The Chaser Report - COP 28 - Brought to You by OIL!

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

Where better to hold the world's foremost summit on climate change than somewhere trying to make it happen faster? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles, heading very, very close to our 6 millionth download. It could even be this episode, Charles. It could be this episode that's probably not. Probably not, no. But it could be. Particularly if the UAE start downloading it en masse because of the revelations that are about to be revealed.

in this episode. Spicy. Yes, it's going to be very, very exciting stuff. It's going to come out. So there's been a few people wondering how we'll know. On the last episode, I said the 6 millionth downloader will win a fabulous prize. I noticed you very much didn't specify what that prize would be. And somebody pointed out that the way podcasting works,

you have no idea who the 6 millionth downloader is because it's just like it's all anonymous. Yeah. I mean, it's one of the whole flaws with the podcasting is. I mean, odds on it will likely be one of the bots that we've set up to try and get to $6 million downloads. No, we haven't. That would be a breach of our contract. No, we haven't done that.

But I think the point is that we should hand out a prize because it's a huge sort of, you know, occasion. It's a huge occasion. And I'm thinking, what about a novelty oversized check for $6 million? Wow. Because you know the government's about to phase checks out. That would be a collector's item. Yeah, exactly.

Your grandchildren won't know what it is. You won't be able to bank it. Yeah, we'll post date it to after they've been phased out. That's good. Have you got any more of those giant inflatable avocados lying around? Oh, can we throw one of those in? We've got a fucking shit-cund of them, yeah. That's probably where all the money is.

Okay, so that's good. So the process instead should be email us at podcast at chaser.com. And if you're the six millionth emailer, you will win that prize. Right. Or just convince us that it's you. I mean, basically. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's better.

The older I get, Charles, the more I realize that basically the people who ask, people with no shame, who get things in this world. Yes, that's right. You know, the billionaires of this world, the Jeff Bezos. So just make the case that you are the $6 million and will be convinced. Yeah, I agree. And it's real. This is real.

We definitely will send you a crappy inflated avocado that Charles couldn't sell. And the novelty check. Novelty oversized check. There's a big piece of plastic right next to Charles. Yeah, I'm thinking this is what we're printed on. Charles went and bought and then we decided we don't need it. anymore. Yeah, we can both sign it. It'll be not really a collector's edition.

But, you know, it'll be a thing that you can have if you really want it. It's stuff. Yeah. I mean, you can feel free to turn down the prize. Or maybe there's something else we can give you that's from the back catalogue. Maybe it's from one of the books. Maybe you get a free download. You have a free month of the

premium podcast, although you can get a free month anyway just by signing up, I think, with Apple. Anyway, we've got an episode to get into instead of all the blathering, shall we? Yes. So, Charles, you know how there's a climate crisis? Oh, no, I hadn't heard about that. Oh, God, this is going to be a long set up.

Yeah, okay, just assume, Charles, if you will, and many people would disagree with this, that there's a massive problem that's making global temperatures rise and potentially an existential threat to humans, particularly humans who live in low-lying areas, lots of species and so on. Imagine that there was some sort of body set up where humidity gets together to solve hard problems. Call it the United Nations, if you will.

Yes. Right, okay. And ignore that its legacy of not really doing much to solve the hard problem, but just having talk fest. No, it does stuff. It invaded Iraq once. Isn't it still on the border where the two careers meet, not having resolved that crisis for decades?

I think the US forces are actually the UN army, aren't they? Anyway, the good news is that there's a whole process that the UN has run, all these climate summits. And they're called COP. No one quite knows while they're. I think it's, what is it, conference of parties or something. It's a completely unglamorous UN-esque name. But anyway, COP28 is the next climate summit.

And gosh, we really has a lot on us. We really need it to get this right. Because if we don't have a massive global agreement to do a huge amount to curb fossil fuel soon. Yes. I mean, we're already out of time, but we're going to be really out of time if we don't know this year. And I remember, and that is such an important thing to say. Yeah. Because I remember that's exactly what they said about COP 27.

and COP 26 and COP 25, and COP 24, and COP 23. You're going to do this all the way. It took up one. Okay. Okay, so clearly it gets worse every time. It gets worse. Yeah. So you really, really, really, really matters this one.

Don't you feel, though, that this time, you've got it, for instance, hold it in the right country? Sorry, just imagine COP 6 million, but that'll be like. It'd probably take that long to do anything. That will be, what will happen is we will all have been. rented extinct by the climate. And somewhere in the UN, there'll be some dead computer running on solar power. It just sends out metting invitations forever. To a cop conference that no one can attend.

