The domination of Climate Change dogma is a remarkable tale.
The great environmental awakening of the 1960s was hi-jacked by burgeoning eco-socialist thinking from about 1976 - when the Northern hemisphere experienced a hot summer..
The efforts of a few key players linked the rising average surface temperature with the coincidence of rising CO2. Many other things were also rising in the 1970s and 1980s but several unelected quangos - principally spawned by the United Nations - took this particular coincidence to heart and through the lens of their obsessive eco-socialism they generated a whole climate-related dogma.
The left-wing pervading philosophy of the time was highly fashionable and became strongly suppoted by increasingly technocratic globalist politicians who embraced the idea that capitalist inspired industrialisation by the Western democratic societies of 'the Global North' must be guilty of all manner of evil deeds.
These evil deeds include the 'crime' of causing Climate Change and the headlong descent into Climate Armageddon.
That the societies accused of this crime must pay came naturally to their politicians. What better way than imposing policies such as Net Zero on the descendents of 'the criminals'? And, at the same time, those societies that had not yet committed the crime of industrialistion would be helped in their own versions of this 'criminal' activity. This help would be given by the ordinary consuming and taxpaying masses in the 'Global North'.
Within the world of science, Climate Change oriented 'research' has become a major segment. It is now worth billions of dollars.
Lawyers are greedily jumping on the issue of Climate litigation and reparations
In the global industrial sector, falling in line with Climate Change policies of 'alternative' generation of electricity and electric vehicles has become a massive trillions of dollars affair. This is largely carried out in the 'Global South' but largely financed by consumers in 'the Global North'. But as the policians of the 'Global North' will incessantly chant: 'it is the right thing to do'.
The economic momentum of these massive human persuits provides such impetus that the Titanic nature of these endeavors will not be diverted any time soon.
And the whole ediface of Climate Change is built on an observed coincidence which lacks proper scientific verification.
Recovering from the ravages of the second World War people were afforded the luxury of widening their concerns from the immediacy of a war-society.
Many people began to see how human civilisation and its burgeoning poputation was impacting the natural environment.
There were many events and factions contributing to this awakening including the 1961 formation of ‘The World Wide Fund for Nature’, the 1960’s Clean Air Acts, the 1968 publication of Paul Ehrlich’s ‘The Population Bomb’ , the 1968 The "Earthrise" Photo, Formation of Friends of the Earth in 1969 and Greenpeace in 1971.
The 1972 UN on the Human Environment (held in Stockholm) focused on the environment generally - not specifically Climate Change.
But this ‘New Environmentalism' was progressively hi-jacked in the 1970s and 1980s by Eco-socialist thinking.
Although the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels did not focus on environmental issues directly, their ‘metabolic rift’ concept was instrumental in eco-socialist thinking.
This is a concept explaining how capitalism disrupts the essential ecological cycles between humans and nature. It describes the separation and disruption of the "metabolism" of nature caused by the drive for profit, leading to problems like soil degradation and pollution from separating agriculture from urban centres and waste products.
Influential Eco-Socialist thinkers include William Morris (born 1834), William Vogt (born 1902), Barry Commoner (born 1917), Raymond Williams (born 1921 and credited with coining the term "eco-socialism"), André Gorz (born 1923), James O'Connor (born 1930) and Rudolf Bahro (born 1935).
Possibly the most famous of the groups of this major movement is “The Club of Rome” who published their widely-read 1972 report ‘The Limits to Growth’.
This discussed the possibility of exponential economic and population growth with a finite supply of resources, studied by computer simulation. The study used the World3 computer model to simulate the consequence of interactions between the Earth and human systems.
The report's findings suggest that, in the absence of significant alterations in resource utilization and environmental destruction, it is highly likely that there will be an abrupt and unmanageable decrease in both population and industrial capacity. Although not using the term they describe the imminent approach of a ‘tipping point’.
‘Limits to Growth’ advocated ‘a totally new form of human society’ rejecting the free open market economy. Their eco-socialism philosophy viewpoint argued that: _‘Breakdown of society and irreversible disruption of the life-support systems on this planet is inevitable unless we change our ways.’
The blame for this ‘irreversible disruption’ was placed on Capitalism and the accompanying Industrialisation.
In the event their model’s predictions were, like many politically-inspired models, totally inaccurate. Population expanded to several times ‘the tipping point’ that should have plunged the world into over-population Armageddon.
