BEFORE I begin, I need to offer two explanatory points. First, although I have closely followed the day-to-day developments at the recently concluded COP28 (Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) held in the dystopian wonderland of Dubai, I have refrained from trying to analyze or comment on the proceedings or results while they were ongoing. This was largely an attempt to manage my own cynicism and give the climate summit the benefit of the doubt. I did not expect things to go well, and, in fact, did see red flag after red flag over the past two weeks, but as we have seen with past COPs, the work goes on right up until the last moment and even a bit beyond, so I thought it best to avoid prejudging the outcome.
Second, although I do not know — or care, if I'm being honest — what sort of right-wing nonsense our resident climate disinformation and copyright infringement specialist will copy and paste wholesale as commentary on COP28, I realize it is quite possible this may be a rare instance where our views appear to be similar. If that is indeed the case, it is entirely coincidental; what is comical schadenfreude to him, or rather, those whose opinions he appropriates, is in my view a tragedy and an indictment of our entire species. We might agree that COP28 was a failure, but for reasons that are entire universes apart and always will be.
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