Just one example of the kind of disinformation to be found on X

Just to give a little flavour of the enormity of the lies floating around on Elon Musk's disinformation vehicle X, there is a post doing the rounds, now with tens of millions of views, claiming that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zekinskyy has bought a $20 million mansion in Florida and has applied for US citizenship for when Ukraine inevitably falls.

To most thinking people this seems, even at first glance, so highly improbable that you'd at least check it. But that's not how Twitter and Facebook users work.

Anyway, suffice to say, the claim is not true, on many different levels. The mansion shown is in a completely different part of Florida than claimed, and is happily owned by some other regular (if rich) folk, although it is now for sale if you have $11 million to spare. The citizenship application shown is actually a customizable template available on Reddit. The photo of Zelenskyy used is the official one from the Ukraine government website.

So, someone has gone to quite some trouble to concoct this fantasy, complete with documentary "evidence", in order to discredit Zelenskyy, presumably in support of Republican attempts to stop the flow of American money to Ukraine. 

It apparently originated on the DC Weekly website, a nest of iniquity and disinformation that often posts pro-Russian content. The author of the original article, one Jessica Devlin, claims to be an "acclaimed journalist" but actually has nothing else published online, and her profile picture is actually a picture of another woman entirely, a New York-based writer called Judy Batalion.

So, levels within levels of disinformation. The X post, nevertheless, has been shared millions of times, including by a prominent failed Republican Senate candidate, and has already achieved its intended goal. Why any reputable individuals still associate themselves with this platform is a mystery to me.

COP28 - a qualified success?

For better or worse, depending on who you speak to, the COP28 climate summit has ground, belatedly, to a halt. It hasn't been the unqualified success some wanted - realistically, it was never going to be that, notwithstanding the fact that one person's success is another person's failure - but neither has it been a complete write-off. There have been some positive developments, even if the big stuff didn't really get done. So many competing interests, and we are definitely not all rowing in the same direction, or with the same enthusiasm. 

So, what went right? 

• Over 150 countries signed on to the Global Methane Pledge, to significantly cut methane levels by 2030.
• A commitment was made to triple global renewable energy production, and to double the rate of energy efficiency improvements, by 2030.
• More money has been promised for the loss and damage fund for poorer countries directly feeling the effects of climate change.

Well, OK, all well and good, although none of this is actually enforceable.

So, what went wrong, then?

• There was no commitment to cut methane from the largest single source: agriculture, particularly cattle-raising.
• Despite early enthusiasm for a complete "phase out" of fossil fuels (over 100 countries were willing to sign up for that), the final declaration got watered down to "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner", and "phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that do not address energy poverty or just transitions, as soon as possible". But there were still no specific timelines, benchmarks or investment goals, and the agreement is entirely non-binding, although, arguably, at least fossil fuels were mentioned this time.
• The goal to limit warming to 1.5°C looks to be gone, and the window of opportunity almost completely closed.

Groupings like the Alliance of Small Island States are furious and most environmental groups feel like they've been sold out. But oil producing nations feel like they've given away more than enough, and they will probably see this conference as a win insofar as it is not more restrictive. 

So, should we take COP28 as a win, overall? Maybe "qualified success' is about where we are.

Conservative lies (yes, I said it) about the carbon tax

Since the Liberals had the poor judgement to give a "break" to home heating oil users in Atlantic Canada, there has been a growing backlash against their signature climate change initiative. Without this ill-considered "carve-out", it would probably not have occurred to most people that avoiding a price on carbon was even an option. It was probably the worst single decision the Liberals have made in the whole eight years of their administration.

Now, however, a recent poll shows that 42% want the carbon "tax" to be scrapped completely, and a further 17% want at least a temporary cut. Only 15% believe that the tax should continue as scheduled with further rate increases each year. (The whole point of putting a price on carbon is to make carbon-intensive activities increasingly undesirable and difficult. Because, you know, the planet is burning and all that.)

Predictably, the Conservatives have made hay from this chink of sunshine. Disingenuous populists like Pierre Poilievre and Danielle Smith have jumped on this opportunity to beat the Liberals, and "Axe the tax!" (could they not do better than that?) has become a rallying cry for the right wing once again. Because, well, taxes are bad, aren't they?

