The Better Place project by Israeli investor Shai Agassi was presented at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen by Ukrainian businessman Ramil Mekhtiiev. Unfortunately, in 2013, the project of transportation integration on alternative energy went bankrupt. In 2015, at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, Mr. Mekhtiiev delivered another report summarizing the difficulties associated with implementing environmentally friendly projects.

The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference was held in Paris, France, from November 30 to December 12, 2015. It was the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP) to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The result of the Le Bourget conference was the Paris Agreement which regulates measures to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 2020. The agreement participants declared that the peak of СО2 emissions should be reached „as soon as possible.“

The parties were supposed to begin practical cooperation under Article 6 of the Agreement, starting in 2020. This required coordinating the „set of rules“ for carbon markets and many other issues. Nearly 27,000 delegates who met in Madrid in December 2019 could not cope with this task, despite the record length of the meetings. Achieving zero global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 requires expanding the energy spending share in global GDP from 8% to 25% by 2035.

Unfortunately, the Agreement’s text does not address any sanctions if the parties fail to achieve their declared goals. And in the international legal sense, any emission reductions are not compulsory for them. In this respect, renowned climate scientist James Hansen called the Paris climate talks a „fraud,“ while other critics spoke of an „agreement to increase emissions.“ Some find it weird that there is no mention of „mineral“ or fossil, i.e., non-renewable fuel, in the Agreement’s text.

The story of Israeli investor Shai Agassi’s Better Place project is a model for the grievous development of the United Nations‘ most global environmental initiative. The fact that the scientifically grounded project, supported by many European and world organizations with a well-thought-out implementation technique, went bankrupt in 2013 shows how unprepared global society is to save itself.

„Shai Agassi’s vision was originally inspired by a question of Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, at Davos 2005: ‚How will you make the world a better place by 2020?'“, said Ramil Mekhtiiev during his speech at the United Nations Conference in Paris. Mr. Mekhtiiev is a former partner of Mr. Agassi, a thriving businessman and activist from Ukraine.

„By January 2011, $700 million had been raised for the project, several countries and states had even offered tax breaks, and Shai had organized electric car networks in Israel, Denmark, Hawaii, Australia, Japan, the Netherlands and California (the project headquarters was based in Palo Alto). The company planned to expand infrastructure for each country and noted that it conducts negotiations with more than 25 additional regions worldwide. Things were going as well as could be expected. However, market entry was prevented by big players whose capital is based on the use of fossil fuels,“ said Mr. Mekhtiiev.

In his overall assessment of the Paris Agreement, James Hansen cited Ramil Mekhtiiev’s report at the UN Conference as „one of the most distressing and realistic ones.“ „It can’t be the case that we care so little for ourselves and our children. The failure of the Better Place project is my personal disappointment in the inhabitants of planet Earth,“ he admitted.