Judging from early media reports, the CoP 28 climate conference in Dubai is as much about optics as substance. Now about that $6 cup of coffee…

If you’re like me and your visual cortex has been conditioned over time to react to an image in real-time before reading the caption, you could be forgiven for thinking the picture above has something to do with Unilever.

Since the photo accompanies a story about the CoP28 climate conference underway in Dubai, you can be forgiven for thinking that Unilever, the world’s largest producer of soap that distributes a wide range of consumer products to more than 190 countries, has run afoul of moral and ethical guidelines that govern locally sourced, enviro-friendly consumer goods.

But no, it has nothing to do with that.

Rather, it’s a speech by Bank of America’s CEO during a reception this past week at the annual UN climate conference.

This year, the conference is being staged in a gleaming city of glass towers on the edge of the vast Arabian sand sea.

Yes, it has been hot there — 30°C, or 86°F — but do keep in mind that November to April is reportedly the best time to visit Dubai, “during the winter months.”

Irony is never in short supply at these get-togethers, and so far, just 72 hours in, CoP28 has not disappointed.

Staging a global climate conference in an oil kingdom during a time of unprecedented temperature rises — and melting ice caps — is one thing, but news reports fixating on where to go and what to eat in Dubai during a global climate conference linking 70,000 delegates take the frisson to a whole new level.

Media communication in our modern-day wired world is all about optics, after all.

Style is everything, and substance just has to take its chances. Irony — loosely defined as language that says one thing but means the opposite — abounds.

And so we have news stories about $6 coffees (£4.75) — more expensive than New York! — and reports of delegates packing boxed lunches and Thermoses to beat the cost of doing business in one of the priciest cities on the planet.

After all, it’s hard to grow coffee in the Empty Quarter, the largest continuous body of sand in the world, where temperatures can climb as high as 52°C (125.6°F) on a warm summer’s day.

Scouring the area for locally sourced food can only go so far in the middle of a sand sea.

Green-minded delegates insist on vegan, eco-friendly food — CoP24 in Poland was roundly criticized for being a sausage fest, literally — but as the Guardian reported this past week, carnivores aren’t being left out entirely in Dubai. The chicken sausage rolls are said to be halal, too; local customs have to count for something.

Then there are the news stories about eco-fashions on display. Delegates, diplomats and climate campaigners from more than 180 countries — almost as many as Unilever distributes to — reputedly sport everything from Amazonian headdresses and West African wax prints to Pacific island floral garlands and Mayan huipils.

Then there is the ever-present presence of the fossil fuel industry — fitting for a climate conference in a petrostate with one of the world’s largest sand seas on one side and the Persian Gulf on the other. As Guardian environment editor Damian Carrington reported Thursday, when one delegate opened her hotel room curtains in the morning, she was greeted by the world’s largest gas power-producing facility.

“‘Fitting,’ Carrington reported her as saying, ‘I am going to stare at this through the haze of pollution for two weeks.’”

Heading to the conference centre on the metro — public transportation! — “at least 50 tall industrial smokestacks mark the way,” Carrington noted.

Gas flaring is an added bonus. It’s part of the entertainment.

Some delegates arriving at CoP28, Carrington observed, are more concerned about what’s outside the Expo City conference centre, namely the air quality.

“A haze settled over Dubai on Tuesday and Wednesday,” Carrington reported, “shrouding its vertiginous buildings and bringing air pollution unhealthy to sensitive groups, according to IQAir, an air monitoring service.

“The air quality improved a little on Thursday, the opening day of CoP28, but was still four times worse than guideline levels set by the World Health Organization.”

Now that’s irony for you.