Cop28 diary: expensive coffee, cheesy slogans and petrol fumes
Climate summit’s opening days are a feast for the senses but air quality and smokestacks leave a bad taste
Cop28 diary: expensive coffee, cheesy slogans and petrol fumes
Climate summit’s opening days are a feast for the senses but air quality and smokestacks leave a bad taste
Enough food for thought
If climate summits march, like armies, on their stomachs, then Cop28 looks in good shape.
Unlike the first days of the disorganised Cop27 in Egypt, there is actually food. It’s mostly vegan too, a nod to the enormous impact meat has on the climate. An avocado, edamame and hummus sandwich was one offering.
It’s not all cheap, though. A coffee is $6 (£4.75), more expensive even than most cafes in New York, so delegates without big budgets are coming prepared with packed lunches and Thermoses.
Carnivores are catered for though, and it’s halal – eg a chicken sausage roll. But it’s a clear improvement on the meat feast of Cop24 in Poland, and the beefburger vans of Cop27. DC/NL
Eco fashion
Forget London fashion week, the annual climate conference is the place to see the world’s best-dressed people as delegates, diplomats and activists from more than 180 countries bring some style to the tense and formal negotiations.
Dubai is not disappointing, with Pacific island floral garlands, silk saris and brilliant white dishdashas, and Maya huipiles, Amazonian headdresses, and west African Ankara wax fabrics. Seeing and hearing people from every corner of the planet is always one of the highlights of Cop. NL
Welcome to the petrostate
Most delegates arriving at Cop28 will have entered the desert city of Dubai along a 12-lane highway, reeking of petrol fumes: welcome to the petrostate of the United Arab Emirates. It’s not the first time the fossil-fuelled nature of the host nation’s economy has been an olfactory leitmotif for the climate conference. In the Polish coal town of Katowice in 2018, Cop attenders were marinated in smoky aromas for the entire two weeks.
There are visual signs too. One delegate opened her hotel room curtains on her first morning to be greeted by the largest gas power generation facility in the world: “Fitting. I am going to stare at this through the haze of pollution for two weeks.” And on heading into the conference centre on the metro, at least 50 tall industrial smokestacks mark the way. DC
Unsettling atmosphere
The Cop28 venue itself is, as is usually the case for these gatherings, sprawling, bland and plastered with the sort of clunky slogans – “Action builds trust”; “Hope inspires action” – that could distract you from the fact this whole thing is being run by an oil executive if they didn’t read like motivational aphorisms conjured up by ChatGPT.
But some delegates arriving in Dubai were more concerned about what’s outside the cavernous Expo City, namely the air quality. A haze settled over Dubai on Tuesday and Wednesday, shrouding its vertiginous buildings and bringing air pollution unhealthy to sensitive groups, according to IQAir, an air monitoring service. The air quality improved a little on Thursday, the opening day of Cop28, but was still four times worse than guideline levels set by the World Health Organization.
Sandstorms can cause hazy days here but much of the pollution stems from the UAE’s network of oil and gas fields near Dubai. Gas is flared almost on a daily basis, worsening air pollution, despite a commitment by the UAE to stop the practice, the Guardian revealed last month. OM
Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA
