Thank goodness that's all over for another year. How effective the meeting will prove to have been we shall see in time, but on balance I remain positive. As good as might realistically have been hoped for, given all the interests to be balanced. In this, I’m reserving my final thoughts for the self-righteous and self-important folk who cluttered up the meeting.
They were the ones who spent their time singing, dancing, waving and prancing; the zillions of hangers on (aka COP28 activists) who spent their days waving posters and placards. They must have been up half the night colouring them in. No one seemed to glue themselves to anything though. Odd, that.
And what did they contribute – apart from a huge donation to the Dubai economy? Zilch I'd say. Were the Chinese intimidated? Did the Russians quake in their fur-lined boots? Were the Saudis really pushed protesting over the line by the prancing and posters? As if!
And then there's the stratospheric air miles. There is something utterly grotesque about travelling all that way using fossil fuels to protest about the use of fossil fuels. The zealots said that they wanted fossil fuel use stopped immediately – although not until they'd got home of course.
But then, self awareness has never been the strong suit of the self-righteous as St. Matthew 23:27 noted. And how on Earth did they pay for it all? Surely they can't all have trust funds.
I did wonder whether they’d be at a loss on returning home, as post-cop blues is a recognised mental health problem, but there’s always a protest opportunity it seems. In the UK that would be the British Museum's sensible decision to accept £50m from BP to fix the building More on that in the New Year perhaps.
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