• Editorials

I Emit (Greenhouse Gas Emissions), Therefore I Am (an Idiot)

• By Cambodianess
• December 17, 2023 10:00 AM

COP 28 in Dubaï reached an agreement on the implementation of “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems” to curb global warming.

No schedule has been set. But a formula had to be found, which would suit all stakeholders, and especially countries producing fossil energy such as Dubai hosting this COP 28, these fossil fuels being responsible for 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and therefore for global warming. Those countries would have preferred that there would not have been any talk about the “fossil-fuel phaseout.” But, according to a saying well-known by politicians the world over, including the leaders of these producer countries, promises only bind those who believe in them.

Some have seen in this wording a great victory since this is the first time that is addressed head on the issue of fossil-fuel phaseout during a conference on climate, a victory all the more significant that the host country depends on the oil and gas business.  

Be that as it may with this transition away from fossil fuels as it will be orchestrated by the states, reflection is urgently needed on the energy-wasting consumption of developed countries and of their upper and middle classes.   

The dominant economic model is based on consumption, overconsumption, the disposable. The be-all and end-all of existence is expressed in the goods we acquire. I should not say “we” but rather those who have the means to do so.  Because we know very well that only 10 percent of the world population’s better-offs are responsible for 30-to-40 percent of the gas emissions while half of the world population produces only 15 percent of the emissions.

One might say that this matter does not concern Cambodia. Wrong. Here, the super rich super consume while those of the middle classes view them with envy, contributing passively or not to a damaging economic model.   

"I think, therefore I am.” A very long time ago, the French philosopher Descartes had, in a stroke of genius, expressed the idea that thought constituted indisputable evidence, with no doubt whatsoever, that human beings had, in fact, pre-existed the gods. Those were born to man, not the other way around.

Today, it would seem that, for some, the proof of human beings’ existence does not have to do with a philosophical discussion on his relation with the gods but rather with the amount of his sales receipt.  

The carbon footprint? My greenhouse gas emissions? I don’t care! I emit, therefore I am.