Cop28 President: World Needs Business Mindset To Tackle Climate Crisis (theguardian.com) 83
The world needs a "business mindset" to tackle the climate crisis, the president of the next UN climate summit has said. From a report: Sultan Al Jaber, the president-designate of the Cop28 summit to be hosted in the United Arab Emirates later this year, said he aimed to use the UN talks to set out how the private sector can limit greenhouse gas emissions and give businesses and governments a clear set of tasks and targets. "We need a major course correction and a massive effort to reignite progress. This cannot be done by governments alone," Al Jaber told the Guardian in a rare interview, his first with a global newspaper since taking on the Cop28 role.
"The scale of the problem requires everyone working in solidarity. We need partnerships, not polarisation, and we need to approach this with a clear-eyed rationale and executable plan of action," he said. "Cop28 is committed to building on the progress made at Cop26 and Cop27 to inject a business mindset, concrete KPIs [key performance indicators, a cornerstone of most commercial strategies] and an ambitious action-oriented agenda." Al Jaber, as well as being the UAE minister for industry and advanced technology, is better known as a businessman, chief executive of the UAE national oil company, Adnoc, one of the world's biggest oil and gas producers, and the founding chief executive of its renewable energy company Masdar.
"The scale of the problem requires everyone working in solidarity. We need partnerships, not polarisation, and we need to approach this with a clear-eyed rationale and executable plan of action," he said. "Cop28 is committed to building on the progress made at Cop26 and Cop27 to inject a business mindset, concrete KPIs [key performance indicators, a cornerstone of most commercial strategies] and an ambitious action-oriented agenda." Al Jaber, as well as being the UAE minister for industry and advanced technology, is better known as a businessman, chief executive of the UAE national oil company, Adnoc, one of the world's biggest oil and gas producers, and the founding chief executive of its renewable energy company Masdar.
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> He sells something that bubbles up by itself from the ground, that everybody wants.
Porn?
This is a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
give businesses and governments a clear set of tasks and targets
If those people had bothered to read even just the Exec Reports of the IPCC reports, they would know that we already know the clear target since 20+ years:
- if you want to be in the +1.5C scenario at the end of the century, you need to reduce the CO2eq emissions by 5% every year (on top of each other)
- 2C ? 7% every year
As for the KPIs, we already have most of them: CO2eq emissions, renewables deployment rate, nuclear plants deployment rate... We don't need more KPIs, we need to acknowledge that the KPIs we have since 20+ years show that we have been doing is at best not enough, at worst counter-productive because we lost valuable time while thinking we were improving things.
This COP is a joke, and you shouldn't expect much from it. Especially since COPs are just big meetings where people agree on the lowest denominator, and nobody is bound by any decisions, or lack of decisions.
Re:This is a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is an article about Adnoc oil/gas extraction plans [theguardian.com]. Sultan Al Jaber, the host of COP28, is the CEO of Adnoc.
The United Arab Emirates, which is hosting this year’s UN climate summit, has the third biggest net zero-busting plans for oil and gas expansion in the world
Sultan Al Jaber is overseeing expansion to produce oil and gas equivalent to 7.5bn barrels of oil, according to new data, 90% of which would have to remain in the ground to meet the net zero scenario set out by the International Energy Agency.
So, to sum it up: we have the KPI, we have the course of action, but all of that is superseded by another KPI, which is how much money can be made that would benefit a handful of people.
This is the equivalent as appointing Ted Bundy to oversee a police department reform to better track serial killers.
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This is the equivalent as appointing Ted Bundy to oversee a police department reform to better track serial killers.
It's not. Ted Bundy is orders of magnitude more likely to do something useful here. There's no reason to think he would feel sympathy or want to support other serial killers.
A business mindset (Score:3)
...so, fascism?
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Most of the great fascists of the 21st century have been climate change deniers, so no.
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Most of the great fascists of the 21st century have been climate change deniers, so no.
Could you please provide us with a list? I need a good chortle
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Bolsonaro destroying the Amazon.
Abbott repealing Australia's climate legislation.
Trump withdrawing from the Paris agreement.
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All 3 were far right populists courting the conservative religious vote.
c.f. Nothing leftist about Biden.
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Need for an affordable mindset (Score:2)
The left only ever putting forward climate solutions that make the average person a lot poorer, drives people into the hands of right wing populists and fascists.
If we want climate policy to succeed, it needs to also allow the average voter in the West to keep their current standard of living and for people in poorer parts of the world to raise their stand of living.
Last week in Berlin 82% voted against the city becoming net zero, which has to be one of the largest results I have ever seen in a fair ballot.
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The left only ever putting forward climate solutions that make the average person a lot poorer, drives people into the hands of right wing populists and fascists.
d
That's just a lie. People are "driven" into the hands of fascists by their love of racism
If we want climate policy to succeed, it needs to also allow the average voter in the West to keep their current standard of living and for people in poorer parts of the world to raise their stand of living.
