A climate coverage influence group is concerned the war in Gaza could steal public attention from the COP28 climate summit seven weeks away..Covering Climate Now, an initiative of Columbia University and other partners, stated its concerns in a recent article. Last month, CCNow hosted a conference in New York City for its more than 500 member outlets who boast a combined audience of two billion people..“The war between Israel and Hamas is a humanitarian crisis that also jeopardizes much-needed international progress on climate change,” complains CCNow..“As with the war in Ukraine, the new war in the Middle East threatens to spread to other countries, drive world oil prices and inflation higher and discourage the international cooperation needed to tackle the climate emergency and other global challenges. To raise the stakes further, this war is erupting in a region containing most of the world’s oil, which is still the lifeblood of the global economy.”.Despite admitting the central role of oil in the worldwide marketplace, CCNow insists hitting net zero targets is an absolute must..“News organizations must, of course, cover the war diligently. But with just seven weeks left before negotiators gather at the COP28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates, can news reporting also remind the public and policymakers alike that rapidly decarbonizing the global economy remains an imperative for humanity?”.In June, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said oil and gas were “incompatible with human survival” and that carbon capture would only make for “more efficient planet-wreckers.”.In what CCNow termed a “must read” article, Meet the Man Tasked with Saving the Planet, Fiona Harvey made similar assertions in The Guardian, another outlet that helped found CCNow..“Oil and gas companies, and the petro-states they prop up, must refocus themselves on renewable energy, or they go out of business. Or we will fry,” wrote Harvey..Harvey’s article profiles Sultan Al Jaber who will preside over COP28 in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is the world’s seventh largest oil producer and Al Jaber is chief of the UAE’s national oil company, ADNOC. .As CCNow explains, “Activists have complained that putting an oil executive in charge of a UN climate summit gives cartoonish new meaning to the idea of the fox guarding the hen house. ‘Completely ridiculous,’ Greta Thunberg jeered.”.Harvey interviewed the sultan three times and observed him at various meetings, including a Buckingham Palace visit with King Charles and found him “courteous and cheerful” in demeanor. .CCNow credited Harvey that Al Jaber had “every opportunity to make his points” but Harvey “let him get away with nothing.”.“It’s the consumer who contributes to increasing CO2 emissions, not the producer,” argued Al Jaber, to which Harvey replied, “I point out that this is the logic of a drug dealer.”.CCNow said that Al Jaber’s “massive investments in renewables, in hydrogen, in carbon capture and storage” were just “shiny objects.” .“Harvey stays focused on the science and the ‘single obdurate fact: the world cannot go on with a burgeoning fossil fuel industry,’” said CCNow..“That is the contradiction at the heart of COP28 and, more generally, climate action globally. It’s the kind of story that journalism is made for, bursting with conflict and drama and with immense amounts of money and power at stake, not to mention the future of life on Earth. The Israel-Hamas war is crucial for journalists to cover, and get right. So is the story of Big Oil and COP28.”
