Like a bad magician, the UK government desperately wants people to look the other way as it tries to pull off a clumsy trick with one hand while doing something completely different with the other. Everybody can see the sleight of hand for what it is: blatant hypocrisy, “a do-as we say, not as we do, and please look over there”.
Despite being hosts of this COP their desperate push for fossil fuel projects continues. Projects are proposed that don’t have a future and damage the planet when nobody can argue with the clear, science-based need to reduce emissions. Yes, we need to keep 1.5°C alive but how can we pursue that critical path when our words and actions are so lacking in alignment?
Friends of the Earth put out a report a few days before COP showing how the UK government is still addicted to fossil fuels here and elsewhere in the world with 40 new oil, gas, and coal projects in the pipeline before 2025. And these projects are just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath them lie more prospective oil, gas and coal developments that will completely scupper the UK’s climate efforts unless the government rapidly changes direction.
There should be no need for argument on this anymore, yet the government crashes on with bizarre support for planet-wrecking fossil fuel projects. Nobody can ignore the difference between the UK Prime Minister’s brash and glossy words, and what his government still does. Each day that the Cambo oil field isn’t cancelled, that the plug isn’t pulled on the new coal mine in Cumbria, that support is not withdrawn for oil development in Surrey, and investment in a gas mega-project in Mozambique isn’t stopped, is another day where their hypocrisy clear for all to see.
We can’t be dangerously distracted by false solutions at COP. Instead, we must use these remaining hours and days to advocate for people who have done the least to cause the climate crisis, and who suffer the worst from it.
We can keep rightful pressure on a government who say they realise the scale of the problem, but are still in dangerous thrall to the very industry and practices at the centre of this environmental mess. We cannot sanction fossil fuel projects, here or anywhere else. We are wasting time, livelihoods and lives while this deceit goes on.
It’s such a waste of money and energy. There is so much that needs to be done. From funding the move to better jobs, an overdue action steeped in historic responsibility, to mitigating the loss and damage being suffered now… The fact that the UK government persists with these projects means they lack credibility, and doubly so given that they are hosting this COP.
And obviously there is also the issue of cutting emissions, and to that end we could do so much by just saying no to fossil fuels, their funders and the industry behind it.