Lie. In fact, this CAN NOT HAPPEN because CO2 and runaway consumption are inextricably linked
Last week in Berlin 82% voted against the city becoming net zero, which has to be one of the largest results I have ever seen in a fair ballot. The politicians failed to explain how it can be achieved at an affordable cost...
THere is no planet "B", ANY cost beats uninhabitable.
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The left only ever putting forward climate solutions that make the average person a lot poorer, drives people into the hands of right wing populists and fascists.
d
That's just a lie. People are "driven" into the hands of fascists by their love of racism
No, it is their love of authoritarianism. All fascists need is an other, often a race, sometimes a religion or currently gay or trans, works just as well as racism to have an other to villeinize.
Authoritarian types are attracted to authoritarians. Trump is a good example, look at the leaders he praised, didn't matter their race, Korean, Arab, etc.
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Not wrong, just narrow in your definition. Bigotry might be the best word.
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Just what the world needs more of the mindset (Score:5, Informative)
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There's no convincing people to turn away from fossil fuels if doing so puts them at an economic disadvantage to those that continue to burn fossil fuels. As important it might be to reduce CO2 emissions there's a far greater importance to continue to make money so people can buy food and other necessities from the profits.
If alternatives to fossil fuels cost more then don't expect a rush to the exits from fossil fuels. If alternatives cost less than fossil fuels then there is no means by which the people
Re: Just what the world needs more of the mindset (Score:2)
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"If every option offered to lower CO2 emissions adds costs and reduces standards of living", fortunately they don't. Wind and solar are much less expensive than fossil energy.
https://www.thecooldown.com/gr... [thecooldown.com]
“All but one of the country’s 210 coal plants are more expensive to operate than either new wind or new solar,” the report states.
Looks like a flawed study to me. (Score:2)
Nobody knowingly gives up free money, so why would utilities keep operating coal power plants if wind and solar power costs them less? Is it because they don't know wind and solar power would cost less? I doubt that is the case because there's plenty of people pointing out these studies. I have some ideas.
The problem with studies like this is that they don't account for the increasing costs of a commodity that comes with higher demand. As soon as one utility decides to close a coal plant in order to bui
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Apparently you haven't been paying attention. Coal plants have been steadily closed down nationwide for about 15 years.
"U.S. coal power capacity peaked in 2011 at more than 317 gigawatts (GW), but steadily declined nearly 30% ever since, hitting a record high of 19.3 GW closed in 2015 and 13.1 GW closed in 2020. For context, coal’s share of U.S. electricity generation has plummeted from 50% a decade ago to less than 20% today."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/e... [forbes.com]
And guess what, the price of coal remained
business mindset (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:business mindset (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, business tackles the climate crisis with greenwashing, disinformation campaigns, and jurisdiction shopping for loose environmental regulations.
The poor polluters do not care (Score:4, Funny)
I saw the Konstantin Kisin video online a few months ago. He is a comedian, I got it. But he raises a valid point: poor people don’t care. Climate change is a first world problem. So until the poor have extra resources to spend on climate change (read: not poor anymore) then there will be no world unity. That is by far and away the largest problem: getting countries that are poor or don’t care on the climate change train.
The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJdqJu-6ZPo&t=155
Re:The poor polluters do not care (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that it is not true. At least, this ceases to be true when those poor people realize that they have even more to lose than the first world people.
Take Pakistan for instance. Last year, floods directly linked to climate change had more than one third of the whole country under water [bbc.com]. Funnily, or sadly, enough, Pakistan is only responsible for ~1% of CO2 emissions in the world. [cnn.com]
Pakistan is poor. Yet last year, during several UN councils, Pakistan's prime minister made pleas for climate change to be taken seriously [un.org]. The problem, unlike what Konstantin Kisin says, is not that they don't care. It is that poor people are usually not the ones responsible for most of those CO2 emissions in the first place. So maybe the first world should stop looking for other people to blame, and start wiping the shit of its own shoes.
Re:The poor polluters do not care (Score:5, Informative)
Said differently: World's richest 1% cause double CO2 emissions of poorest 50% (reported by Oxfam [oxfam.org]).
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Obvious solution: Get rid of the poorest 50%. Otherwise the 0.0001% might have to stop using their private jets to fly in caviar for dinner. Or even sell one of their three yachts. We can't have that, can we? Think of the jobs in the aerospace and yachting industries!
No one third of Pakistan was not under water (Score:3)
BBC Radio 4's More or Less programme took the claim apart and showed it to be a massive exaggeration
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/p... [bbc.co.uk]
First item on the show
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Pakistan is only responsible for ~1% of CO2 emissions in the world. [cnn.com]
Pakistan is only 0.15% of the eaths land mass.