Well, no, taxes are not, in and of themselves, bad. They are a way of raising money to provide other government services for people that need them. But, more to the point the "carbon tax" is not really a tax at all. It is a revenue-neutral device, and all the money collected is refunded to taxpayers. In fact, an estimated 80% of taxpayers - including most lower- and middle-income Canadians - are better off as a result of the carbon tax, as they receive more back in the form of a Climate Action Incentive Payment than they pay out as a result of the increasing carbon tax. Only a small minority of (wealthier) Canadians are actually out of pocket, due to their particularly carbon-intensive lifestyle. Don't just take the government's word for that, though: a 2021 university study confirms it, as does a 2022 Parliamentary Budget Office report.

The Liberals, though, have done a terrible job of explaining this to the Canadian public, and nearly 40% of Canadians seem to have no idea that they have been receiving these rebates. (It doesn't help that banks have been slow to transparently label the direct deposits in people's bank accounts, which might make it clearer what the deposits are for.) Even since the Conservatives' iniquitous "Axe the Tax" campaign started, the Liberals still don't seem to have gone out their way to explain it, or to explain why the Conservatives are lying to us about it (one has to assume that Conservative politicians actually DO understand it).

But, anyway, the Conservatives say, the carbon tax is adding to our inflationary woes, isn't it? Well, kind of. Tiff Macklem, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, estimates that the effect of the carbon tax on the recent increase in inflation is about ... 0.15%. So, inflationary pressure is just another Conservative red herring. And even that small element is not inflation that leaves us worse off (in the majority of cases, at any rate), because we get it back in the form of a rebate.

I know that. Maybe you know that. But most people apparently don't. Why don't they? Because the Liberals are inept. And the Conservatives will be running a whole election campaign on the basis of that government ineptitude and willful public ignorance. And they are clearly willing to lie and mislead in the process.  

Incidentally, I have tried to find a good explanation of why Poilievre and his followers object so strenuously to the carbon tax, but I have failed to do so. (Plenty of articles about why Conservatives should be in favour of it, but nothing substantive to the contrary.)

Israel has lost the world's goodwill and the moral high ground

For about a week, or maybe more, in October, Israel had the goodwill and sympathy of the world. 

Since then, as Israel doubles down on its impossible goal of eliminating every last man-jack the Hamas organization, and proceeds to obliterate legitimate Palestinian communities and indiscriminately bomb civilians, hospitals and refugee camps, people are starting to remember that, oh yes, these are those guys who have been illegally settling Palestinian lands, carrying out extra-judicial killings and imprisonments, and maintaining an almost-complete blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Most major Western governments are still carefully sticking to the agreed formula that Israel has a right to defend itself, but Israel is doing very little defending and a whole lot of brazen attacking right now. And the people those governments represent are long past sympathizing with Israel, horrified by its disproportionate response to what was admittedly an inexcusable act by Hamas. Even the supportive governments are starting to show their frustration at the way things are going.

After seven days of "humanitarian pause" and a promising swap of hostages and prisoners, Israel has ramped up its rhetoric and its attacks still further, and it is all starting to sound increasingly hollow to Western ears. The moral high ground has been well and truly lost, and global goodwill has been squandered.

No-one pretends that Israel has ever had an easy time of it, plonked down in 1947 in a place they had not lived in for almost two thousand years. But, after decades of poor decisions and wars, a bigoted and arrogant political class, and a population with a sizeable chip on its shoulder, they have done themselves no favours. 

I will probably be branded as antisemitic for such sentiments. That's the usual come-back whenever the state of Israel is criticized, because it tends to shut down the conversation instantly because no-one can conscience being labelled as antisemitic. But you might notice that at no point (until now!) have I used the word "Jew" or "Jewish". This is not about religion, it's not even about culture. It's about a particular nation-state and its political boundaries and ambitions. Semitism or antisemitism doesn't (or shouldn't) come into it.

China and India qualify as developing countries for climate change purposes, and that's just wrong

The COP28 climate summit has already announced a few promising developments, one of which is a "loss and damage" fund, whereby rich developed countries subsidize poorer developing countries for the additional costs they have incurred from disasters and damage caused by climate change.

That all sounds very sensible. But the problem arises in defining which countries should contribute to the fund and which countries should benefit from it. There is a concept of "common but differentiated responsibilities" in UN jargon, which basically means that all countries have a responsibility to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but their share of responsibility depends on their development needs. But the UN's definitions of "developed" and "developing" are based on its 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is now over 30 years old, and much has changed in the intervening decades.

So, technically, India and China qualify as developing nations, and therefore stand to claim from the fund, which seems kind of ridiculous. China is the world's largest carbon dioxide emitter, having overtaken the USA some years ago, and India is now Number 3. China and India both argue that their high levels of emissions are a recent development, while other western countries have been polluting the world for centuries. This is, of course, mere sophistry and disingenuous in the extreme.

