Oil Exec Presides Over COP28 Climate Summit: So What Are the Real Solutions?
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 6 December 2023
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today's episode Walter Smolarek and Prof. Richard Wolff discuss the UN COP28 climate summit where record numbers of fossil fuel lobbyists were given access, and the summit itself is presided over by the chief executive for an oil company.
Professor Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. You can find his work at rdwolff.com.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | After years of shameful inaction, the annual UN Climate Summit has reached new lows and is now being presided over by a literal oil corporation CEO. |
| 0:13.0 | The need to reorganize the world's economy to address the climate crisis is clearer than ever, but the people in power are doing nothing. |
| 0:21.9 | We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have sounded |
| 0:28.1 | impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. We are very excited to have Professor Richard Wolfe join us for a regular weekly segment |
| 1:01.5 | where we discuss the biggest stories relating to the economy, the state of the working class, |
| 1:05.5 | and the crimes of big business. |
| 1:07.4 | I'm Walter Smolerick, filling in for Brian Becker. |
| 1:10.1 | The Socialist Program brings you content several days a week thanks to the support of our patrons at patreon.com slash the Socialist Program. |
| 1:17.6 | We appreciate all of your support and encourage you to become a patron today if you enjoy listening to the show. |
| 1:23.6 | Richard Wolfe is the co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work and the author of many books, |
| 1:29.3 | the latest being The Sickness is the System. When capitalism fails to save us from pandemics or itself, |
| 1:35.3 | you can check out all of his work at rd.wulf.com. So, Professor Wolf, there are these annual UN climate summits, the conference of the parties, right, the COPP, you know, whatever number it is. |
| 1:48.5 | So this year it's COP28. |
| 1:50.6 | All of the countries of the world send representatives to gather and discuss the climate crisis. |
| 1:56.9 | And at the end of the day, pretty much always they do nothing or nothing that |
| 2:01.7 | that really matches the scale of the problem. This year's summit is especially outrageous |
| 2:07.6 | because the president of COP28 is Sultan Ahmed Al-Jabair, who is the CEO of the Abu Dhabi |
| 2:16.4 | National Oil Company. |
| 2:18.4 | He is an oil corporation CEO, and he's presiding over the summit about how to save the planet, |
| 2:23.7 | essentially from fossil fuels. |
| 2:25.4 | He's come under criticism in the past few days, especially for this comment that I want to read to you. |
| 2:31.4 | He said, quote, I am factual, and I respect the science, and there is no science out there, |
... |
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