OPINION:
This year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference, known as COP-28, just sputtered to a predictable close. In many ways, it was much like previous gatherings.
The original goal was to determine what effects human activities, especially fossil-fuel use, might have on Earth’s climate. But that quickly mutated into an inquisition grounded in the absurd notion that those activities were the only factor in climate change. It then mutated even more grotesquely into demands that humanity quickly eliminate all fossil fuels — 80% of the world’s energy — despite the many negative consequences.
Every successive conference has exerted greater pressure on developed countries to abandon the oil, natural gas and coal that make modern economies, health, living standards and essential products possible; on poor countries to never use those fuels in the first place; and on all nations to rely on wind and solar energy that have never proved they can be the primary power source for even a small village.
COP-28 was supposed to formalize solid commitments by all countries to eliminate fossil-fuel use by 2050 and by wealthy nations to commit to trillions of dollars in climate “reparation” and “adaptation” payments to poor countries allegedly victimized by rich countries’ use of fossil fuels.
Fortunately, COP-28 turned out to be unlike previous conferences.
It was held in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates under the auspices of a government committed to producing, exporting and consuming more oil and natural gas far into the future — and dubious about fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions being the sole (or even dominant) force in climate and weather. UAE National Oil Co. President Sultan Al-Jaber presided.
COP-28 made it clear that rich nations cannot and will not fund multitrillion-dollar reparations.
As Germany is demonstrating, rich countries will quickly become poor countries if they continue switching to expensive, intermittent, weather-dependent wind and solar and moving their increasingly uncompetitive industries overseas. Assertions that every extreme weather event and inch of rising seas is due to fossil-fuel use is a wild exaggeration. Poor countries have benefited greatly from technologies and advances made possible largely because of fossil fuels.
Above all, still-impoverished nations and those well on their way to industrialization and modern status (China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and others) may agree to “transition away from” fossil fuels gradually over many decades. But they are not going to sign economic suicide pacts that commit them to phasing out fossil fuels by a certain date.
No matter how loudly former Vice President Al Gore, climate czar John Kerry and other climate alarmists might shout “End Fossil Fuels Now” (after flying private or commercial jets to Dubai), less-developed nations will not and should not surrender their God-given right to health and prosperity.
Poor and developing countries now recognize that these climate warriors aren’t there to protect them or “save the planet.” Their police powers are used to enforce limits on how much poor and working-class families and people of color will be “permitted” to increase their energy consumption and improve their health and living standards.
The U.N.’s scientific-industrial-government climate cabal controls what climate research is recognized, who gets to speak at these events, and what is included in climate agreements. They routinely condemn colonialist nations that subjugated so many regions and ethnic groups in the past.
That’s why it’s ironic that the cabal is now the most powerful and oppressive colonialist power in history, especially over African, Asian and Latin American countries — but also over working-class and minority families in Australia, Canada, Europe and the United States.
Scrapping fossil fuels would deprive the world of reliable, affordable energy, thousands of medical, safety and other products, and modern health and living standards.
A rapid transformation to wind, solar and battery power would turn transportation, heating and cooking technologies into electric models — at the same time that reliable, affordable electricity becomes as scarce as horse-drawn buggies and grid-scale backup batteries gobble up even more power generation.
Millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels and 50 million miles of new transmission lines would blanket scenic, wildlife habitat and agricultural areas, kill millions of birds and bats, devastate whale populations, and replace private property rights with eminent domain land grabs.
Extracting and processing billions of tons of metals and minerals for these “clean, green, renewable” technologies would ravage and pollute millions of acres in poor countries — the same ones the cabal wants to limit to “ecologically sustainable” development. Millions would die — from mining accidents, cancer and other diseases due to toxic pollutants; heatstroke because air conditioning is unavailable or too costly; and especially hypothermia and normally survivable illnesses because homes cannot be heated properly in the winter.
“COP-28 is on the verge of complete failure,” Mr. Gore recently lamented.
Failure? Absolutely not. Its weak, undefined, nonbinding language — “transition” from fossil fuels in “a just, orderly and equitable manner” — is the best thing we could have expected.
It’s a breath of sanity amid “climate chaos” nonsense peddled by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, pressure groups, pseudo-scientists and media propagandists.
It’s time to defund the climate police. Otherwise, those colonialists will leave the world’s most vulnerable people at the mercy of power-hungry, money-grubbing climate predators.
• Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst to the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate, environmental and human rights issues.
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