The greedy people who destroyed the environment and spent billions on climate misinformation will fix it for us again, as long as we shake and dilute them a bit with public funds.

With COP30 fast approaching, it is instructive to look at last year's summit for lessons that might help us think about what will be discussed in Brazil next month. Because I am worried that we're in for another dose of homeopathy.

Homeopathy doesn't work, even in theory. This tenacious pseudoscience is based on the idea that if you have a headache, you cure it by ingesting something that causes headaches. The trick, however, is to shake it a bit first, and then dilute it to insignificance.

It's patently ridiculous, but somehow it's supposed to work for climate change.

The COP29 finance targets were met with, shall we say, mixed reviews, falling far short of the $1.3-trillion needed for developing countries to have a shot at reaching net zero by 2050. Now, that's $1.3-trillion per year. What we're getting is a pledge of $300-billion a year by 2035.

But hey, here in Africa, people are used to getting shortchanged, so it's not the numbers that really jumped out at me - it's the form that they take. At least $300-billion sounds like a useful sum, until you realise that the vast majority of it comes as loans. Loans that will have...