Although the 1972 UN conference on the Human Environment (held in Stockholm) focused on the environment generally it was embryonic in forming anthropocentric views later incorporated into Climate Change dogma.
The conference set up ‘The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)’ with the strapline ‘Safeguarding the environment for future generations’.
UNEP proudly boasts, even now (with its 2,000 strong workforce), that it is ‘the leading global authority on the environment’.
Its more modern (politicised) aims to be ‘driving transformational change’ by drilling down on the root causes of the triple planetary crisis which are currently defined as: • the crisis of Climate Change, • the crisis of nature, land and biodiversity loss, and • the crisis of pollution and waste.
UNEP’s first director was Maurice Strong (born 1929 – an early member of ‘The Club of Rome’). Strong was very influential in guiding environmental concerns to become eco-socialist oriented.
This influence boosted by general left-wing politically fashionable ideas became so extreme as to lead to the near exclusion of any genuine environmental orientation.
Summarising Edenhofer’s statement (quoted at the start of this section): “One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy - it has almost nothing to do with the environment”.
Some statements may be quoted to help characterise the thrust of the Eco-socialist's Climate Change Anointed view:
“No matter if the science of Global Warming is all phony . . . it provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world. “ (Christine Stewart: a Canadian Minister of the Environment)
“It doesn’t matter what is true; it only matters what people believe to be true.” (Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace)
At the 1979 World Climate Conference held in Geneva under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) where Professor Bert Bolin (a Swedish meteorologist who served as the first chairman of the IPCC) noted that CO₂ levels were rising and so were, coincidentally, temperatures. This coincidence spurred Bolin to conjecture that the consequences for the future of mankind were distinctly alarming.
Dismissed as an eccentric marginal figure in the early 1970s, by 1979 Bolin found a politically-primed audience ready to lap up his eco-socialist inspired alarmism.
The 1980 Brandt report concluded that the chasm in standards of living along a North-South divide should be corrected by massive transfers of resources from developed to developing countries.
This idea became fully embedded, in its politicised form, at the 1992 UNCED Rio conference – also known as ‘The Earth Summit’.
This idea remains, to this day, as the basis of the controversial demands for ‘reparations’ for Climate Change to be paid over by industrialised countries (predominantly in the Northern hemisphere) to the ‘Global South’.
1983-1987 Brundtland Commission chaired by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland commenced work in 1983. A UN nominated member was Maurice Strong - UNEP's first director blatantly an extreme eco-socialist.
The commission's 1987 report, ‘Our Common Future’, is a landmark document that introduced the concept of sustainable development and included recommendations like: ‘Internationally agreed policies for the reduction of the causative gasses (principally CO2) be imposed by a global convention’.
The concept of 'Sustainable Development' became prominent among the goals of eco-socialism at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio.
Sustainable Development is a comfortable benign-sounding expression which mandates that present needs are met without compromising future generations, balancing economic growth, environmental care, and social equity. This sounds 'very nice' and politicians will say 'it is the right thing to do' but the concept is deeply rooted in eco-socialist thinking that prioritises the needs of 'so-called victims' over all others.
The 1988 US Senate Committee hearing: on the extremely sweltering day of 23 June 1988, James Hansen gave evidence to the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that the four hottest years recorded in the last 100 years had been in the 1980s rising to a peak in 1987. Hansen declared that he was ‘99% certain’ that the cause was the Greenhouse effect.
James Hansen, for 32 years director of the Goddard Space Centre, has built a career on advocacy of action to avoid dangerous climate change.
In 1986 he predicted the USA would heat by a further 2°C to 4°C over a period of 14 years (i.e. to 2002) due to the Greenhouse effect of CO₂ fossil fuel combustion emissions. Global average temperature rose over the 14-year period by only 0.2°C and by barely anything in the USA.
He also forecast of a rise of 2 metres in sea levels by the year 2000 with consequent appearance of hundreds of millions of refugees.
This alarmism found sympathy within the Senate on a sweltering day in Washington DC. Senators believed that it was all happening now, and it was the fault of the Greenhouse effect of CO₂ from fossil fuel combustion emissions.
Hansen’s absurd statements raised intense public alarm and were reported in blanket TV coverage and by the press.
This pure alarmism succeeded in putting ‘Global Warming’ centre stage in the public arena. The IPCC, and later, the COPs would ensure it remained there.
