Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania, has gone off-script - he said he left behind his “well-prepared speech” after watching yesterday’s leaders make their statements on silent screens above comfortable couches in an adjoining room at the Cop29 venue in Baku yesterday.
“People there eat, drink, meet and take photos together - while images of voiceless leaders play on and on and on in the background,” he said. “To me, this seems exactly like what happens in the real world every day. Life goes on, with its old habits, and our speeches - full of good words about fighting climate change - change nothing.”
“What does it mean for the future of the world if the biggest polluters continue as usual?” asked Rama. “What on earth are we doing in this gathering, over and over and over, if there is no common political will on the horizon to go beyond words and unite for meaningful action?”
World leaders missing from COP29 …
Chinese President Xi Jinping, US President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are among the G20 leaders skipping the event.
Other absentees included German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Brazilian President Lula da Silva. Source
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz
He won’t be around for much longer anyway. His chancellorship will effectively end december 16th with a vote of no confidence. The one who will likely succeed him (Friedrich Merz, CDU) will do less then nothing for the environment anyway.
While it sounds a bit defeatist, he does make a brilliant point. All of this is no good if all the leaders of the worst offenders outright refuse to attend these events and actually commit their countries to meaningful change.
What difference would it even make if they attended this useless greenwashing feel-good event, if that attendence never seems to be followed up by any meaningful action?
Restating the original point as a rebuttal to a comment agreeing with it is an interesting choice 🤔
Yeah I know. I had a much longer comment all written out, but after reading it, it was just too depressing and I deleted most of it.
“Environmentalism” under capitalism is just another attack on the poor at the expense of the environment.
