The 30th Conference of the Parties on climate change (COP30) will promote its climate, energy, and economic fantasies and demands from November 10–21 in Belém, Brazil. Some 70,000 scientists, activists, politicians, grifters, journalists, and observers will attend. [emphasis, links added]
Despite pre-summit hype and proclamations of hope, the summiteers are nervous.
Increasing evidence demonstrates that claims of a planetary crisis are rooted in meaningless computer models and fearmongering, not in actual science, data, or fact.
More voters worldwide are rejecting and rebelling against Net Zero, anti-fossil-fuel policies that have raised energy costs, destroyed jobs and industries, and crushed hopes and living standards.
Even the poorest US state (Mississippi) now boasts a higher GDP per capita than climate-obsessed Britain, and the average price of electricity for British households is US$0.35 per kilowatt hour (likely to rise to $0.55/kWh by 2027) – compared to a 17.5¢ US average and 13.5¢ in Mississippi.
That means UK industries now pay the world’s highest electricity prices – 27% more than equally obsessed Germany – and conservative/alternative political parties in both countries are surging in popularity against the entrenched interests that imposed these destructive, unsustainable policies.
The United States economy is outpacing Europe’s largely because the Trump Administration has re-embraced abundant, reliable, affordable fuels, petrochemicals, and electricity, while Britain, Germany, and most of Europe refuse to drill or frack for oil and gas or retreat from their unattainable climate pledges.
Trump agencies have slashed subsidies, favoritism, and environmental fast-tracks for wind and solar projects … and clawed back billions of dollars that the Biden Administration had given to “green energy” and “climate justice” groups during its last weeks in office.
President Trump again withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement, may not let US representatives participate in COP30, and is unlikely to allow US taxpayer money to flow into UN slush funds for climate “reparations,” “resilience,” or “losses and damages.”
Mr. Trump also excoriated Net Zero policies before the UN General Assembly, calling them a “green scam” concocted by “stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes and given those same countries no chance for success.”
UN member states chastened by the Russia-Ukraine war, growing dependence on Russian gas and Chinese minerals and wind turbines, and their own economic demise were hard-pressed to disagree. Developing countries also paid attention.
Meanwhile, the Net-Zero Banking Alliance – beloved by eco-imperialists for opposing and preventing financing for fossil fuel projects in Africa and around the world – has ceased all operations, following a mass exodus by its US, Canadian, British, and Swiss bank members.
“The 2.1 billion humans who suffer in abject energy poverty” and families of “the 16.5 million loved ones” who died from “indoor air pollution during the 5-1/2 years the Alliance was working” can now breathe sighs of relief, said energy realist and human rights campaigner Ryan Zorn.
The EU Parliament agreed to roll back multiple environmentalist mandates and regulations on businesses, in what Politico calls an “emerging rightward rupture that is reshaping European policymaking.”
Criticism of junk climate and energy science in the UN, the US, and other government and academic institutions has become frequent and furious since President Trump was reelected in November 2024, and the shackles of government, media, social media, and search-engine censorship have been loosened.
The world is rapidly learning about wind and solar power shortcomings; their decimation of raptors and other wildlife; the massive mining and pollution involved in manufacturing these “clean, green” energy systems; the millions of acres of farm, habitat and scenic lands impacted by them; the trillion-dollar costs of battery and gas backup systems for windless and sunless periods; and the economic devastation that climate-centric policies are inflicting worldwide.
Developed and developing nations alike are beginning to realize they have been asked to destroy the world with wind-solar-battery systems that can never growing electricity demands … to save it from climate crises that exist only in computer models and fevered imaginations.
The Net Zero, extreme weather, and climate science consensus is breaking apart as COP30 nears.
Expectations that the “climate crisis” will continue providing bureaucratic and activist sinecures, “renewable” energy subsidies, and globalist controls over our energy, livelihoods, and living standards are slamming headfirst into these realities. No wonder climate-power-wannabes are worried.
A German climate activist’s analysis epitomizes the worries, fantasies, duplicities, and exigencies.
- China’s greenhouse gas emissions exceed those of all other developed countries combined. However, the United States still has “the greatest historical responsibility for global greenhouse gas emissions,” the analysis complains, even though it has reduced its emissions far more than any other country, and its inventions have helped improve health, agriculture, and living standards globally.
- The USA and other “Global North” nations share liability for the climate crisis and must begin paying poor nations for mitigation, adaptation, and reparations. COP29’s agreed “collective quantified goal” of $300 billion annually is far too low, too vague, and too ambiguous. A “concrete action plan” must be implemented to ensure a “mobilization target” of $1.3 trillion annually from nations and corporations. Where that money will come from is anyone’s guess, especially since the payors are supposed to deindustrialize, end their fossil fuel use, de-grow their economies, and slash their living standards. How much of any actual funding will end up in developing country bureaucratic fiefdoms and Swiss bank accounts — instead of projects that actually improve energy, health, and living standards — is also vague.
- “Climate adaptation” is another COP30 priority, the analysis continues. Adaptation to what? one wonders. Temperatures that have risen modestly since the Little Ice Age ended and the Industrial Era began? Sea levels that have risen slowly and slightly since their 400-foot upsurge since Pleistocene glaciers began melting? Hurricanes and tornadoes that are not increasing in frequency or intensity? Carbon dioxide levels that are helping forests, grasslands, and crops grow faster, better, and with less water?
- Never mind all that, the Germans suggest. More money is needed for adaptation, and still more for a “just” energy transition and “civil society” demands for “social dialogue, human rights, the inclusion of [now unpaid family member] care and informal work,” and much more.
- “Climate injustice” also requires that “the biggest historical emitters must be the first to get their domestic emissions down to zero” – and must not do so by buying carbon credits overseas (for often imaginary or promissory CO2 reductions). So more deindustrialization and de-growth. And on and on.
Attention must also be paid to “intersectionality, gender-diverse terminology, and gender equality.”
Of course, leftist-climatist-Islamist intersectionality requires denunciation of Israel. “Protests against Israel’s war in Gaza” must be assured greater “freedom of expression and freedom of assembly in and around the COP” and worldwide, the Germans assert.
What on Earth does COP30 have to do with the recent Gaza war, especially when charges of genocide, human rights violations, and denial of assembly rights to Hamas terrorist supporters are so absurd?
COP30 promises to be as entertaining, pointless, and fruitless as previous iterations.
Top image by Dominic Wunderlich from Pixabay
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change, economic development, and human rights.
