The Chaser Report - COP28 President Supports Natural Gaslighting

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

In another "We Told You So" episode of The Chaser Report, Dom celebrates his successful prediction that hosting a climate change summit in Dubai, run by someone who runs a fossil fuel company, might not go so well. Plus a special announcement for all our Spotify Wrapped listeners to claim your personalised video! 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. Hello, Charles. I've got a proposal for you, Dom. I didn't know, he felt that way. That we rename the podcast, the I Told You So show. It's getting a bit that way, isn't it?

I must say, there's a new story that I heard over the weekend or so. Maybe we think, I remember mentioning this a few months ago. It's usually been you who got to say this. But on this occasion, when I was talking about this year's installment of the UN Climate Summit, COP28, in Dubai, there was some aspects of it that seemed like they might go, I don't know, horribly wrong, Charles. Yes. You'll find out exactly how it went wrong in a moment. Now, before we get into COP28, we should address the elephant in the room,

which is that we didn't put it out in an episode yesterday. We didn't put it out. We had huge numbers of complaints. And so it's lovely to know that people miss their Monday morning pickup with Dom and Charles. I'm sorry about that. But I'm even more sorry, Charles, at the people who emailed us last week with their Spotify unwrapped thing. Oh, yes. Spotify wrapped thing.

Yes. With the absolutely insane amounts of time they spent listening to this podcast. There were some people who spent days, literally days of 2023, listening to this podcast. So you know how Spotify asked famous composers and art. artists and things to do a little thank you video. I think we need to do our own version for all the Spotify rap people who had the Chaser in their top five listens. So if that is you and you want us to send you a little video saying thank you, like in

Spotify, it's like a homegrown version. Yeah, we can do that. Email podcast at Chatser to Columbia or just text me on 0192808 and we'll send you a video. I mean, J.T. listened for 7,256 minutes. That seems unlikely. Just leave it on overnight. 7,206, divided by 60 minutes is 120 hours, divided by 24 days. Oh, so that's five days.

Every episode. Yeah, like, that is literally every minute of five days. You know what's even more depressing is that means we've spent that amount of time doing this fucking podcast. Really? Yes. Oh, dear God. Wow. How?

What are we doing with our lives? A podcast, apparently. All right, well, there you go. But this podcast is, it's increasingly, I think, the definitive record is the rest of the media crumbles. And other news sources become less reliable. There is a genuine chance that we will, if we keep this up, before long, be one of the most authoritative news sources in the country. Not even joking. I would say, I think we already are there.

We're one of the few that calls it early. Yes, exactly. If you want to be five months ahead of the news, listen to this. because COP28, the president of COP28, which is the, what's it called, the climate... The conference of parties. It's a stupid name, but it's the UN Climate Summit. Yeah. Basically, what we mentioned a few months ago was that the chances were Charles, having the summit in Dubai, having as the president, Sultan al-Jabar, that that might be slightly counter to the point of doing something about climate change, given that this person, the president, the sultan of Dubai, is very...

pro fossil fuels. Yes. And what happened today is that he came out and he said that there is no evidence that fossil fuel causes climate change. And in particular, there's no evidence cutting fossil fuels at all would in any way help the target of staying to 1.5 degrees above global averages. Yes, and he was very aggressive about it. He said, show me the solution. Stop the pointing of fingers. Stop it. Stop contributing to the polarisation. And this is what, in the end, every critic of anyone who's trying to do something is just saying, You're saying that there's right and wrong in the situation, and you're polarising between right and wrong,

and those on the wrong side are calling it this evil polarisation. Yes, it's brilliant. And who he was speaking to at that point was actually the former president of Ireland. Mary Robinson. Mary Robinson, very respected woman who's been doing a lot of the negotiating around climate, like as a good faith actor. And one of the things he accused her of was talking to him as a foreigner and said you would never speak to the Norwegians like this.

You're just doing this, implying that she was racist, tried. And it was actually wonderful, let's play the clip. It was wonderful to hear her just clap back at that attempt by the Sultan to play a bit of identity politics and I'm the victim here. I am here factual and I respect the science. And there is no science out there or no scenario out there that says that the face out of fossil fuel is what's going to achieve 1.500. I have not heard you talk to the Norwegians or others the way you talk to us.

Time has come. The elders has come. Mary. You talk to everyone. Evenly. I don't accept that I'm selective. I talk to the Norwegians. I talk to the U.S.

I talk to the elders talk to everybody across the board independently. But I'm glad that you're taking part of this discussion because you have such a role as president. If you can encourage that this is a because I'm not a hypocrite. Because I'm not a hypothetical. because I'm not a hypocrite and I am not shying away from any facts. As a prominent woman in politics for decades, Charles, she's probably quite used to men sort of swing their dicks around. She's kind of used to that, I think, Mary Robinson.

