Author: glymey

The city of Doha is a metropolis in progress. Tall architectural skyscrapers glitter as only the wealthiest jewellery does. Fifty years ago the capital of the Gulf’s poorest country was scratching a living from pearl fishing. Today, Qatar exports hydrocarbons. Energy is cheap, petrol is 1 Riyal per litre (16p) and free desalinised water sprinkles verdant lawns and fills shimmering swimming pools. I am sitting on a long-haul flight returning from Doha’s UN climate summit. I go to the UN climate summits for the science not the politics and once again, despite the science, the world’s big emitters edged closer to dangerous climate change.

Continue reading “Doha Climate Change Conference: Politics and Ideologies Ruled, Science Won Through at the End” →

The majesty of the rounded hills in the vastness of Zululand takes your breath away. If you know the rolling Down lands of England they are somehow familiar, yet different. They are higher, clothed in a dark green of sub-tropical bushes and trees, and marked with clusters of square houses, each home companioned with a reed-roofed roundhouse. The hills are symmetrically smoothed from millions of years of weather erosion.

Continue reading “Durban Climate Change Conference: Why COPs Are So Much More Than Politics” →