Tag Archives: Earthjuice

That is a serious question, because at times I have no clue what a lobbyist is. That is the question that the CBC leaves me with. There was even more power behind the article at the Financial Times, but their paywall prevents me from mentioning them. So here we are relying on the CBC. They did nothing really wrong and the article ‘At COP28 climate summit, there’s concern oil and gas lobbyists have too much influence’ (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/climate-dubai-cop28-lobbyists-canada-1.7042376) is a good read. Yet the question that follows be from the beginning which we see with “With tens of thousands in Dubai for the climate talks, environmentalists and policy experts are expressing concern over the growing presence of fossil fuel lobbyists at the meetings”. So, from the start we get the connection to a lobbyist. Which according to the dictionary means “a person who takes part in an organised attempt to influence legislators.” Yet I believe it is more then that. Another version is “a special interest group that hires a lobbying organisation to influence an elected official on a particular policy” which seems to apply better. And with COP28 (any COP actually) the need for lobbyists is clear. Yet if it was ONLY fossil fuels there would not be that much attendance. You might think that “An analysis from a coalition of advocacy groups found representatives of the fossil fuel industry have been in attendance a total of 7,200 times at the annual United Nations climate talks over the past two decades” would be enough. But how many ‘representatives’ would have been in attendance 7200 times? Lets just say that it might be a career, but I think that any lobbyist would be washed out after 100 visits, let alone 7200. So, there is a part missing and when we think COP there is EPA, there is EEA, there is also WWF, Earthjuice and a lot more and at this event they all are rushing to see if their needs are being met. The last part is given by the CBC and concerns Canada. So consider “Saskatchewan is also hosting a pavilion, at a cost of $765,000, where it will hold panels by industry leaders”, now consider that to break ‘even’ they need to see around $10 million (stand, flights, hotels and so forth). So you tell me what Saskatchewan is doing there? I honestly do not know, but they are there (hopefully) for a reason. 

The fun part is that the COP28 has a green zone and a blue zone, the blue zone is only for UNFCCC. A part that the CBC did not give us (the Financial Times had that in their article). So there are two strains of lobbyists, so who goes where? All parts that were missed be many media. Another part is that a player like Bentley systems (not the car) as well as Monash University are also there, they both have their own lobbyists, but neither gave us those goods. In a semantical mood I would state that there was an event (23 AD) where less than 0.1% was a virgin (the only virgins there were the Vestal Virgins representing Vesta, the rest were men, wives, whores and slaves and the event was at Circus Maximus on the order of Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus. The entire setting mattered and it matters for COP28 events too. Without the entire enchilada we get a mere slice of what is going on and in that setting we see a misrepresenting of lobbyists as well as the COP28 event. You see, the people in the green zone do not get access to the blue zone (as far as I can tell) and the blue zone is where it is all at. So as such many articles do not give us the whole story (the Financial Times was more complete). All settings that matter, all settings that were (intentional or not) missed and that is where we are at. 

So what was the missions of these lobbyists and what policies were they supporting (or not) for governments? All questions that mattered, but we aren’t told that, were we?

Enjoy Sunday, I still have 8 hours to go, Vancouver is still on Saturday, lucky bastards.