China is now the second richest country in the world in terms of GDP, and India  has the fifth biggest economy. Yes, they both have huge populations to support, but to subsidize their current emissions habits seems just plain wrong. Interestingly, the United Arab Emirates, which is hosting the summit, is also technically a developing country, but it has pledged $100 million to the loss and damage fund, so a precedent has been set. 

At the very least, the outdated development grouping of countries being used by the UN is in dire need of revision.

The US doesn't want EVs (or its car dealerships don't)

There's an interesting conundrum occurring in the American electric vehicle (EV) market. I have pointed out in a previous post that the USA is reporting a glut of unsold EVs, while Canada is facing the opposite problem: not enough cars available to fill demand.

So, now we have thousands of US car dealerships banding together to protest to Joe Biden that the American public is just not ready for the EV revolution and that demand has dried up (after the initial flurry of early adopters), and there is no way that they can possibly comply with the new regulations and targets in the Inflation Reduction Act, which effectively mandates that two-thirds of all new passenger cars be electric by 2032.

Despite a wide variety of good battery EV options available on the market, the dealerships claim that "electric vehicle demand today is not keeping up with the large influx of BEVs arriving at our dealerships prompted by the current regulations. BEVs are stacking up on our lots... Consumers don't want them; they're not buying them."

As a response, the dealerships and the manufacturers want the government to roll back its progressive targets. They have little or no interest in what is the right thing to do for the country or the planet; they are solely concerned with their bottom line and their shareholders' returns.

They seem to have no interest in getting creative either. For example, when was the last time you saw a television advertisement for an electric car? If you watch a sporting event, for example, most of the adverts are macho pitches for more-or-less interchangeable trucks and SUVs, with a heavy emphasis on speed, off-roading capability and towing capacity. Is it any surprise, then, that people think they want to buy macho trucks?

It remains to be seen whether the Biden administration has the courage of its own convictions, or whether it caves under pressure like the Trudeau government did over home heating oil.

Do we really need nuclear power?

So, there was John Kerry at the COP28 summit in Dubai sharing his deeply-held belief that there is no path to net-zero carbon by 2050 that does not involve nuclear power: "We know, because the science and the reality of facts and evidence tell us, that you can't get to net-zero 2050 without some nuclear". 

And when he says "some nuclear", he means a lot - the US (and several other developed countries, including Japan, France, UK, South Korea, UAE) is calling for a tripling of nuclear capacity. Yes, they are also calling for a tripling of renewable energy capacity too, but clearly the once-discredited nuclear industry is having a bit of a moment, notwithstanding its record of huge cost overruns, long construction times, expensive electricity, poor planning for long-term radioactive waste storage, and the potential for catastrophic accidents.

But is Kerry's claim true. A quick Google search suggests that it absolutely is:

• Net zero "needs nuclear power," IAEA says in landmark statement backed by dozens of countries at COP28
• The world won't get to net zero emissions without nuclear power
• Net zero isn't possible without nuclear power
• There's no path to net zero without nuclear power, says O'Regan
• Net zero needs nuclear
• Why net zero needs nuclear
• Mark Carney says net-zero impossible without nuclear power
• We can't solve climate change without nuclear power
• Global climate objectives fall short without nuclear power in the mix: UNECE
• Etc, etc. You get the idea.

It's certainly the conventional wisdom. But the conventional wisdom is not always the wisest wisdom. And, if you look carefully, sandwiched between all these paeans of praise to the nuclear industry (many of which are contributed by the nuclear industry itself, incidentally), there are some contrary voices:

• Wishful thinking about nuclear energy won't get us to net zero
• Why small modular nuclear reactors won't help counter the climate crisis
• Don't believe hydrogen and nuclear hype - they can't get us to net zero carbon by 2050
• 'You don't need nuclear to get to net zero', says climate professor Jeffrey Sachs
• 7 reasons why nuclear energy is not the answer to solve climate change
• Nuclear power still doesn't make much sense

These are not wild voices from the political wilderness; they are reasoned analyses by respected scientists. Yes, there are fewer of them, and they MUCH worse funded. But these voices should not be just ignored.

So, does "the science and the reality of facts and evidence tell us" that nuclear power is a sine qua non for net zero carbon by 2050? Well, some of it does, but some of it doesn't. As with most of these things, it all depends on what assumptions you make (and when predicting the future, particularly a technological future, it is impossible to avoid making some assumptions).

