So, another COP, another few steps forward but skirting carefully around the elephant in the room: the burning of fossil fuels. A huge effort by petrostates kept any mention of fossil fuels out of the final agreement in Belem. This is completely understandable – these states, by definition, are almost totally reliant on oil & gas, particularly in the Middle East. Turn off the taps and it’s game over for their ruling classes, both domestically and internationally. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.

Except, Christmas comes once a year, every year, and, even if turkeys could vote, their opinion wouldn’t make any difference. They are still for the chop.

I heard an amazing stat at the weekend: 80% of the world’s population lives in the ‘sun belt’ where solar power thrives. No wonder that Pakistan imported enough solar panels last year to cover 40% of their current power needs – it not only provides the population with cheap energy, it also gives the country full control over that energy, sheltered from geopolitical and economic winds.

If everybody in the sun belt follows that pattern, going electric at speed, the noise from vested interests will intensify. ‘They’ tried to stop the banning of DDT, restrictions on tobacco, even ozone depleting substances through lobbying and misinformation. Long term, they failed, but they undoubtedly slowed everything down (aka ‘predatory delay’). But compared to those other environmental/health battles, where corporations were at risk, this one is existential at a national level. So expect plenty of resistance.

But, fundamentally, the missing words in the Belem communique won’t matter, we are winning.