Yeah, and what interested me about that whole interaction, right, was you just got the sense that he was just gaslighting the whole conference, right? He was just sort of accusing them of doing the things that he was doing to being condescending and disrespectful and disrespectful, and stuff. Like, it was pure sort of thing. Of course he was gas lighting. He's pro-fossil fuels, Charles.

He wants gas everywhere. All lights should run on gas. But what fascinated me about that was, you know, like the fact that we're all now talking about that is, is the point. Like, he's throwing sawdust into this process. He's just clogging up the gears of this cop conference so that it just doesn't achieve anything. He were a whole lot of people who had come with good intentions trying to make the world a better a place, and his role was to completely destroy that.

Now, the question is, how possibly did all the world leaders get to the point where they actually thought that it was a great idea to try and bring on board all these completely pro-fossil-fueled things? It's like sort of going, okay, let's do an anti-racism conference, but it's really important to get, you know... Let's get the KKK. Yeah, let's get the KKK. Yeah, and co-op them into this space, maybe get a few, you know,

anti-Semites and Nazis on board. We'll even appoint them president, and we'll just see how it goes. Well, this guy, Sultan Al Jabe, is head of Mazdar, which is the UAE's renewable energy company. So he's very pro-renewable energy if you can get money out of people to do that as well. Presumably they want to own the next phase of fuels as well and have monopolies as they do now. Yes. But the leaked documents shortly before the summit, according to the Guardian, said that the UAE was planning to use these climate meetings, all these governments, like all the governments

coming together in Dubai, he wanted to cut all these oil and gas deals on the side. Yes, yes. Basically, you're here. We may as well do a sweet deal on oil and gas. Because I'm just remembering, was it in that podcast that we were talking about this conference where it turned out that they were using the same email server?

That's right. There was the McKinns. It was all being run out of the same company. Yeah, that's right. The COP 28 was being run out of a gas company or something. What was it? It's just, yeah, it's being run out of the state gas company. Yeah.

But there's also this hilarious state where basically a spokesperson for COP28 was saying, you know, this is an effort to undermine our tangible achievements and our positions and success to date. And basically they were claiming, oh, we've already done so much to help fight climate change. And just because the Sultan said this one thing, you're casting us with a negative light when we've been trying so hard. So unfair. Why are they critics, Charles? I mean, the UA is just trying to, it's just asking a question. No, exactly.

Just asking a reasonable question, which is, where is the roadmap? And the point is that there is a roadmap. The roadmap was very clear in the documentation for COP28 if he'd only bothered to look. But he hadn't looked, so he hadn't seen it. Where's the roadmap? Charles, where's the roadmap to success for this podcast? Well, I think the roadmap is a little bit like...

The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. In essence, Charles, I don't know how much credit we can claim. To be fair, for saying that a climate summit in Dubai run by their... head of the company's like fossil fuel company was going to end in ironic disaster. I think that's probably one of our least ambitious predictions. Yeah. But what are we doing now? I think what we should do is predict some really positive things.

The final part of this podcast should be predicting what's going to happen next year. What's going to happen next year and we're only allowed to predict positive things because clearly we have this Midas-Touch style thing where everything we predict comes true. Now, unfortunately, already predicted that Dutton's going to win the next election. have. But that will be a really good thing for Australia. Yeah, but that would, it'll turn out that he's tough but fair. But tough but fair. And he's going to teach us to respect ourselves again, but also to respect traditional values of the sort that have been forgotten in these, in these value-free, woke times, Charles. Yes, exactly. There'll be no more awokenness, we're going back to sleep.

And there won't be like trials to lock up people. No. No, it'll just be, you lock them up if they're a bit It's us. Queensland cops are Queensland cops. Yes, exactly. So get your cop 28. Yeah. But what else is going to happen? I reckon next year, look, he's hoping that maybe Elon Musk goes broke.

That would be very entertaining. I must say the reviews of the cyber truck are in. And it is looking like, we've got to do a whole Welcome to the Future episode on the cyber truck. That is looking like a hilarious stupid piece of technology. It is the Bluetooth of motoring. Well, okay, so Elon Musk goes broke. King Charles has to resign.

Yes, in disgrace. In disgrace. Australia then immediately pivots towards Republic and a republic referendum is bundled with the next federal election. Like Matt Thistleweight, who's the minister for becoming a republic. Hasn't he been high profile in that cause? Decides, let's just go sooner, right? So we become a, well, we start the process of becoming a republic.

under a model that actually is not shit, that'd be cool. And Australia wins the Rugby World Cup, which admittedly is not for three more years, but somehow they'll hold it next year and we'll win it. And then suddenly everyone realizes that indigenous people have been poorly treated by white institutions in this country, and a national treaty is unanimously adopted by everyone. There's nothing more depressive than these predictions.

And how implausible they are. Our gear is from Road. We're part of the O'Connor Class Network. See you tomorrow.