Other than almost burning down the pavilion as a preview of the warmth of collectivism, and constructing a new highway through the diminishing Brazilian rain forest so as to hurry the attendees on to the heavy hors d’ouevre table and the open bar, nothing much, which means a lot. Minor dignitaries, self-congratulatory platitudes, and plenty of private jets were on hand. On the other side of the coin, as an indicator the direction climate hysteria is trending the four countries contributing over half the world’s CO2 emissions (China (33%), the USA (12%), India (8%), and Russia (5%) did not show up. (Al Gore and Gavin Newsom were on their own.)
As with earlier editions, this “Congress of the Parties” was dominated by the usual unfortunate assortment of sophists, idealogues, socialists, free-riders, and rent-seekers. This report pretty much sums it up.
The session opened with an Orwellian demand that all nations join together to ban discussions that would run contrary to the climate orthodoxy, a convenient way to shut down all dissent.
The confab resulted with nothing of real value. European media will tell you of the accomplishments, as vague and thus as meaningless as they were. The final report failed to even mention transition from fossil fuels. Here is a less sympathetic view.
On other fronts
Not everything happened at COP30. There has been no shortage of half-truths, untruths and mis-directions on the topic. Here are but a few reported examples:
From Roger Pielke on five climate science scandals.
Blaming California wildfires on climate change and not government policies.
The good news is some falsehoods are being retracted by publications seeking to recover their legitimacy such as Nature magazine, says Doug Sheridan.
Speaking of not soon enough, if you are wondering if Barri Weiss’s appointment as president of CBS is good news, read about the network’s misreporting on the cause of monsoons in Southeast Asia.
Will climate hysteria die?
Theodore White thinks so. But it will probably stay alive as long as there are politicians who are the only ones who can “save” you from real or imagined peril, rent-seekers who want your money, and media platforms in need of a scary headline. But the movement is losing its “steam”, so to speak. If only the radical and unworkable aspects of the movement could be taken out behind the barn and put out of their misery like Christi Noem’s equally feckless dog, the world would be a safer and wealthier place.
This doesn’t mean giving up on the energy “transition”; it does mean that the energy debate should be addressed by reliance on real science, protections against destruction of western economies (not to mention trees and wildlife), and remembering how many hundreds of millions of people in the world remain in dire poverty because they lack access to reliable and affordable energy.