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Pakistan is only responsible for ~1% of CO2 emissions in the world. [cnn.com]
Pakistan is only 0.15% of the eaths land mass.
I know you wanted to be funny or to troll, and that you threw a number without actually checking if it was truue, but this could be an interesting comparison.
In terms of population, Pakistan is 2% of the world population (but contributes only 1% of the CO2 emissions).
The comparison in terms of land area (Pakistan is the 16th biggest country in total area, out of 194 [wikipedia.org]) is pointless though, as big countries could have a lot of empty areas (deserts, mountains ...). Maybe a comparison by population density would
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I know you wanted to be funny or to troll,
No, i wanted to show that just writing down a percentage is pretty meaningless.
Maybe a comparison by population density would be interesting?
I think a co2 per capita would be the most fair.
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I think a co2 per capita would be the most fair.
0.9ton CO2eq/capita.
Why didn't you post it then?
Also, writing down any percentage like you did, without bothering to source it and explain how it could mean something is useless. But writing it in a given context is not, and explaining why it matters, like I did in my post, is not.
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Well, given that the poor will be the first to die of this catastrophe anyways, there is some fairness in that I guess.
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Climate change is a first world problem.
That is totally false.
It does already and will even more in the future affect the developing and 3rd world more than the first world. It's just that when you're struggling to survive from week to week, you don't have the capacity to worry about something that'll affect you in 5 or 10 years.
We have an equivalent in the USA: Try talking about pension funds to people who work two jobs and barely make it from one paycheck to the next. They're aware that pension is an issue, but it's not something they can affor
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Good luck with that (Score:3)
For everything!, not just climate.
Until the power cuts out and my family suffers (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure a business mindset (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead I think we need a cooperative mindset. We need to stop falling all over each other to see who can please billionaires the most in the hopes they'll share a little bit of the money we gave them back to us
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Is what got us in this mess in the first place. A business mindset is to make as much money as quickly as you can within the bounds of legality. And the test those bounds here and there while you're at it. Instead I think we need a cooperative mindset. We need to stop falling all over each other to see who can please billionaires the most in the hopes they'll share a little bit of the money we gave them back to us
Yes, commies of all sorts are widely known for their environmentally-friendly industry. /s
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I don't know, the Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites, etc. have a fairly environmentally friendly reputation.
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You ever actually read the Bible? (Score:2)
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Sooo... (Score:5, Insightful)
Make money as much as you can, sell fake remedies and then, when found out, go bankrupt?
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Make money as much as you can, sell fake remedies and then, when found out, go bankrupt?
Or better: when found out, get yourself appointed as head of a global meeting whose sole purpose is to fix the mess you profited from.
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You think they want to fix the mess? Does not look like it to me. More like greed and ignorance as usual and a deep false conviction that things will not be so bad and, anyways, will hit only others.
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For once we completely agree. My comment was supposed to be ironic, but after re-reading it, it may not have been that obvious.
To go even further, I do believe the goal of Al-Jaber is to make it as if he wants to do something, while at the same time making really sure nothing is really done, so that his profits can continue to go up.
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We do completely agree on this one indeed.
Shocking (Score:1)
Educator says world needs education mindset to tackle climate crisis.
Engineer says world needs engineering mindset to tackle climate crisis.
Psychiatrist says world needs psychiatric mindset to tackle climate crisis.
business mindset? (Score:3)
He's not wrong. When it comes to climate we need to pay ourselves bonuses, cash out, and hope the government bails everyone else out, like SVB.
USA, China, Russia (Score:2, Troll)
Those are the world worst polluters.
So long as they're not made to fall in line and actually care, climate change cannot be mitigated.
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been working for large businesses most of my career, over half my life. They are all a shit show. They're probably the least efficient, most wasteful, most misguided way to solve a problem in a meaningful time frame.
But they are a great way for a few people to get rich.
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There are two ways for a big company to make money:
1. Sell their product to people.
2. Sell their product to government.
Draw your own conclusions.
Net Zero 2050 (Score:3)
Have you guys looked at that actual Net Zero 2050 proposals? The idea is ZERO net carbon emissions by 2050. That means negligible commercial air travel and international shipping since the biofuel industry is tiny and can't grow very much because there's already a world food shortage.
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Let's apply that to business planning: "We can't hit our goal of 25% growth, so let's just take long luches and goof off and give ourselfs huge raises because why not?"
Sports: "We don't have a chance of getting in the playoff so we won't go to the trouble of holding practice."
Your life: "I'm already living in my parents basement and I haven't had a social life for years so I'll just order another pizza, steal some beer from the fridge, and take a bath eventually, maybe
Strategy (Score:2)
Babble biz-speak so it sounds like you're busy doing something?