But the irony will be, it won't be run on a renewable power. It'll be coal fuel still. One little birder still going. Anyway, so my point being, Charles, for this year's summit, you've got to have it somewhere, for instance, where you're going to make a big difference? The location is so important. So guess where? The November installment, and I'm not making this up,

of the UN Climate Summit is to be held. So it's got to be somewhere symbolically important, like Tuvalu or Kiribati or something. You could have it in Kiribati right next to the, you know, the ocean that's about to rise and sweep over the whole place. Yeah, or it could be somewhere like Iceland. Somewhere pristine.

Which is innovating on renewable energy. Yeah. They have now carbon negative emissions. That's amazing. That'd be a really good idea to reward them. Everyone will come and see what they can do. Exactly. Those are good options.

It's going to be in, look, it's going to be in Abu Dhabi is where it's going to be. Right, the gas capital of the world. And you also need, I guess, a president for a conference like this, someone to run it. Oh, no, who's just going to do an amazing job. Dom, Charles, this is important. This is the Global Climate Summit. It's the CEO of Shell, isn't it?

Almost. What? It's a gentleman by the name of Sultan Algebra. He's the UN conference president. And Charles, he's obviously not the CEO of Shell. No. Like, that don't be ridiculous. No.

He's in from the UAE, right? Yeah, it would be. So he's the head of the state oil firm of Abu Dhabi. The Abu Dhabi National, I'm not making this up. The president of COP 28, Sultan Al Jaber is the chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company or Adnock. But so the thing, you know, all those irritating environments. environmentalists who about 12 or 18 months ago started complaining about how cop had been taken over by... Co-opted.

Yeah, co-opted by fossil fuel interest. I mean, this is one data point. It's not even co-opted. It's like literally been bought out and relocated. Yeah, it's basically the cop is now in. Fucking hell. So Abu Dhabi's organizing the next one. Or is there an argument to say that, you know, Abu Dhabi is climate curious?

Like, are they sort of... It's actually true that if you want change to happen, I can see the argument that put in a place that actually needs to change. And we know that these countries are trying to adapt to the post-oil world. We know that MBS, the Bonesaw butcher of Saudi Arabia, is trying to put windmills across the hole of North Africa.

We talked about that in the previous episode. So these are the people who need to change. It does just slightly feel a bit like sort of saying, you know what, let's have an anti-child molesting conference, and let's get Rolf Harris to lead it because, you know, that's the target market. That's the target market. He needs to change. Is that the...

Somewhat. All right. So I mentioned that the chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Law Company is the president at the COP 28 Climate Summit. Now, you would think, Charles, wouldn't you? I mean, you know about how to have different organisations. You for years have presided over, you know, you've been the running. various things at the same time. El Presente. You've been running, you know, Chaser Digital and

various TV productions and touring. It's very important to have strong internal boundaries, isn't it, to make sure that, for instance, the part of your operation that is an oil company and the part of what you're doing, it's a climate summit, that those are separate. Because you can understand how the oil company in the climate summit might have slightly different odds, slightly different objectives. Yeah, it's... Well, it turns out, Charles, the Guardian reports that the state oil company has been able to read emails to and from the COP28 Climate Summit office and was consulted on how to respond to a media inquiry.

In fact, it turns out that they're on the same server. They're actually just using the server. And the COP28 office claimed that it was a separate server, a standalone server. But actually, when they went and looked at all the IP data and so on, no, it was just the same server. Did PWC consult on setting this whole thing up? It's probably a PWC server that runs by the council.

And the Guardian just checked this out. So they emailed the COP28 office saying, can you just comment on the fact that you're sharing an email server, which you found out. The emails did not contain the term adnock, which is the oil company name, but the auto replies contain the text, Adnock classification, colon internal.

So it's exactly the same thing. They weren't even bothering to try and hide it. No, because that would take it. A French MEPs, because of course, course the French are upset about this, says it's an absolute scandal. An oil and gas company has found its way to the core of the organisation in charge of coordinating the phasing out of oil and gas. It's like a tobacco multinational overseeing the internal work of the World Health Organization.

It's just, there's nothing, like, what are we going to do? I mean, it's just, there's no point, is there? The Guardian also revealed in April that the UAE has the third biggest plans of any country in the entire world to break net zero. they have massive numbers of new oil and gas fields that they're wanting to develop. Yes, that's right. Well, because they're a bit late to the party on gas. They're relatively late compared to the Saudis and so on.

