Another year, and another ‘Conference of the Parties’ (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will convene. The 29th COP is meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan. It started yesterday and will last for 11 days.
My view of the previous year’s UN climate jamboree, attended by a record-breaking 86,000 delegates, was realistically downbeat (some would say cynical):
It is likely that apart from grand-sounding communiques, more breast-beating by the climate NGOs and alarmist headlines by the legacy media, nothing much of practical significance will come out of the 28th Conference of the Parties in Dubai.
But the seismic change brought on by the election of Donald “drill baby drill” Trump on Tuesday as U.S. President-elect – an avowed “climate denier” and whose campaign has already promised to withdraw from the Paris Agreement a second time – must leave the West’s faithful devotees of the Church of Climate aghast. A second Trump Presidency together with a Republican Senate majority will bring about what finance and energy consultant Doomberg calls a “whirlwind that is about to befall the progressive environmental Left [that] will reverberate for decades”.
Pragmatists vs. Alarmists at COP28
As important as Mr. Trump’s triumphant election win is to the outlook for the globalist climate change agenda, let’s step back a bit for context.
It will come as no surprise that over the past year since COP28, large developing countries such as China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam carried on with their ambitious schedules for growing coal mining capacity and building new fossil-fueled power plants needed by their growing economies.
Just as unsurprisingly, the Biden administration and the Left-of-centre European and U.K. governments zealously continued their quest for ‘Net Zero (emissions) by 2050’, the mantra that has entranced Western governments since the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Many governments in the Global South struggle to have access to affordable fossil fuels. Meanwhile, with the relentless climate alarmist propaganda going on for three decades, Western policymakers continue to demonise fossil fuels and nurture (with taxpayers’ money) their favoured green technologies, such as electric vehicles, solar and wind power, ‘green’ hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, many of which have yet to be proven commercially viable.
With their control over leading financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Western governments veto the development and use of fossil fuels in developing countries in the name of the “climate crisis”. Carbon colonialism hypocritically denies developing countries the means to scale the energy ladder that the now-developed West has exploited to obtain its industrial prosperity and high standards of living.
Last year’s COP28 served as a crossroad when the contradictions between the ‘energy pragmatist’ and the ‘climate alarmist’ camps – roughly matching the ‘Global South’ and the ‘collective West’ – broke out into the open. Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, the President of the COP28 climate summit and CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, said in an interview: “You’re asking for a phase-out of fossil fuels… Please, help me, show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socio-economic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.”
Al Jaber’s remarks were amplified by Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, who told Bloomberg that the world’s biggest oil exporter would not agree with Western demands to phase out fossil fuels. “Absolutely not,” he said in an interview in Riyadh. “And I assure you not a single person – I’m talking about governments – believes in that… If they believe that this is the highest moral ground issue, fantastic. Let them do that themselves. And we will see how much they can deliver.”
Enter President-elect Trump
Ah, what a difference a year – and an American Presidential election – makes! Expectedly, the hyperventilating headlines of the mainstream media were out in full force within 48 hours of the election results being announced:
Bloomberg: ‘Trump Stranglehold Adds to Growing Doubts at Climate Talks’
Euronews: ‘Trump victory casts shadow over upcoming COP global climate talks’
Politico: ‘No leaders remain to check Trump’s climate wreckage’
MSN News: ‘Trump’s climate denial and green rollbacks poised to fuel warming’
BBC News: ‘Trump victory is a major setback for climate action, experts say’
Activist-journalists fulminating in the legacy media over what the Trump win means for the globalist climate agenda are among the less interesting aspects of this year’s UN climate fest in Baku.
The COP29 summit, in the shadow of Mr. Trump’s return as the 47th U.S. President, will be noteworthy for other, more durable reasons. When the U.S. first pulled out of the Paris Agreement with a formal notice in 2017 during President Trump’s first term, it was only three years later – as it happened, the day after the 2020 election – that the decision took effect under UN rules. Upon taking office, President Joe Biden promptly re-instituted U.S. participation in the UN agreement. This time around, it will take a year for a withdrawal to take effect under the terms of the pact once the Trump administration files its exit notice to the U.N. upon assuming office on January 20th 2025.
But more importantly than the formal details of UN bureaucratic rules, the expected second pullout by the incoming Trump administration next year from the (non-binding) Paris Agreement will happen at a time when other Western countries leading the global environmental agenda are themselves exhausted economically and politically.
Hours after the announcement of the results of the U.S. elections, the German three-party ruling coalition Government collapsed after Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the sacking of Finance Minister Christian Lindner over deadlocks on spending and economic reforms. The fiscal constraints brought on by years of irrational energy policies that de-industrialised and immiserated EU economies have come home to roost.
The imposition of sanctions on supplies of cheap Russian energy imports in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which boomeranged on Europe, effectively put paid to Europe’s climate leadership. Its farmers have revolted. Its working and middle classes, owing no allegiance to the luxury beliefs of Brussel bureaucrats and political elites in Berlin, Paris and London, have begun to support the populist Right as a force in the European political order.
It’s all about the money
The U.N. climate summit in Baku has been dubbed the “climate finance COP” for its central goal: to agree on how much money should go each year to helping developing countries cope with “climate-related costs”. From the current climate finance commitment of $100 billion annually by wealthy nations (not achieved in most years), some negotiators hope to transfer $1 trillion a year for “climate mitigation and adaptation goals” to the developing countries.
But in the U.S., the UN’s biggest climate finance contributor, ‘Bidenomics’ and the duplicitously termed Inflation Reduction Act which promise massive subsidies for ‘green’ energy were comprehensively rejected at the ballot box last week.