One article called nuclear power the "most religious form of energy", and that "those who believe in it, believe in it 100%". That's not far wrong. It's one of the most polarizing technologies we have, with strong opinions on both sides. But the fact that we're still arguing about it attests to the fact that the jury is still out. It is pretty incontrovertible that nuclear power is not a cheap option (as the same article - and many others - explains), and it does have many other drawbacks too. But can we actually do without it?

Just to add spice into the mix, it's not even totally clear that nuclear power is a low-carbon energy source, let alone carbon neutral, the single most important factor in its popularity these days:

• False solution: nuclear power is not 'low carbon'
• Fact check: is nuclear energy good for the climate

*Sigh* It seems that nothing is ever simple. And John Kerry seemed so convincing...

What can we expect from COP28 in the current climate?

I don't often admit to it, but I'm feeling particularly pessimistic as we go into yet another round of the UN Conference of the Parties. The COP28 climate summit is taking place at a time when it has never been more important to push through a strong multinational program to deal with climate change, but at a time when there seems to be push-back all over the world against those very measures.

It starts with the optics of a climate change summit hosted by the United Arab Emirates, one the world's largest producers of fossil fuels. Conflict of interest? Er, just a bit. Leaked documents suggest that the summit's hosting president, Sultan al-Jaber, who is CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (which is already in the process of massively ramping up its oil production), as well as UAE's Minister for Industry and advanced Technology, has plans to use the event to hold back-room discussions to promote the country's oil and gas business, rather than to showcase its renewable energy projects. 

Canada will of course be there at the summit. But so will representatives from Alberta and Saskatchewan, and you know that they are not there to discuss wind and solar power. Alberta is currently using its controversial sovereignty law to push back at Ottawa's proposed clean electricity regulations, and summarily halted development of its booming renewable power industry. Just next door, Saskatchewan has vowed to stop collecting and remitting the federal carbon tax because it feels that other provinces are getting preferential treatment after the federal Liberals' ill-advised decision to give home heating oil users in Atlantic a carbon tax break. Now, Canada's First Nations are jumping on the bandwagon, calling for a judicial review of a carbon tax they see as discriminatory. As a result of all this, Canada's climate change policy is in complete disarray, and the country's emissions reduction plan is falling well short of its ambitious targets.

High inflation and struggling economies around the world, and the short sharp shock of the Russian war in Ukraine, have many countries rethinking their climate change commitments. The UK, which was doing better than most countries in reducing its carbon emissions, has announced a major overhaul (and watering down) of its green policies. The USA has been doing better environmentally under Joe Biden than it has for many a year, but the threat to its climate change achievements of a second Trump term in 2024 has everyone second-guessing where it might be going. (Trump would pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, roll back a bunch of executive orders on the environment, and obstruct as many progressive initiatives as possible.) Germany is backtracking on its home heating rules; France has seen protests against high fuel prices; etc, etc. Hell, even Sweden has cut taxes on fossil fuels recently.

It's not all doom and gloom. China has been investing massively in solar and wind power; the US's Inflation Reduction Act has completely turned around its environmental outlook; Brazil has got rid of its rainforest-slashing populist president; Australia has a new Prime Minister who is not quite so in-the-pocket of the coal and oil industries. Nearly a quarter of emissions worldwide are now subject to some sort of carbon tax. Renewable energy is booming.

But I still can't shake that feeling of impending doom. It hurts to admit it, but a global backlash against climate policies is undeniably underway. People are feeling the pinch and perceive themselves as overstretched in their daily lives. Climate change is no longer top of mind for many. Most people are at least aware of the immensity of the problem, but are unwilling to pay for a solution. As the low-hanging fruit has all been picked and further progress involves harder decisions and uncomfortable belt-tightening, there is a perception that green policies impose unacceptable costs. Populist right-wing politicians see this and willfully exploit it and make it worse. 

Developing countries understandably, don't want their development hampered by constraints created by first-world mistakes. New green technologies often require substantial upfront investment at a time when money is short and interest rates are high. Meanwhile, the planet is on track for an estimated 2.9% warming over pre-industrial levels, a far cry from the recommended 1.5% limit enshrined in the 2015 Paris Agreement, enough to ensure an unrelenting litany of droughts, fires, extreme heat events and general climate mayhem.

What chance, then, does COP28 stand against these forces? I am always amazed at how resilient environmentalists are, how positive they stay after setback after setback. Over 70,000 delegates are meeting in Dubai this week, most of them - notwithstanding the Albertas, Saskatchewans and UAEs of the world - intent on improving the environment and "saving the world". Who am I to doubt them?