CLIMATE change conference COP28 has just closed in the godawful city of Dubai.
Having produced more carbon dioxide than about 5,000 coal-fired power stations working overtime for a month.
Some 25,000 government ministers and experts from across the world took part in a two-week talking shop junket.
How did they get there?
Well, my guess is they didn’t walk or go by pogo stick.
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It will have been 25,000 aeroplane journeys, so don’t feel too bad about taking a winter break in Tenerife.
And what did the luminaries decide?
They came to a resolution.
They said it was very important that countries stopped producing so many tons of carbon emissions.
Really important.
They said it was time to move away from fossil fuels.
And into other sorts of stuff, such as renewable energy.
Um . . . yes. I thought the world had kinda decided to do this about 25 years ago?
Don’t we hear the same kind of vague resolution at every COP summit that has ever taken place?
Including the last COP summit in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.
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That was when Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish National Party spent £150,000 of taxpayers’ money on guzzling and hotel bills.
Not sure why they were there at all, frankly.
All the COP summits decide the same thing.
All the politicians give themselves a nice pat on the back for being so green and concerned.
And nothing whatsoever gets done at all.
Nothing they decided has any force at all.
Not on climate change nor really on deforestation — even though they are claiming that as a success too.
Forests will still be chopped down at an injurious rate.
We’re leading the way
You might ask why COP28 was held in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.
The UAE — along with the other gulf states — is among the very worst offenders in the world for carbon emissions.
In fact, each person in the UAE produces a staggering four times as many tons of emissions as we Brits do.
I dunno how they do that.
Maybe they burn polar bears to heat their homes in the freezing conditions of the, uh, Arabian desert.
It should be remembered, incidentally, that the UK has done more than almost any other country on earth to reduce carbon emissions.
We are one of the greenest countries on the planet.
We invented the industrial revolution and now we’re leading the way towards a cleaner post-industrial society.
Something the Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil protesters would do well to remember.
How about you protest in Doha or Dubai?
In fact, after those awful Gulf states, it is the right-on, leftie countries of Australia and Canada that have some of the worst figures for carbon emissions in the world.
In the past 32 years, the UK has reduced its emissions by a remarkable 45 per cent, despite the population having increased by more than 15 per cent.
If other countries came even close to that achievement, we wouldn’t have a climate crisis.
Or at least it would be much more manageable.
These junkets decide nothing.
No action happens as a consequence.
Nation states should take a lead and put a green tax on goods from countries with high emissions.
No aeroplane flights, no big dinners, no hotels, just a green tax.
That might sharpen the minds of the miscreants a little.
Danger of vile lies
ONE in five young Americans believe that the Holocaust never happened, according to a new poll from The Economist and YouGov.
They think it’s all a myth put about by Jewish people.
Now, I know Americans are pretty dense.
But I bet you a tenner you’d get pretty much the same result if that survey were carried out here.
All those witless twenty-something students on their Ceasefire marches.
Shouting the Palestinian slogan, “From the river to the sea”.
Without knowing the name or location of either.
They’ve been captured by a vile, left-wing, anti-Semitic ideology.
And as the old saying goes – if you repeat a lie for long enough, it becomes a truth.
Time to speak up, Keir
SO, Rishi survived his vote on the refugees to Rwanda scheme.
Wasn’t even close in the end.
It won’t do him much good in the polls – this country is just incredibly bored of the Tories.
But we still have to learn what, exactly, Sir Keir Starmer would do about the problem of those refugees.
Nothing whatsoever, so far as I can tell.
Not even the whisper of a plan.
One day Labour will realise that immigration – legal and otherwise – is going to be one of the big issues at the next election.
Another vote-loss for Nige
NIGEL FARAGE came third on I’m A Celeb.
But his fans think it’s a fix.
Could well be – wouldn’t surprise me.
Even if The Sun did actually predict he’d come third.
Very easy to sort it out, though.
Just release the full voting figures, ITV.
Then we might find out the truth.
And also discover just how many people are daft enough to vote in this stupid programme.
Meanwhile, it remains the case that, much as I quite like the chap, Nigel Farage has NEVER himself won a public vote.
America conned over dodgy Biden Jr
HUNTER Biden could well be on his way to state pen.
The President’s obnoxious son faces a whole bunch of felony tax and gun charges.
At worst, if found guilty, he faces up to 17 years in prison.
Ah, what a shame.
And all the while during the last presidential election, the left-wing media and the social media companies told us that allegations about Hunter Biden were “fake news”.
They suppressed stories about his affection for coke and sex workers.
And they suppressed reports about his dodgy business dealings in Ukraine.
The American public ended up being conned.
A nice little earner
IN Jonathan Swift’s book Gulliver’s Travels the hero winds up on an island called Lilliput where everything is tiny.
I feel exactly like Mr Gulliver when I’m buying stuff in supermarkets.
The products all seem to have shrunk in size.
Surely Raisin & Biscuit Yorkie bars were never that thin?
Weren’t those Christmas tins of sweets much larger in my youth?
Usually I put it down to old age and me misremembering.
But it isn’t.
These products HAVE shrunk in size – a Yorkie bar by a third of its weight over the past 20 years or so.
And those seasonal selection tins have also got smaller.
But you can bet you aren’t paying any less for them.
Every step we take, we get robbed blind by the big corporations.
Happy Kitmas, Doggie
WHAT would my dog like most for Christmas?
Same old question I ask myself every year.
And so I send off for stuff.
Great long chewy things made of dead seals.
Toys she can savage that look like Rishi Sunak.
A new ball.
And every year Jessie accepts these gifts.
But without the gratitude I expect for the effort.
This year it occurred to me that what she’d really like for Christmas is this . . .
For me not to stop her when she chases the cat that every day intrudes into our garden.
For me to just let her get on with the business of apprehending it and then eating it.
So that’s exactly what I’m going to make my special present to Jessie.
Tibbles, beware.