Mr. Trump’s climate scepticism will once again encourage U.S. oil and gas dominance in global markets, continuing a strong theme of his first term in office. One would think that even the climate-obsessed European elites will be under no illusion about what a Trump administration would make of the UN’s push for transfers of vast financial resources to poor countries for what is essentially bad weather. As they might say in Main Street U.S.A., “that ain’t going to happen” on Mr. Trump’s watch.
Indeed, among Mr. Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters will likely be the host of COP29, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev, who described his country’s oil and gas resources as “a gift from God”. Trump’s election victory could not have been more nicely timed to put a nail in the coffin of the globalist environmental agenda.
Dr. Tilak K. Doshi is an economist, a former contributor to Forbes and a member of the CO2 Coalition. Follow him on Substack and X.
Stop Press: Heather Mac Donald has written a wonderfully vituperative piece about COP29 for City Journal: “Any doubt regarding the wisdom of the next Trump administration’s likely pullout from such meetings should be dispelled by the conference photos alone.”
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It will take a nationwide series of blackouts to show that we cannot rely on windmills and the sun if we wish to have a 21st century lifestyle.
Then the people will decide which lifestyle they do want and what they must do to achieve it.
The Americans chose Trump. It will be interesting to see how strong the propaganda campaigns in Ireland & Germany will be to keep them onboard with the green scam.
My guess is that the status quo will continue for a very long time – unnecessarily high energy costs because of the subsidies, but few or no blackouts because they will simply keep gas – I don’t think they have much choice.
That is far too optimistic. Cuts will happen soon. I am looking at Hyundai diesel generators and I already have a wood burning stove.
I’m not known for my optimism
I just think frequent power cuts would be an own goal that they know they should not score
But I may be wrong
If I had more land I would certainly be looking at a generator
Judging by callers on Five Live I think you’re right. Of course Five Live is BBC and sceptics are mostly drowned out. GB News is not much better. Happy to criticise the costs but nobody askes ‘what is with this C02 bollox’, apart from Neil Oliver (where has he gone) and Lewis Schaffer on Headliners.
You’re right. GBNews is very disappointing on this subject. I think they are afraid to discuss it properly.
The only Parliamentary party to have commited itself against Net Zero is Reform. Hurray.
You’re correct – there is no left and right anymore, it’s us and them, the globalists/authoritarians and us little people. Well this little person is fighting back by joining and actively working for Reform UK. I started fighting back by refusing the jabs, masks, testing, hand sanitisers, following the arrows in shops, refusing a smart meter…. These things matter and we must resist in any way we can. Vive la Resistance!
They chose Trump even as their electricity prices are a 3rd of ours. —–We now have the highest electricity price in the world. —-How are we so collectively dumb to keep voting for the phony planet savers? And the Conservatives are not much better as it was they who gave us the Net Zero Amendment that has resulted in what we are seeing now…millions in energy poverty
Galloway saying it how is with this passionate pro Trump speech…
https://youtu.be/TaBLkhtB_lM?si=dNnjxmjmrhamhkCo
Is it time to dispel the traditional notion of Left /Right…
Interesting!
“Give RFK Jnr the power to tackle Big Pharma”
Good man George!
I don’t agree with everything he says but he’s way ahead of most politicians on the left and the woke middle.
Glad you found it interesting as so did it, Galloway fails to find balance at times, as he mustn’t bite the hands that feed him, but i find myself in agreement the vast majority of the time and im not at all left inclined..
I personally would find it absolutely impossible to sit firmly on any side of the polical spectrum, and i was pleasantly surprised here, by Galloways position on the US election and Trump.
I don’t like Galloway’s Islamism or anti-capitalism. I do think he is effective within his genre.
The need to restrict monopoly (strictly oligopoly) and to stop lobbying and influence peddling are so obvious but the elites have gone fascist over the past 20 years.
I do not use that term as abuse but accurately. Fascists typically encourage private monopoly because they get the pay-backs.
You could use the same term to describe pre-democratic regines in the UK. Even up to and including Lloyd George, the politicians extracted cash from those they gave favours to.
It all started up again with Major and Blair.
Agree re Galloways staunch pro Islamic stance, extremely dissapointing when he refused to acknowledge violence from both sides during the recent troubles.
However i do think he genuinely cares, and hes an extremely intelligent commentator.
See my reply to Eppingblogger
Let’s take stock. Over the last thirty years the climate change people have achieved among other things the following:
With all that in place, I think that calling Trump the final nail in the coffin of the “global environment agenda” is probably a teeny weeny bit premature.
The task at hand of dismantling the climate agenda is gargantuan. Trumps election is more like finally having someone ready to pay for the coffin and now work on building it might just begin.
It is a start….The soft underbelly of the green climate beast.
Interesting video from Dan Wotton on how the establishment want to stop Clarkson & Farage:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8RmioJugZs
The delightful irony of the Azeri president calling gas and oil a gift from God. I don’t think the COP lot will go back there in a hurry, unless they come begging for a share in his country’s bounty, though I don’t think our Ed has any humble pie in his larder.
Can we but hope that Starmer does not promise to fund all of the pay-out the elites in third world countries are demanding in exchange for their people being denied electricity (from the coal and gas beneith them).
We can hope that they don’t take the money and then use the oil and gas anyway…
…but I would if I were them.
A huge nail. ——But not in the United Kingdom’s coffin, as Starmer has promised even more emissions cuts just yesterday to add to the misery of the highest electricity prices in the entire world.
Make no mistake, God sent President Trump
Thank God we now have President Trump. If not, the USA would be seated at the head table of the cop charade. Yes keep wasting our money Kier, everyone is watching.
”No leaders remain to check Trumps climate wreckage”.
Oh! There is one – 2TK and his lunatic economy wrecking party who have taken over from the lunatic Net Zero worshipping Conservatives will give it a good go.