It had been a mere 10 years, or so, since the temperature of the Earth had begun to rise again after the bitter cold of the post war years and the efforts of Maurice Strong and James Hansen (among others) opened the era of widespread belief in ‘Global Warming’ and ‘Climate Change’.
What followed was a consolidation of Climate Change dogma as 'the Climate truth'. Believed by intellectuals, politicians and educators.
The belief by educators turned education related to climate variability (as well as other politicised topics) more into an indoctrination process than a true education. No one so indoctrinated even thinks of challenging this 'Climate Change Truth'. Thee indoctrination leads to 'Climate Zealots' demanding 'Climate Action'.
This propaganda intensified reinforcing ‘the faith’ and promoting mass hysteria about the ‘imminent Climate Armageddon’.
The era of the ‘Climate Emergency’ had arrived. It was time to declare a 'Climate Crisis!'.
The by-product of widespread ‘Climate Anxiety’ now undermining the mental health of many was an (aapparently) unanticipated consequence although a cynic might say this anxiety and fear is just what is needed to keep 'the masses' under control.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC) was established in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization. It was endorsed by the UN General Assembly the same year.
In reality, the IPCC was established by politicians with the mandate to investigate Anthropogenic Global Warming and recommend policies to mitigate. They have no mandate to investigate natural factors contributing to climate variability. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the IPCC places the blame for Climate Change on anthropogenic emissions. It is instructed to do so. More importantly it is funded to perform this politically constrained remit.
During the thirty-seven years of its existence, the IPCC has issued:
The funding (running into billions of dollars) for this prolific output is from Governments much of it coming, ironically, from the rich (or at least formerly rich) industrialised nations - the very nations the policies of Climate Change seek to immiserate.
The IPCC (& UNEP etc) are a huge, unelected and unaccountable quangos tasked with showing how anthropogenic emissions are damaging the planet and suggesting, or even mandating (?), ways to mitigate.
From the outset, intimidation (i.e. project ‘Climate-fear’) has been the IPCC’s principal weapon.
With each decade the IPCC apocalyptic predictions of Climate Armageddon threatening human existence due to the CO₂ content of the atmosphere grow more strident.
These doom-laden predictions have been described by Jeremy Nieboer (of the Bruges Group): “They [the predictions] have become ever more extreme such as to evaporate into fantasy.”
In their 1990 First Assessment Report, the IPCC said: “We are confident that the increase in CO₂ alone has been responsible for more than half the world’s recent warming and that this requires immediate reductions in emissions from human activities of over 60%”.
In the detail of their report was the rare acknowledgement of Natural Climate Variability that: “…Global Warming of a larger size has almost certainly occurred at least once since the last glaciation without any appreciable increase in Greenhouse gases… (and) because we do not understand the reasons for these past warming events, it is not possible to attribute a specific proportion of the recent, smaller warming to an increase in Greenhouse gases.”
This statement ignores the fact that in the previous inter-glacial period (the Eemian) there were warm periods several degrees warmer than 2024 and sea levels rose to about five metres higher than now - and all this while ice persisted at both poles.
In the politically-driven IPCC editorial process this latter remark (about prior warm periods) was carefully excluded from the summary for policymakers. The summary was, however, enhanced with a touch of alarmist gloss and so caught the attention of the world’s media and politicians.
Over the years this muted ‘the increase in CO₂ alone has been responsible for more than half the world’s recent warming’ has become a strident ‘all’ or ‘almost all’.
The IPCC’s political masters, aided by the compliant (and some not so compliant) researchers, most media commentators construe IPCC pronouncements since the late 1990s to mean: “Anthropogenic emissions, principally through the burning of fossil fuels, lead to Global Warming and Climate Change and, if not restricted, will bring about Climate Armageddon.”
In 1991, the European Community (EC) acclaimed the IPCC report citing their alignment with the Anointed groupthink belief that there was now a consensus among scientists about impact and risks of the Greenhouse Effect.
As a left-leaning bureaucracy the EC was more than ready to sign up to the beliefs of eco-socialism.
Their officials probably firmly believed that there was actually consensus within the scientific community that anthropogenic emissions are the cause of Global Warming. None of these officials had the scientific background or motivation to challenge this sham 'consensus'.
They believed, fervently, that unpleasant weather events and the rising of sea level caused by burning fossil fuels were established facts .
