This is the warmest year in history and one in which natural disasters, with superlative effects due to the climate emergency, have already cost 10 billion to the coffers of the United States. These two factors were not enough for Joe Biden, the most ecologically green president, to travel to Dubai to attend the United Nations COP28 summit. He had gone to the others, but not this one. Some joked that he was applying activist Greta Thumberg’s theory about the need to avoid pollution from air flights. The matter would have been valid if it had intervened via digital connection. But neither, according to senior government officials. And there is no methane savings (the worst of the worst) because, in the face of criticism, the White House agreed at the last minute for Vice President Kamala Harris to go. This change does not prevent some disappointment from being palpable. Biden, who has chosen to remain in Washington because the planet is in turmoil with other global crises and within the US he has a few open fronts, faces a true enigma. He is the president who has signed the most important law to confront global warming and has allocated a record federal investment in this area. Despite these efforts, and being one of the main polluting countries, its policies in favor of clean energy collide with the political pressures of the Republicans, good friends of the oil lobby, who accuse it of maintaining “a green agenda.” radical”, while moderate Democrats want him to spread more about the fact that the US has produced a record amount of crude oil, and the progressive and younger sector (in short, key voters for him), are pressing for Biden to close drilling anywhere. And rather he has angered them by allowing new concessions, including one on virgin lands in Alaska. Aside from activists, experts believe that not going to Dubai means losing an opportunity to reinforce his environmental message and be taken seriously.

The United Kingdom was the first major economy to sanctify with an act of Parliament the objective of completely eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But its status as a global leader in the fight to dilute atmospheric warming and the effects of climate change climate is now in danger. The goal remains the same, but at slower steps. For electoral considerations, to seduce voters most reluctant to change their lifestyle and pay more for energy, Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Government has delayed the ban on the sale of combustion engine cars from 2030 to 2035, a measure that It has deeply upset the automobile industry, which organizes the production of long-term vehicles and is embarking on a full evolution to electric vehicles. At the same time, it has resumed the granting of licenses for the extraction of oil and natural gas from North Sea fields, despite the fact that it is difficult, expensive and low-yield, a policy that has irritated environmentalists and has been widely criticized. by the Greens and calls into question the commitment to eliminate the production and use of fossil fuels 100% when the century reaches its middle. Those doubts have been amplified by the opening of a new coal mine, the first in many years. Enthusiasm for wind energy has waned to the point that there are no plans to install windmills, either on land or at sea, and no companies have applied for licenses in this regard. The Government’s official explanation is that “we remain one of the leaders in the fight against climate change, but at the moment the United Kingdom still needs oil, gas and coal, and it makes no sense to export it when we produce it ourselves.” Labour, favorite to win next year’s elections, has also diluted its plan to invest £30 billion in green energy for economic reasons (the national debt is very high). London seeks a slower transition.

Stopping global warming will be impossible without the complicity of overpopulated India and China. Faced with Beijing’s quantifiable environmental progress, New Delhi – the most polluted city in the world – will once again put one candle to God and another to the devil in this COP28. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at his third climate summit, will not allow himself to be decarbonized easily. With one hand he will demand financing and technological transfers from rich countries, and with the other he will continue to inaugurate coal-fired power plants at a good pace. Something that clashes with the purpose of France or the US to end their private financing. In Glasgow, Modi pledged that India would reduce its net carbon emissions to zero by 2070 – not 2050 as the UN intended – and meet half of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2030. Certainly, there have been progress in the latter – as several Spanish wind companies know – but coal continues to dominate their energy cocktail. And he will continue to do so, because national development objectives take precedence over the global climate emergency. Without forgetting that Modi’s favorite tycoon, Gautam Adani, has international interests in coal mines and that the no less influential Mukesh Ambani owns the largest oil refinery in the world, in Gujarat. A political ecosystem in which Minister Nitin Gadkari, who was going to rejuvenate the pestilent Ganges – with substantial European contributions – is the same one who broke up the award of the Himalayan pilgrimage road into 53 sections, to avoid environmental studies. A tunnel collapsed with 41 workers inside. Likewise, the Indian Government welcomes theories that blame beef consumption for the destruction of the ozone layer. And he maintains that India’s per capita responsibility is so low that they still have room. For this reason, it will continue to support vague objectives and clarity in financing. Its motto is the same as the last G-20 summit, in Delhi: “The world is a family.”