Petro CoP28 is in Dubai, just a short flight by private jet across the hot, dusty, oil and blood-soaked desert, from where Petro CoP27 was held in Sharm al Shaik. At Sharm, the venue was the Tonino Lamborghini, #conspicuouslygratuitousconsumption, overlooking the Red Sea and what’s left of its corals. On the other side of the Arabian Peninsula, Expo City Dubai (ECD) looks over a city of luxury hotels and extravagant highways to the Arabian Gulf. The desert is behind it. But at ECD you need never feel the heat.
ECD is The City of the Future. Or it was. Now that it’s hosting CoP28, it is The Human-Centric City of the Future. A future to be brought into being perhaps by the United Arab Emirates Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Sultan al-Jaber.
It is a place of golden domes and meshed metal atriums. A Mobility Pavilion is “wrapped in highly reflective stainless steel metal cladding, inspired by chrome fenders and aircraft wings”. It celebrates “a world of limitless connections”, including on the inspiring wings of Emirates Airline where First Class brings you limitless luxury for a couple of hundred grand a trip.
There’s less luxury for most of the 85 million travellers whose flights connect in Dubai. And still less luxury in an Emirates jail. Critics of the Autocrats of Arabia are liable to find their journey interrupted in Dubai as the political police make limitless connections. Better to be a fugitive from international justice, provided that the crime was to steal the wealth of an entire nation, enough for the Guptas to splash some luxury where it counts in the Emirates.
But never mind that. CoP President Sultan al-Jaber says this will be an inclusive CoP and will “elevate” women, indigenous peoples, youth and etc. Provided they are not enjoying the limited luxury of an Emirati jail. Do not expect limitless connections with Emirati activists critical of the ruling Emirs. And the list of inclusiveness doesn’t mention LGBTQI. Perhaps they come in the category ‘amongst others’. More likely they are othered from the included. Business, of course, scarcely needs inclusion since it’s there already, not just at the heart of affairs, but to define the mindset for climate action.
Next is “Terra – the Sustainability Pavilion” where nature is on digital display beneath a 130-metre-wide canopy powered by 18 handsome energy trees that produce enough electricity – wait for it – to power 900 000 cell phones. There’s connectivity. And there is always more energy available as Sultan al-Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, presides over an expansion of oil and gas production in the Emirates. And sustainability will be manufactured through the advanced technologies of false solutions including carbon, capture and storage and the advanced calculations of trading carbon not emitted.
Next is the Women’s Pavilion which tells of “the triumphs of women through history” and “the inspiring stories driving change”. Could it be that patriarchy is on the line in the Emirates? The triumphs are perhaps not for migrant domestic workers held prisoner by the recruitment agencies.
The pavilions are designed by celebrity architects and built by underpaid migrant workers from Africa and South Asia. The construction workers have all the freedom of the women in domestic work. In September, with temperatures over 40℃, they were out in the midday sun preparing the venue for the arrival of the world’s leaders and maybe 30,000 others flying in for CoP. Get ready for the Dubai Declaration on Climate and Health powered by the energy trees under the midday sun.
And once there, the dignitaries, delegates, oil lobbyists, bankers, carbon traders, timber merchants, climate scientists, climate activists, advisers and consultants will be served by migrant workers. In a population a bit over 10 million, 9 million are migrant workers. They include petro engineers, bankers, businessmen on the make and assorted other scoundrels. But most are the workers who build and serve the luxury, without civil rights, labour rights, environmental rights, or any right whatever. Least luxury for them.
Two years ago, at Petro CoP26, the shitshow in Glasgow, the British hosts coined the slogan ‘Keep 1.5 Alive’. And it is alive! We’ll get there! We’ll be pumping past it shortly. With ‘Don’t say Boo to Two’ coming next. Count on it. 26: The Brits are “maxing out” the last drops of North Sea oil. 27: The Egyptians are dancing to the sound of drilling. 28: The UAE’s big oil expansion will fund a whole lot more of the luxury. Not Zero: Despite never hosting a CoP, the USA is leading the charge with more oil dollars per politician than anywhere else on earth.
by: Greenfly
