The United Nations’ 26th “Conference of the Parties,” or “COP26,” held in Glasgow, Scotland aimed to complete the “rule book” for the Paris Climate Agreement, which is to limit the Earth’s temperature increases to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
During the opening ceremonies, leaders from across the world took the stage to urge governments to take significant action on climate change, including President Biden, Prince Charles, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
President Biden said, “We’ll demonstrate to the world the United States is not only back at the table but hopefully leading by the power of our example. I know it hasn’t been the case, and that’s why my administration is working overtime to show that our climate commitment is action, not words.”
That same day, President Biden appeared to fall asleep at COP26 during the opening speeches.
COP26 brought many other attendees from the United States as well, including former President Obama, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and even some ill-advised Republican representatives who failed to see the very real dangers to freedom in participating in the U.N.’s climate talks, including Rep. Garrett Graves (R-LA), Rep. John Curtis (R-UT), and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX).
No climate summit would be complete without former Vice President Al Gore in attendance. CFACT ran into Mr. Gore in the halls of the conference and tried to ask him why his house in Tennessee uses 34 times more electricity than the average American home. Gore refused to answer as a staffer tried to cover our camera and repeatedly yelled “we gotta go!”
After the speeches were over, there were many new things agreed upon by government representatives in their attempt to further the goals of the Paris Climate Accord through the new “Glasgow Climate Pact.”
John Kerry, the United States’ “climate envoy,” crowed that the Glasgow Climate Pact is the first climate agreement to actually list coal by name in an attempt to eventually eliminate the fuel from global use.
Minutes before nearly 200 nations adopted the final agreement, however, India, working with China, stepped in to protect coal. India amended the agreement to change the words “phase out” of coal to “phase down.” For China and India, this edit actually means increasing coal. Both nations are expanding coal burning as fast as their economies can go. “Phase down” is the verbiage China suckered John Kerry into when China and the U.S. penned a side deal during week one of the conference. China promised Kerry to maybe think about phasing coal down during its 15th five-year plan which does not even start until 2026.
This late change was part of the reason why the conference ended with its president in tears.
As he made his closing remarks, COP26 President Alok Sharma, MP, hung his head and proclaimed through tears, “May I just say to all delegates, I apologize for the way this process has unfolded and I am deeply sorry.”
Before the conference began, Sharma had declared that COP26 “must be the COP that consigns coal to history.” India and China were not having it.
Additionally, the world leaders agreed to end deforestation by 2030. However, Scotland, the host nation for the COP, cut down 14 million trees to make way for 21 wind turbine projects over the last few years in a futile attempt to meet U.N. climate goals.
More than 100 countries agreed to cut 30% of methane emissions by 2030. This has particular significance to the United States because it is the basis for which the Biden Administration is pursuing new rules through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to limit methane emissions from U.S. oil and gas production. This is not the first time domestic policy from the Biden Administration has mirrored U.N. goals. The Biden Administration is also pursuing a “30×30” plan to conserve 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. This is in lockstep with the U.N. calling for such 30×30 measures around the world.
Despite all the big talk and promises at COP26, few of the things agreed upon contained deadlines or penalties, which is why teen climate activist Greta Thunberg declared all such U.N. conferences and climate policies to be nothing more than “blah, blah, blah”.
We never expected CFACT and Greta to find such significant common ground. Greta is correct that all the back patting and bloviating from the podium will never meaningfully alter the temperature of the Earth.
Yet Greta wasn’t the only one on the Left disappointed by the U.N.’s COP26. Guardian reporter John Vidal wrote, “It could have been worse, but our leaders failed us at COP26. That’s the truth of it.”
In addition to failing to “consign coal to history,” the Glasgow Climate Pact failed to mention oil or gas by name, extends the deadline for nations to submit new emissions reduction plans, does not fund reparations for “loss and damage” from developed nations when poor nations experience natural disasters, and does not mandate ongoing public climate finance.
As a result of these unrealized Leftist goals, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C is “on life support.”
Any failure of leftist U.N. climate policy is welcome news to liberty, private property rights, and free enterprise.
While the specific goals and numbers of each climate report and COP change from year to year, the U.N.’s dangerous agenda that it is trying to enact through climate policy has never changed. U.N. bureaucrats and climate activists have consistently called for socialist-style takeovers of the world’s government and economic systems in the name of “saving the planet” for decades.
As the conference wrapped up, climate activists staged several massive demonstrations through the streets of Glasgow. Over 100,000 marchers called for “climate action.”
CFACT attended the protest and interviewed many participants asking them why there were in attendance. As could be expected, everyone talked about socialism, and very few talked about climate science.
“We are Socialists. I am a Socialist. We are Socialists from all over the world,” one marcher told CFACT.
“The problem is capitalism,” said another. “It is this particular economic system that provides massive wealth inequality and that destroys the environment.” “What do we need to replace capitalism with?” We asked. “Socialism,” he replied.
“Stopping car travel. Go back to bicycles and horseback, really. Go back to simpler times,” is the prescription offered by another marcher. Life in those “simpler times” has been described as “nasty, brutish and short.” Socialists should be careful what they wish for.
At the conference, John Kerry promised the U.N. $100 billion plus a whole lot more. Kerry said that “billions won’t cut it” and announced a plan to spend trillions of dollars on “climate finance.”
The Biden Administration is ignoring debt and welcoming inflation. The Left is working overtime to fundamentally shift economic life from free market capitalism to central government planning.
The U.N. may not know how to alter the temperature of the Earth, but they do know how to make a buck. Nothing the U.N. or any government does will have much of, if any, impact on global temperatures.
The U.N.’s ridiculous climate agenda, dangerous to the freedoms we take for granted, must be continually exposed and resisted.
While COP26 may not have been the “home run” many climate activists were looking for, that won’t deter the Biden Administration from continuing to pursue its costly climate agenda through every government department and agency.
The next COP has already been announced to be taking place in Egypt. Hopefully by then, the climate agenda will be exposed for the “pyramid” scheme it really is.