As the world’s biggest hypocrites arrive in their private jets at the UN Climate Summit in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh (or as Rabo’s Michael Every puts it, “Sham el-Chic”), French President Emmanuel Macron quickly made an early splash (perhaps more so even than Greta who is trying to get rich from her book telling us how we need to destroy capitalism), when he “urged” the United States, China and other non-European rich nations to pay their fair share to help poorer countries deal with climate change.
“We need the United States and China to step up” on emissions cuts and financial aid, Macron told French and African climate campaigners on Monday on the sidelines of the COP27 summit.
“Europeans are paying,” he said.
“We are the only ones paying.”
“Pressure must be put on rich non-European countries, telling them, ‘you have to pay your fair share’,” he said, using every socialist’s favorite term.
Stepping up financial aid to poorer countries that face the brunt of climate-induced disasters has emerged as a major issue at the 13-day climate conference that began on Sunday.
The heads of developing nations won a small victory when delegates agreed to put the controversial issue of money for “loss and damage” on the agenda.
Nearly 100 heads of state and government will listen to each other speak (words pre-written by the green lobby) at the summit on Monday and Tuesday, but as always when it comes to these ridiculously idiotic boondoggles, China’s President Xi Jinping, whose country is the world’s top emitter of greenhouse gases, is not attending the conference.
Joe Biden, head of the country which ranks second on the top-polluters list, will join COP27 later this week after his Democratic party suffers a tsunami loss in the midterm elections on Tuesday that could put Republicans hostile to international action on climate change in charge of Congress.
Fresh from his own election victory, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected to attend the summit later on, with hopes that he will protect the Amazon from deforestation after defeating climate-sceptic President Jair Bolsonaro. Spoiler alert: he won’t; if anything he will profit from accelerating it.
Another new leader, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, reversed a decision not to attend the talks and is due to urge countries to move “further and faster” in transitioning away from fossil fuels.