Ukraine + Russia (Score:2)
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It is because Russia felt that Europe would do nothing about an invasion of Ukraine that lead to this environmental damage. Why would Russia believe Europe would do nothing? Because to punish Russia where it would hurt, their fossil fuel exports to Europe, means Europe has to stop importing Russian energy.
It appears to me that for Europe to successfully end imports of Russian energy they have to find imports from elsewhere, and that comes with risks of a repeat of the same tactic some time in the future,
Re: Ukraine + Russia (Score:1)
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I believe the greater problems for solar power in Australia, or any nation on Earth, is labor and materials. Every renewable energy source is at a disadvantage on costs for materials and labor when compared to nuclear power, and this on top of the costs from being intermittent.
Geothermal energy has an inherent energy storage element to it so it can better compete in a market where energy storage exists on the grid. Hydroelectric dams have an inherent energy storage element. So does nuclear fission, becau
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Remove government favoritism including all environmental protections and it will be coal or natural gas that wins on price.
Nuclear is just too expensive, especially if we need to build a hundred plus a year for the foreseeable future, starting now.
Even with government favoritism, and a government that doesn't put up with people trying to stop construction, China brings how many nukes online a year?
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Remove government favoritism including all environmental protections and it will be coal or natural gas that wins on price.
A couple problems with that statement. First, nobody is suggesting we remove all environmental protections so it is a silly statement to make. Second, that is kind of the point I'm making. So long as coal and natural gas produces electricity at lower cost than other options there will be people burning them for electricity. If you want people to abandon fossil fuels then offer alternatives that come in at lower cost. Coal and natural gas are not free so there is some bottom to how low that price can g
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Remove government favoritism including all environmental protections and it will be coal or natural gas that wins on price.
A couple problems with that statement. First, nobody is suggesting we remove all environmental protections so it is a silly statement to make. Second, that is kind of the point I'm making. So long as coal and natural gas produces electricity at lower cost than other options there will be people burning them for electricity. If you want people to abandon fossil fuels then offer alternatives that come in at lower cost. Coal and natural gas are not free so there is some bottom to how low that price can go. Get below that bottom price of fossil fuels and nobody will bother with fossil fuels again.
Well, you were not very clear with this statement,
Now it is true that government favours fossil fuels, so perhaps if that goes away, renewables could compete better. Nukes really need government favour, if only for the insu
Re: Ukraine + Russia (Score:2)
Re: Ukraine + Russia (Score:2)
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Nuclear power as a probably necessary part of the solution to global warming is something that I would agree with but many of your arguments here for it are nonsense and do more harm than good for the cause you're trying to push.
The "business mindset" (Score:1)
that ignored it for decades?
Fuck no! (Score:2)
It was the "business mindset", or more correctly the corporate mindset, that got us into this mess. The last thing we need is still more opportunities for psychopathic corporations to game the system, re-write the rules, and shove climate change into the trunk with a gag in its mouth while continuing to drive the vehicle toward the nearest, most profitable cliff.
Fuck corporations.
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Right, fuck corporations, because no corporation builds solar panels and windmills. Only individuals do that.
Oh... wait... that's not quite right. It is with corporations we can see people pool their resources and spread liability. Remove that and there's no electric car makers, no solar power factories, and no mining for the raw materials needed for any products that could mitigate against global warming.
which sense? (Score:2)
Nothing he said there makes me go like "yeah, that's exactly what business is like".
Let's get rid of "government" because after a few decades of neo-liberalism, they're essentially just the executive branch of business interests. For those of you born after ca. 1990 - there used to be a time when "but jobs!" was not the end of policy discussions. There also was a time when business actually paid taxes.
Let's put "community" or "society" as the opposite of business. Because that's where ideas like working tog
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It is easy to stop that practice. Set up a fire brigade of your own to put out fires. This requires some forethought, and paying some kind of insurance fee to keep the firefighters trained and the fire engines maintained. Nobody can hold people ransom for choosing to sell their home or watch it burn. If this competing fire brigade tries to hold back your own fire brigade by force then pay for a police force to maintain order.
What is the equivalent to this in global warming? It is people competing for m
Making people poorer is not the solution (Score:2)
The problem is the solutions put forward for climate change nearly all involve making the average person a lot poorer. Over the last few months many politicians cross Europe have discovered that higher energy prices have been rejected by their electorates, and we are seeing waves of strikes and protests across the continent.
Just last week, a referendum in Berlin on the city becoming net zero by 2030, was rejected by 82% of the city residence.
The IPCC and COP have repeatedly failed to show how we can migrate
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Define "average person"? The proposed solutions involve making WESTERNERS a lot poorer. Not so for Asians or Africans, except maybe Japan.
Fuck you, Al Jaber (Score:2)
It was extreme business mindset that fucked up. No expectations that more of it will somehow magically fix it.