BIG story breaking ahead of COP28

Undercover investigation reveals Saudi Arabia plan to drive up fossil fuel use in Africa - so oil producing nations can continue to sell their fossil fuels.

Just as nations discuss a fossil fuel phase out date.

🧵👇🏿

theguardian.com/environment/20… The Saudi government is like a drug dealer trying to get Africa hooked on its harmful product.

The rest of the world is weaning itself off dirty & polluting fossil fuels so Saudi Arabia is getting desperate for more customers & is turning its sights on Africa.

It’s repulsive.

This is appalling.

The recolonization of Africa through carbon markets is underway.

Company from UAE, COP28 host & major fossil fuel producer, buying up 10% of Liberia so it can continue to pollute.

Story in @MiddleEastEye here:


🧵👇🏿middleeasteye.net/news/liberia-u… The deal would see the UAE company control more than a million hectares of Liberian forest.

Which would violate a number of Liberian laws, including the 2019 land rights law, legislation that asserts communities’ right to “customary land”.

Carbon markets = communities suffer

The Bonn climate talks just closed and the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres is right when he sums up the current situation: “the collective response remains pitiful.” 🧵 He’s right to point the finger at fossil fuels. It’s crazy that with all the science & all the climate suffering, we have a COP28 being overseen by an oil company CEO. The task is clear for Al Jaber to prove his critics wrong. COP28 needs to mark the phase out of all fossil fuels

Truth be told, some of these #COP27 'analyses' are a bit rich, especially coming from the historic polluters who got us in this climate emergency in the first place. Here is my response. 🧵

https://twitter.com/ClimateHuman/status/1594435412273029132

Outcomes from COPs need to balance both the causes of climate change and deal with the consequences. For years the UNFCCC process has skewed heavily towards dealing with mitigation, of course without targeting the root cause - fossil fuels.

Here is my #COP27 assessment.

First thing first, COP27 has done what no other COP has achieved & created a loss & damage fund to support the impacted communities of climate change. Vulnerable countries have been calling for since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit As the #WorldCup starts today, it's a fitting moment to quote the Three Lions England football song, after 30 years of hurt, #LossAndDamageFund has finally come home on African soil here in Egypt.

As #COP27 takes place in Africa, there was high expectations that the "African COP" will deliver substantive progress on priority issues for Africa and other vulnerable countries, but to say the least, it's a bit disappointing so far. Here is my assessment thread 🧵 Lest we forget, #COP27 was billed as an implementation COP, but truth be told, it's increasingly looking like a Glasgow 'repetition COP', particularly on fossil fuel phase out, there’s no progress from last year. There’s still no mention of phase out of oil and gas in the text.

Here is my latest #COP26 assessment thread.

In Glasgow, the needs of the world's vulnerable people have been sacrificed on the altar of the rich world's selfishness.  The outcome here reflects a COP held in the rich world & the outcome contains the priorities of the rich world Not only did developed countries fail to deliver the long promised $100 billion of climate finance to poorer countries, they have also failed to recognise the urgency of delivering this financial support and setting a clear process for it

On the latest #COP26 draft text, loss and damage funding is missing. It’s not an accident. The rich world don’t want to pay up for the damage they’ve caused. Here’s my thread to explain next steps: We've made loss and damage central to the multilateral process. It is now the third pillar in the climate talks in a way the rich, polluting world cannot ignore.

Getting out of #COP26 with a decent deal largely depends on how much the US and EU agree to provide international support to the developing countries. Some of the crunch issues are adaptation support, a loss and damage facility & generally all climate finance related issues⏰ On loss and damage: The EU and US are blocking the loss and damage facility which is the only opportunity for climate vulnerables to access funding to deal with the irreversible impacts they face. It's not even about the much-needed hard cash at the moment

At COP26 there has been two realities this week, one is the world of press releases by the UK Government announcing a host of initiatives which suggest all is well.  The other reality is outside this PR bubble. ⏰ Emissions need to fall by 45% by 2030 if we’re going to keep global heating to 1.5C.  But even after all these announcements emissions are set to increase 13.7% by 2030.

#COP26Glasgow is in danger of drowning the UNFCCC in announcement blitz. These announcements may generate headlines but assessing their true worth is hugely difficult, especially at speed during a COP meeting. They are eye candy but the sugar rush they provide are empty calories Boris Johnson has been criticised ‘for Government by press release’ and it now seems to extend to their management #COP26 with a blitz of announcements from the UK with pledges and alliances committing to various positive sounding initiatives