There’s nothing new under the sun. Snow falls, flowers bloom, and then Fall comes with roughly 50,000 delegates, activists and lobbyists flying out to a UN Climate Summit in some exotic part of the world. This year it was to COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, where I and other members of the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) team joined them for a front-row seat to the spectacle.
We taxpayers and consumers pay for all their airfare, hotel and dining, of course. We also pay with higher energy costs that their net-zero actions impose on workers and families – and for “climate reparations” they plan to dole out to destitute and not-so-destitute developing countries.
We pay out despite the fact the science doesn’t back their claims. Hurricanes and tornados have not increased in frequency or intensity; nor have floods and droughts. We can prepare for, adapt to, and warn communities far better than ever before, so the number of people killed by weather and other natural disasters has plummeted 90% since 1900.
But the Climate Industrial Complex (CIC) that organizes these pow-wows is unmoved by such facts. They have so much money and power at stake at events like COP 29 that their scientists, politicians, activists and lobbyists will never stop inducing panic and demanding more sacrifice from us to “end the climate crisis.”
That’s why I went to Baku as a representative of CFACT. Just as we’ve done at almost every other climate conference over the past 30 years, we believe it is important to attend, provide insights and comment on what we observe.
And what we observed this year was eye-rolling.
To begin with, the pressure groups attending COP29 were in full force and their agendas a bit, let’s just say, out there. Among them were some seeking to turn the decades-long climate change “crisis” into an unprecedented “public health” threat, allegedly far worse and longer-lasting than COVID, and thus requiring even more drastic and draconian government actions – and stratospheric spending.
They claim the food we eat is worsening the supposed climate cataclysm. They want the UN to oversee what crops and livestock farmers will be permitted to grow, how they can do it, and what people will be allowed to eat. This new “Great Food Reset” movement, alive and well at COP 29, intends to restrict meat consumption; compel banks to stop providing loans for livestock production, nitrogen fertilizers, biotech crops and even diesel-powered tractors; and more.
Fortunately, they at least propose a substitute: “edible insects.”
But it’s not just food these activists are targeting. Many urge consumers to “transition” away from fossil fuel vehicles, cooking, and home and water heating ... to electric technologies – regardless of costs, inconveniences, dangers or inadequate electricity. They seek to have our factories, businesses and hospitals do likewise, and pay 2-3 times more for electricity – even if that brings on massive price increases for goods and services.
As for your home, that too was discussed at COP 29. Some attendees claim the climate crisis necessitates herding people into “climate resilient homes,” many of them tiny, to lower carbon footprints – and then controlling the thermostats. They also want to control your vacations and almost every other aspect of your life.
Yes, it’s ridiculous. But alas, it doesn’t stop there. The climate cabal that gathered in Azerbaijan also sought money … lots of it.
Even as Western economies crater, COP29 attendees are angling for a New Collective Quantified Goal of $1.1 trillion in 2025, rising to $1.8 trillion by 2030. Increasingly de-industrialized nations are expected to contribute this money to a Climate Finance Action Fund, to help poor developing nations “transition to a low-carbon future,” get “climate mitigation and adaptation” funds, and receive “reparations” for “losses and damages” that poor countries suffer due to climate changes allegedly caused by rich countries.
This will replace the current, supposedly insufficient goal of $100 billion per year and help developing countries implement “low-carbon, climate resilient solutions” to energy, transportation, agriculture and other vital systems. It’s intended to “persuade” poor countries to “leapfrog fossil fuels” and go directly to a magical “clean energy future.”
The proper term for this is “carbon colonialism” or “eco-imperialism.” It would further enrich the Climate Industrial Complex, and politicians and bureaucrats in poor countries, while leaving the people energy-deprived, jobless and impoverished.
In short, what we saw in Baku was appalling. Unfortunately, the Trump-Vance administration wasn’t there to impact COP 29. But thankfully it will be next year.
And once it does take power, let’s all hope both it and the incoming Republican Congress will be able to “net-zero” the USA out of any future COP meetings, before they can actually inflict any serious damage on us.
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Craig Rucker is president of the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org)