BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 13. As part of COP29 in Baku, Trend News Agency proudly presents COP for Hope, a special project offering an unparalleled platform to hear from world leaders and trailblazers in politics, economics, science, and ecology, all united by a shared commitment to addressing today’s pressing climate challenges.
Today, we are honored to speak with Philip McMaster (aka SustainaClaus, the Sustainability Santa).
In an exclusive interview with Trend, he said COP29 can make difference in climate financing issue.
“I'm here with the Sustainies, which are the little kind of puppets, little toys. One is Roger the Reality Rooster, wake up to reality, and the other one is the Low-Carbon Panda. The effort that we're making here in Baku, but actually all around the world, is how do we make childhood great again. There's a couple of hopes from COP29. Of course, the main ones are finance. We've been working on this for absolutely years. The purpose of the COP here in Azerbaijan is finance. It's about how do we finance the loss and damage,” he said.
McMaster pointed out that since 2009, there have been talks about loss and damage and climate financing, and none of the countries have come through.
“Now, this is mostly the European countries and North America. But we don't support the South. We exploit the South, but when it comes around to loss and damage, we run the other way. And you see, even President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen is not coming to COP29. How can she make the decision not to come? She represents the EU. How is it possible that a person, a representative, makes the decision for the people in Europe? Some of them want representation here. If I was from Europe, I'd want representation here. So how is it these globalists have this ability to screw up the whole world? That's ridiculous,” he added.
McMaster noted that Azerbaijan is an ancient place, it’s ancient culture, it's part of human civilization's origins and COP29, which is underway here, can make a change.
“We always have to be optimistic about what can happen and realize that it's not a wish, it's a manifestation. You have to manifest the future. You don't just wait until the future happens. You have to act in order for the future to happen the way you want it to happen. The most important thing is for the developed countries to show up with money because they have lied for so many years. Let me tell you a quick story. I worked on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from the time they were started in September 25, 2015. I'm not a member of the UN, I'm doing it as an individual. I hold up three fingers and say, individual social responsibility (I-S-R),” said the SustainaClaus.
But from the point of finance, McMaster said countries collect money from their people.
“It's not a company, although they act like it is. It's a community. And a community doesn't exploit its members. A community supports its members. Start to act like a community, and start to fix the problem. In Conscience Land we say, heal yourself, heal the community, and heal the earth. The countries can be wiser, more compassionate for their own citizens. We're all citizens of the same planet and we can make life better,” he concluded.
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