Cop and the League of Nations

In order to understand why all Cops (Conference of the Parties), including the one which began this week, are so unsatisfactory, historical analogy may help. They resemble the League of Nations between the wars. The League’s aim was to ensure world peace. The purpose of Cops, and their associated UN processes, is to arrest climate change. Neither purpose was/is achievable by the chosen means, chiefly because the countries where the problem was/is greatest were/are the least likely to cooperate. Germany, defeated in the Great War, was not allowed into the League in the first place. Japan and Italy withdrew from its council so that they could get on with their aggressions. This week, the leaders of China, India and Russia were all absent from Sharm El Sheikh. Not coincidentally, their countries are great carbon-emitters (over 40 per cent of the world total). Some people admit the problem but maintain that the Cops set a powerful example, shining like a good deed in a naughty world. The opposite case could be made. In the 1930s, democratic nations were slow to see the need to rearm against aggressive war. They took false comfort from the existence of the League of Nations. Nazi Germany and other dictatorships grabbed the opportunity. Today, each Cop tries to make people feel that this is our last chance to save the planet and that the Cop process is achieving net zero. Both these propositions are false, so Cop achievements are illusory. ‘Good’ countries pay a punitive energy price for these illusions. ‘Bad’ countries benefit from seeing through them.

What Egypt really needs is a conference called Copt. It would draw international attention to the persecution of that ancient Christian church in Egypt by militant Islamists.