They acted as though this ‘consensus’ was verified fact.
There appears to have been no one brave enough to oppose this political force – at least no one who survived with career intact.
(officially called the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development – UNCED) resulted in ‘The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC)’ - the UN process for negotiating agreements to limit dangerous Climate Change - to become an international treaty to 'Limit dangerous Climate Change' by: "controlling dangerous human interference with the climate system".
Nothing here about the environment or mitigating the effects of locally observed implications of the ongoing process of climate variation - only a burning desire to restrict the use of fossil fuels (pun intended).
Their main means of accomplishing this limiting of the increase in Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere was to be by phasing out fossil fuels in the rich ‘Global North’.
This egregious treaty was signed in 1992 by 154 states at the Rio Earth Summit and came into force in March 1994. Both the UK (under John Major) and the USA (under George W Bush) were signatories.
The Rio Earth Summit firmly established - on a binding internaational law basis - the dogma of Global Warming and Climate Change. Eco-socialism was ratified by international treaty within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).
The UNFCC had the “ultimate objective” of: ‘Stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’.
This limitation of industrialisation is in line with ‘sustainability’ and is brought about by adopting the Convention’s Agenda 21 and thereby promoting ‘Sustainable Development’.
The Rio conference transformed environmentalism as an ideal into an international political campaign to immiserate the 'Global Norrth' by mandating energy policy.
‘Deniers’, at the time commented: ‘{It rests] upon a fundamental scientific falsehood, driven by the impetus of socialism and maintained by intimidation to gain mastery over empirical scientific evidence’.
Skeptics point out how curious it is that the limitation of industrialisation (in effect de-industrialisation) only applies to the Western industrialised democratic nations (i.e. the ‘Global North’) who must ‘atone’ for their past ‘sins’. It does not apply to China, India and other 'Global South' countries whose rate and quantity of industrialisation dwarfs the rate and quantity of de-industrialisation by the 'Global North'.
The 1992 Rio Earth Summit firmly cemented Climate Change dogma (or as it was in 1992 – Global Warming dogma) into the minds of everyone. Not only the intellectual, globaalist 'Anointed' but the bulk of the 'masses' in the 'Global North'.
The year 1992 marks the year when Climate Change dogma had secured its dominion, in just a few years from its first public declaration.
International conferences coming after Rio would no longer be forums for environmental discussion and persuasion. They had become exclusively for disseminating eco-socialist propaganda on Global Warming and Climate Change and 'suggestions' (actually instructions) for reducing fossil fuel use.
These international conferences were to be convened regularly as ‘Conference of the Parties’ (COP) in order to secure the required undertakings of compliance and monitoring of CO₂ emission reductions.
These gatherings (starting in 1995) were to serve as platforms for announcements of the fate awaiting humanity if immediate steps were not taken to ‘Save the Planet’.
By signing the treaty, nations of the ‘Global North’ abrogated responsibility for energy policy to theio globalist elite – a collection of (mainly UN) quangos of unelected bureaucrats whose only driver (‘road map’) is the agenda of eco-socialism. Any democratic input to energy policy has been firmly shut off.
Arguably, signing this treaty is one of the greatest anti-democratic acts of the modern era. Other than the political elite who were (and largely remain so) complicitly ‘in-thrall’ to Climate Change dogma, the ‘masses’ were to have no further say in their nations energy policy.
Richard Lindzen (until retirement, Professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Emeritus Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in his 1992 article, "Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus," continued to argue that the scientific community had not found a substantive basis for the claims of dangerous Global Warming.
He stated that the diplomatic push to address Climate Change was happening without scientific justification and that the many catastrophic scenarios spread by alarmist were discounted by the scientific community.
The article, published in the Cato Institute's journal ‘Regulation’, criticised the consensus and highlighted what he saw as a flawed basis for climate alarmism.
Lindzen’s chief objections were with ‘The Science is Settled’ statement. This is the area of science in which he himself had unrivalled expertise.
He noted that the IPCC’s predictions of future temperatures and climate behaviour were all based on computer model predictions which generally ignored the world 'as it really is'.
What particularly struck him was that the programming of these models was much too simplistic. By giving pole position to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as the main ‘forcing’ (i.e. directly causing) ingredient in driving future temperatures, the models failed to allow for other natural influences on climate.
