Nobody should go. Let them spend all that money with fancy venues and deceitful oil pushers, and the civilized world can have an actual discussion about climate change where it actually means something.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Journalists and campaigners attending the Cop28 climate conference in Dubai should “not be naive” and take steps to protect their physical and digital security, a British academic who was tortured in the summit’s host country has warned.

Matthew Hedges, who was detained in the United Arab Emirates for seven months in 2018, advised reporters and activists to take new, clean phones, think carefully about who they deal with and how and where they protest.

The latest UN climate summit began on Thursday in the autocratic country, the world’s seventh largest oil producer, where media and protest are tightly restricted and human rights activists are subject to harassment.

Leaked emails published this week showed that the UAE was planning to use the climate event to pitch fossil fuel deals to foreign governments.

In August the UAE issued a joint statement with the UN promising to guarantee free speech, and later that Cop28 visitors would be permitted to “assemble peacefully to have their voices heard in designated areas”.

Hedges said journalists and campaigners should ensure colleagues and close friends “know your diary” and advised attenders in those categories to have a list of phone numbers on hand so “should anything go wrong you have the ability to reach out”.

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