The cracks in the COP climate conference system are so gaping and obvious that there is now a cacophony of voices calling for changes. In particular, the “Club of Rome” suggests reforms that would substantially improve negotiations. The historical approach to the Big Tobacco lobby which includes banning advertising, eliminating lobbying and taxing products (or at least removing subsidies, in the case of fossil fuels) can transform our approach.

The fossil fuel industry’s presence at climate talks is as inappropriate as tobacco companies at a lung cancer conference. There were 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists identified there with at least 28 from Canada alone. Prominent fossil fuel lobby organizations had pavilions, including OPEC, the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) and Canada’s own Clean Resource Innovation Network (awkwardly named to avoid the words “Canada” and “oil and gas”.)

Meanwhile, authoritarian petrostates have hosted the conference three years in a row, further disrupting the negotiations.

I am so sick of seeing BS ads on the streets in Toronto like:
“As Long as the World Needs Oil & Gas, It Should Be Canadian”
https://www.canadaaction.ca/it-should-be-canadian

Common tactics: 1) Delay action, 2) discount the scale of the problem, 3) focus on any possible minutiae to make your product appear positively, 4) make a false appeal to patriotism.
Reality check: We have pretty much the dirtiest oil in the world (80% more emissions than the cleanest oil). The world should be getting off tarsands oil as quickly as possible.