Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at background briefing.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We begin with the damaging leak ahead of Thursday's start of the UN Annual Climate Summit

COP28 in Dubai from a whistleblower to the Center for Climate Reporting, which reveals that

the host and president of COP28, Sultan Al-Jabur, the CEO of Abu Dhabi's National Oil Company,

plans to use the meeting to discuss fossil fuel exports with 30 foreign leaders.

Joining us is Bill McKibbon, a founder of the Environmental Organization 350.org,

who was among the first to have warned of the dangers of global

warming. He is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College

and the author of more than a dozen books, including the bestsellers, The End of Nature,

Earth and Deep Economy. His latest book is Faulta. Has the human game begun to play itself out?

And we will discuss his article at his substack, the crucial years. U.A.E. Corruption Beyond

Description means COP28 is likely over before it begins. Then we look into polls and indicate

a dramatic shift among young Americans away from

support for Israel to sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians as a result of the war in Gaza.

Joining us is the pollster Shibhli Talhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development

at the University of Maryland, the Director of the University of Maryland

Critical Issues poll, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

He has advised every U.S. administration from George H.W. Bush to Barack Obama,

serving as an advisor to the U.S. mission to the United Nations, and is a senior advisor to the

United States Department of State.

He's the author of a number of books, including the Stakes, America in the Middle East,

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