Every year thousands of bureaucrats meet in an exotic location for a UN conference to agree not to solve "global warming". Next week will be the 29th failure. It is the Olympics of Big Government rorts. This is not just a few hundred climate scientists catching up for a weekend, there are forty or fifty thousand grifters meeting, not just for a few days but for two money-sucking weeks. After they've used the tax dollars to get there, they sit around and discuss how they will divvy up the loot, the other tax dollars, called "climate finance", as if the atmosphere wants a loan.

In a devastating blow, this year the EU political Queen Ursula von der Leyen is going to miss the event, which some call a "fatal signal".

As it happens, Joe Biden and Emmanual Macron are not going either. It just doesn't have the social cachet these days in the wake of the US election.

This next little story is so emblematic of the corruptocrat blob. A senior member of Azerbaijan's COP29 team has been caught red handed using the "climate" conference to line up investors in Azerbaijan's oil and gas fields. The sad truth is, that in terms of the world's poor, this was probably the most productive event at the conference.

In a secret recording a fake Hong Kong investor said he wanted to sponsor the conference but in return needed to discuss "investment opportunities" in local gas fields — ain't that just the way the whole climate cartel rolls? Everybody pretending to look after the planet, but really looking out for themselves.

COP29 chief exec filmed promoting fossil fuel deals

A secret recording shows the chief executive of Azerbaijan's COP29 team, Elnur Soltanov, discussing "investment opportunities" in the state oil and gas company with a man posing as a potential investor.

"We have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed," he says.

The BBC has been shown documents and secret video recordings made by the human rights organisation, Global Witness.

However, this is the second year in a row the BBC has revealed alleged wrongdoing by the host government.

Where was the BBC for the other 27 conferences? — covering up the crime.