The Bonn Meeting is No More

Rather proving that it's near impossible to gather representatives from 184 nations together in one place for 11 days without tripping over someones important anniversary the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's (UNFCCC) June meeting in Bonn, Germany broke up promptly on Saturday (14/6/14) evening.

As I said at the time rather then producing a tangible result this meeting was intended to lay the ground work for the COP20 Summit in late 2014. That meeting itself is intended to lay the ground work for the COP21 Summit at the end of 2015. As a result although I have many hours of reading ahead of me before October I may end up with little to say about that reading.

However the fact that the Bonn meeting is now over means that I can say what I like about the corruption scandal regarding the proposed 2022 World Cup in Qatar that has recently engulfed FIFA.

At the time it was announced the news that Qatar was being awarded the 2022 World Cup raised a few eyebrows and more then one allegation of bribery. The main reason for this is that World Cups tend to be held in June/August and in a desert country such as Qatar those months are normally brutally hot. Still having very strong memories of that one time it hit 44C in Seville, Spain forcing even the most hardy locals to give up and have a bit of a cry I think it is hard to convey just how hot Qatar gets in the summer.

However at this 2014 World Cup temperatures are tending to hover around a very pleasant 20-25C but if they go beyond 32C there will be enforced drinks/cool down breaks every 30 minutes or so. In Qatar summer temperatures regularly exceed 50C dropping to around 40C at night. This is roughly the same as temperatures in northern Mali and the rest of the Sahara. When the UN authorised a peacekeeping mission in Mali they did so on the provision that they would not provide advanced communication equipment (radios etc) on the grounds that the plastic components would simply melt in the heat. As such there is a very real risk that players and supporters will die of heat exhaustion during a Qatar World Cup.

Of course in their bid Qatar assured FIFA that by 2022 they would have advanced air conditioning systems in place in the stadiums to reduce the temperature. However since then it has emerged that Qatar in fact won't be doing that and are currently pleading with FIFA to move the World Cup away from the summer period where it has been played since the 1930's to the middle of the winter where most nations are in the midst of their usual, domestic football seasons.

As such it should come as little surprise that recently whistle-blowers/leakers/hackers ( I prefer the term "Heroes") released data revealing pretty much exactly how and how much each FIFA member had been bribed to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. The intention was obviously to force a re-vote on the 2022 competition and FIFA have promised to do that if their 'investigation' finds the evidence to be accurate.

What I have a problem with is the decision by The (London) Times newspaper which despite Murdoch ownership is still very much the official mouth-piece of the UK Establishment to publish all this evidence on Sunday June 1st (1/6/14). This was of course intended to ruin the World Cup because the British Establishment prefers it if its subjects are kept unaware of other nations and the host - Brazil - is pretty much mainly rainforest.

However the publication was primarily intended to target the UNFCCC meeting. As I've said many times before the Gulf Monarchies - of which Qatar is one - are very opposed to the entire UNFCCC process and they intend to use their fossil fuel wealth to destroy the process either by bribing or intimidating nations. As such the UK was hoping that the FIFA issue would be used as a metaphor within the Bonn meeting to find out which nations are happy with their bribes, which nations are wavering and which nations are very opposed. The intention being to help identify those who can be considered allies, those who need to be offered more money and those who need to be intimidated.

(Originally Posted) 00:40 on 16/6/14 (UK date).