COP29 Fails: Time for a Government of Earth
December , 2024
by William P. Meyers

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Greenwashing a Green Conference

Need I say it is an environmental emergency? Need I say that the petroleum producers are committing crimes against earth? Need I say COP29 was a failure?

Well, yes. Rather than agreeing to a worldwide, rapid reduction of fossil fuel production and use, the only action that can save the earth's environment . . .

The only agreement was a promise, probably empty, that the rich nations would increase their future donations to poor nations to help them mitigate the results of environmental catastrophes. Maybe buy them coffins, or pay for the cremation of the people who die. Maybe feed them when their crops fail. Maybe help them buy a few solar cells or wind power turbines. Sure, $300 billion per year (by 2035)sounds like a lot. But there are 8 billion people in the world. So it is $37.50 per person. Wow. The whole project can only be called Green Washing. Pretending to be green, when whole forests and even nations are turning brown from climate change.

The entire framework was set up for failure. Officially COP29 is the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference. It is more specifically the conference of the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change). The UN itself was founded by the British Empire, American Empire, and French Empire at the end of World War II in order to maintain their ruling classes' control of the world. Other nations could join, and did, but the real power was with the five permanent members of the Security Council, since they had veto power. The UN is certainly not a one-person-one vote democracy. Each state has one vote, no matter how large or small its population is. But beyond that, the U.N.'s enforcement mechanism has always been little more than a joke. Once the U.N. went to war with North Korea (because the USSR was absent, and so could not veto the project), and even then it lost the war.

The UN does do good things, sometimes, relying on voluntary cooperation.

You might think that voluntary cooperation would be not hard to get for something as critical as the environment. But no. The U.S. is mostly ruled by billionaires (the deep non-state), including those made rich by the fossil fuel extraction industry. Russia is effectively ruled by Putin working with its fossil fuel extraction industry. Several other nations have economies highly dependent on fossil fuels. Many have other reasons for destroying their own environments, or contributing to global warming.

Hence 2024 had record global temperatures and record carbon dioxide emissions.

Unless there is a powerful global agency, a global EPA (environmental protection agency), that can take on those committing crimes against the earth, there is no hope for the future. Not for most of us, not for most species. That means we must create a true global government. Sure, global government is a scary idea. But if the government were set up by environmentalists, without the participation of anti-environmentalists, it could rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide aid for those who need it.

That goal might seem impossible, but there are at least two major paths to this brighter future. One is to amend the United Nations charter to allow it to begin functioning as a Government of Earth. But with environmental protection as its core value. We are not likely to get 100% participation at first. But enough pressure from below in the U.S. could put our nation on the side of good, and even without us other nations could join together to form this new government. Nations will need to put aside some of their differences on other issues in order to concentrate on the crisis we are in. We will need some really good leadership, perhaps from people who have not been allowed to lead so far.

The other way is to simply start building a government of Earth from wherever people can be found who see the need. It could be grassroots organizations, who might have to replace their old national governments. It could be some of the current national governments that are suffering the most from climate change and have the least to lose, and most to gain, from the transition to a system where protecting (and restoring) the environment is prioritized.

So talk to your friends about forming a green provisional government. I know that is difficult, perhaps even a bit dangerous even in the U.S., and much more so in nations run by hereditary criminal gangs, like Saudi Arabia.

But if we do not form a government of earth and a global EPA, we are all dead. The apocalypse is coming, and it won't be the Christian fantasy one.

UNFCCC page