Lindzen concluded that the findings of the models (of 'The Anointed') were demonstrably misleading.
Observations confirmed why Lindzen found the IPCC’s case for future warming ‘implausible’ and seriously exaggerated but his lengthy paper on the nature of the supposed ‘consensus’ ranged very much wider.
In particular, he focussed on both the remarkable degree to which the notion of a ‘consensus’ had been used to dominate public debate and the extraordinary pressure brought to bear on anyone daring to question it.
That dissenting views remain unpublished are common tactics of the Anointed up to the present time (2025/26).
Lindzen described how fervently Global Warming had been taken up by the leading environmental campaigning organisations, such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the WWF. These pressure groups, which had originally emerged out of the ‘environmental awakening’ of the 1960s, had now attained very considerable status and influence as ‘non-governmental organisations’ (NGOs). Their influence was enhanced by their embrace of Climate Change dogma.
He also recalled how quickly the new cause had become fashionable among leading figures in showbusiness, such as the Hollywood actors Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand and Meryl Streep, all of whom made much-publicised calls’.
He quotes Redford’s unintentionally ironic plea:
“For people to stop just ‘researching’ the warming threat and to ‘begin acting’”.
Lindzen recalled among many other instances how, in the winter of 1989, the National Science Foundation had withdrawn funding from one of his MIT colleagues, Professor Reginald Newell, when his data analyses failed to show that the previous century had seen a net warming. One reviewer even suggested that Newell’s results were ‘dangerous to humanity’.
Lindzen also observes that rather than attempting to address the points dissenters are raising, the Climate Change Anointed routinely counter by ad-hominem attacks on Dissenter’s character. Some dark reason must be found to explain why such people should not be listened to, such as suggesting that they are only questioning the ‘consensus’ because they are being paid to do so - ‘in the pay of the oil companies’ is a common jibe.
The UNFCC (The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) came into force in 1994 and shortly thereafter the annual COP was born.
The treaty prepared by the UNFCC has as its main objective (explained in the treaty’s Article 2):
"Stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (i.e., human-caused) interference with the climate system".
The treaty also calls for ‘Continuing scientific research into the climate’. But this funding is controlled politically and withheld from those with a research objective that is not congruent with the assertions of Climate Change dogma.
The most important ‘child’ of the UNFCC is the annual meeting of the ‘Conference of the Parties’ – the COP.
Maurice Strong (creator of the United Nations Environment Programme - UNEP) openly declared his conviction for what should happen at the annual COP. It is clearly and without qualification a catechism for eco-socialism in Strong’s two rhetorical questions: “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialised civilisations collapse?” and “Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”.
At each COP the IPCC gospel of doom, disguised as ‘the science’, is explained for the purpose of inducing yet more ‘Climate Anxiety’ and further assaults on CO₂.
There follows discussion of how the replacement of national liberal democracy and its free open market economies with global governance and re-distribution of wealth will be accomplished.
These are disguised as ‘Environment Action’ and mainly take the form of directives to reduce the burning of fossil fuels.
But still, to the amazement of dispassionate observers, the Climate Change Anointed from the ‘rich Global North’ flock en-mass to the COPs to have their faith renewed and to signal the virtue of their morally superior beliefs.
Many attendees engage in the annual competition of ‘who can be the most extreme-virtue-signalling delegate?’ Competitive zealotry is visibly on-show. But they still fly (and not 'cattle class') in huge numbers from the ‘Global North’ to the venues and luxuriate in the over-pampering of host nations while demonstrating their moral superiority.
Delegates from ‘the poor disadvantaged Global South’ also attend. Their aim is to extract the increased grants, incentives and compensation their Brandt-branded victimhood requires.
China does not stand with ‘the guilty’ of the Western Industrialised Democracies. Their scientists know the whole Global Warming dogma is built on a lie – but they happily go along with it as the process simultaneously strengthens their economy while weakening the Western economies pursuing their headlong plunge towards Net Zero immiseration.
India, Russia and North Korea take similar postures.
It is interesting to note that Maurice Strong admired China, where he had an office in a government compound and was an active honorary Professor at Beijing University. He even retired to China in 2005 when he also actively advised North Korea on energy policy.
One of Strong’s greatest achievements was the first Earth Summit held at Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 where he was responsible for the conferences entire content, agenda and process. It was the largest conference of its type ever organised - attended by over 100 world leaders and 20,000 official delegates from 179 Countries.
