The hype around the Glasgow climate summit is the usual exaggerated nonsense, exemplified by John Kerry, President Biden’s special climate envoy, calling it “the last best hope for the world to unite.” Indeed, it is a march of folly.
Climate change is real, but it is not the “existential threat to humanity” that Biden and many others claim. Figures in UN reports make it clear, as economist Bjorn Lomborg notes: Global economic growth during 2100 will leave the average individual 450 percent richer than today; Climate change (if we do nothing) reduces that to 434 percent.
Extreme weather is no longer common, and a richer world is handling it better: natural disasters of all kinds killed nearly half a million people annually a century ago; This year it’s on track to be around 6000.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus has claimed nearly 5 million lives worldwide: an international effort to vaccinate the world would be a much better way to spend money that would instead go to foolish climate policies.
In addition, efforts to determine how the virus started, and thus help prevent future epidemics, have stalled. And this is just one of the world’s issues that merit exodus dedicated to climate situations.
It is not the only concern centered on China, whose aggression against Taiwan could trigger a new world war, while the collapse of its real estate bubble could destabilize the global economy.
And again, Beijing is also the No. 1 “villain” when it comes to rising carbon emissions, a potential driver of climate change. But Gapfest Glasgow won’t push China (nor India) to dramatically change its ways because its new coal plants are essential to its continued economic growth. (Worse, having Beijing pretend it will cut its emissions forces the rest of the world to overlook China’s many crimes, from the slow genocide of the Uyghurs to its crackdown on Tibet and Hong Kong.)
Instead, Glasgow will liken the 2015 Paris meeting, which ended with “deals” where countries voluntarily set carbon-reduction targets, which Western governments then used to justify spending billions to subsidize renewables and crack down on their use of fossil fuels.
Climate warriors have never mentioned how the poor pay for it disproportionately, with high utility bills and lost job opportunities.
Burning clean natural gas instead of coal or oil has been a huge carbon-cutting payoff for the United States, with huge jobs and other economic benefits as the fracking boom has made the nation a net source of energy. But Biden, the climate warrior, has made us import dependent again — and now he’s begging OPEC to raise its own production to lower pump prices.
People don’t want to burn the massive cash needed to get rid of net carbon by 2050, Greens demand. Anti-carbon decrees issued by French President Emmanuel Macron sparked the “yellow vests” rebellion, forcing him to back off. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is talking about the environment now, but he won his job while pledging to oppose extreme job-killing climate policies.
But the world’s media is outraged by the idea of a climate apocalypse, so 20,000 diplomats, activists and business influencers are traveling to Glasgow to win some great headlines – and the hypocrisy behind those huge and unnecessary carbon footprints is only a taste of that colossal folly. .
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