And so, and they've realised, oh, they've got huge gas. Got to get onto it. Yeah. So anyway, that's the point. I'm not going to go into further details about how they knew this. So it's quite good work to detect that this all happened. So what do you do? Clearly, that's a pointless organisation.

COP 28. Yeah. Well, Adnock seems quite good at its job, right? Yeah. I mean, what do you do to, how do we, love, what do we do? Don't worry about it. We elected the Labor government. It's going to be full of plans for climate action.

It's solved. It's solved. It's all fine. Trust Albo, that's the name, isn't it? Yeah. Do you think Albao's going to go to this? He didn't bother going to the last climate summer, if I recall. Well, actually, that probably turns out to show how good his judgment is.

Maybe he did. Maybe he do. The Chaser Report. Now with extra whispers. I mean, we were supposed to do the less depressing episodes. Yes, that was a terribly depressing story. Can you just... Do you want me to tell you about the story?

Can you give me something a little bit more optimistic? Yeah, okay. There's another study out here. This is from a couple of days ago. Where this is from closer to home. We don't do that sort of thing in Australia. We wouldn't do that. Where health officials asked university researchers to remove references about

community concern in towns. Did you know there are towns in Australia contaminated with inverted commas, forever chemicals? Oh, this is the DuPont stuff. Yeah, in William Town and so on. All the chemicals that have leached off defense sites. I didn't know there were forever chemicals, Charles.

That's new to me that you can contaminate a place so badly that it's forever. Yeah. And so basically, the Department of Health sent the report around. at the same time as defence was in court defending a class action over these toxins in Williamton and just blotted out, you know, cut out the references

to community concerns because they didn't want to alarm people. That's good. That is good. That's happy. It's nice that people aren't getting alarmed about a term like Forever Chemicals. They're protecting us from having to worry about things that you can't do anything about.

It's a bit like climate change. Yeah. What should actually happen? The actual solution should be we apply what the Defence Department did by just sort of like just completely obliterating any knowledge of it to climate change. We should just stop talking about it. Yeah.

And then... If we keep talking about it, the people will keep having concerns. Yeah, but actually the way to reduce anxiety is through ignorance. Yep. Yes. No, let's never talk about this again. Delete this episode from the servers. Yes.

It never happened. And I'd know just the people who will pay. has to do that. Oh, yeah. You're in all company in Abu-Dubi. I think they... They're not very good at IT. They're not very good at setting up separate email servers,

but they're quite good at obfuscating and concealing. So, yeah. Shall we go to the climate? Should we do, like, a podcast trip to W? You know what? We should actually apply for funding to cover it as a media. See if they'll pay us to come. We should totally get on the grift.

They'll pay us. Look, if you're going to, you might... Because I assume they've got good air conditioning over there. They would have, yeah, W, absolutely. They'd be fine. It'd be hell without it. They can't have a climate summit without aircon. No, exactly.

I reckon we do that. We do that. We go over there. We get on the grift. And then we start doing sponsored ads for this podcast. It'll be things like, oh, hi, this is Charles from the Chaser. And with me is Dom. And today we're talking about climate change.

What a myth. Yeah. We're not talking about it because it's a lies. It's all lies. Yeah. That's good. They've been waging, apparently, the Financial Times reports, It's a major.

Let's actually look at what they've been doing briefly. Because I'll just ask a quick research. This is from the financial time in the UK. Yeah, there's multi-million dollar sponsorships available if you want them. They've been pitching for packages to, basically, if you want to greenwash yourself, you can go and buy a package in their pavilion. Right. They've had difficulty getting communications agencies to come on board,

international communications agencies are just refusing to work with. with them because it's embarrassing. Chopped up into small pieces. Yeah, or just because the whole thing where, you know, they're all companies the same as the COP 28. They've also hired a former aide to Boris Johnson to provide strategic advice. So that's pretty good. And integrity advice, isn't it?

And also an academic who's an expert in this has identified at least 100 fake Twitter accounts, which is trying to AstroTurf to promote how great UAE foreign policy is and their environmental record is very positive. So they're paying for fake bots. Maybe they'll pay for fake podcasts endorsing how great they are. Isn't that wonderful? That's great. There's lots of money up for grabs.

Our gear is from Abu Dhabi, Petroleum and Gas Corporation. And we are part of the MBS Killing Journalists Network. See you in Abu Dhabi. It's going to be a blast. It's going to be great.