when it comes down to it, they don’t like sharing power and they don’t like sharing money. Come to think of it, they don’t like sharing anything, including what’s left of the climate.