Analysis-COP28 crowds: a dangerous distraction or sign of success?
By Valerie Volcovici
DUBAI (Reuters) — Flashy country pavilions, corporate-sponsored cocktail parties and a smorgasbord of side events have turned the annual U.N. climate summit into what some say is a trade show or circus.
In this year's gleaming host city of Dubai, billboards advertise the benefits of wind energy, climate ambition and Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM)'s carbon capture projects.
And with a record 84,000 registered attendees, this year's Conference of the Parties, or COP28, is a far cry from the first in Berlin in 1995, a low-key affair with fewer than 4,000 delegates focused on multilateral climate change cooperation.
This is seen by some as a sign of success and by others as a dangerous distraction from the business of combating climate change as over nearly three decades global oil demand, carbon emissions and temperatures have marched steadily upward.
«It's a lobby fest where polluters can schmooze with politicians, all under the guise of tackling climate change,» Pascoe Sabido, a researcher at the Corporate Europe Observatory, which scrutinizes corporate influence on policy-making, said.
The United Nations and COP backers say the planet would be much worse off without them.
For Alden Meyer, a senior associate at think tank E3G who has attended every COP, the carnival-like atmosphere is a positive sign of increasing global engagement in the climate crisis, even if it meant long queues for food and coffee.
«It's a three-ring circus, and it is a good thing. It means the issue has reached critical mass,» Meyer said.
Lisa Jacobson, president of the 65-member Business Council for Sustainable Energy, which represents the energy efficiency, natural gas and renewable energy industries, agrees.
Jacobson recalls that in
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