The Earth Summit was also the largest repudiation of democracy in the modern era as power was legally (by nations signing the treaty) transferred to unelected, unaccountable quangos.
The first COP of any significance was COP3: in1997 Kyoto.
The Kyoto protocol established legally binding emission reduction targets for 37 industrialized countries including the European Union, aiming to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5% against 1990 levels over the period 2008-2012.
EU countries and the UK made, in the ensuing years, major progress to achieving those aims.
China, India and other ‘Global South’ countries were excluded from complying with the Kyoto protocol.
By COP21: in 2015 in Paris, the intention was to repeat the success of Kyoto reduction targets but with additional massive transfer payments from the Global North to Global South countries.
In the run-up to the meeting, Christiana Figueres, chief UNFCCC organiser of the Paris conference said about the upcoming COP (in February 2015): ‘This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution.’
This statement reveals the disturbing philosophy of the Anointed that is at the heart of Climate Change dogma. Nothing about the Environment - all about destroying Capitalism.
This mirrored the general principle underlying the proposed treaty was that first put forward by Maurice Strong at The Earth summit, Rio in 1992.
The main hope in Paris was for larger reduction targets that Kyoto.
It was also hoped by the organisers that, in the spirit of the Brandt report (1980), to commit to massive incentives to a ‘Green Climate Fund’ – to financially help the ‘Global South’ ostensibly to limit their emissions increase. These were embodied in the principal proposal of the organisers:
‘The Global North nations agree to making drastic emissions cuts and also pay $100 billion a year into a new ‘Green Climate Fund’.
It was contended by the Anointed that this fund would assist countries in the Global South to follow the Global North's lunacy by doing their best to curb their own use of fossil fuels.
$100 billion a year is an unrealistic demand, but every country attending was asked to submit (in writing) how they would comply with this principle. The only country already partly in compliance with the Paris sentiment was the UK with its 2007 Climate Change Act.
For the Paris COP (2015) some temperature reporting agencies ‘adjusted’ their historic temperature reconstruction to show 2014 was even hotter than 1998 – a fact disputed by the Satellite temperature record. In actuality, global temperatures were still within the ‘long pause’ period where no significant temperature increase was observed – and this despite continuing increases of CO2. This ‘hot-2014’ revelation was cobbled together to induce urgency in the Paris meeting.
President Obama said of the Paris meeting, in his ending speech: “Today, thanks to strong, principled, American leadership, the world that we'll leave to our children is a world that is safer and more secure, more prosperous, and more free. And that is our most important mission in our short time here on this Earth.”
A more self-aggrandising anthropocentric virtue-signalling statement is hard to visualise from the ‘leader of the free-world’
The apparent success, for the organisers, of the Paris agreement was at the time echoed in the Guardian: “. . that commits almost 200 countries to hold the global average temperature to “well below 2°C” above pre-industrial levels and to “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”.
Although hailed by many of the Anointed as a success, over time the ‘Paris Accord’ only highlighted discord between attendees.
No substantial sum was pledged by Global North countries to help reduce the emissions of the Global South.
Within two years the USA withdrew from the (non-binding) Accord.
The ‘Global South’, led by the fast-growing economies of China and India, made clear that, whatever the West may continue to believe or do, they would carry on regardless.
The following year, China commissioned more than one large coal power plant every week so that by 2022 it was operating 3,037 of them. This is nearly 90 times more than the UK in its heyday of coal burning and over twice as many as the USA. In 2023, China added 47.4 GW of coal power capacity, representing two-thirds of the global rise in operating coal power capacity. In 2024, construction started on 94.5 GW of new coal-fired power plants.
The latest COP was a bit of a wash out. People are beginning to understand the real motives behind Climate Change dogma and with economic decline staring formerly prosperous countries in the face only true zealots are pushing de-carbonisation strategies.
Many things have happened during the 21st century in addition to 15 COPs.
2008 UK Climate Change Act: the Labour Government of the time brought forward the most (economically) significant piece of legislation, arguably, since the 1939 declaration of war. It was supported by almost all MPs - only five voted against.
For the UK, it was the most egregious, damaging demonstration of the arrogance of consensus groupthink by the Climate Change Anointed.
In approving the Act, the UK Parliament demonstrated the anti-democratic tyranny of the Climate Change Anointed who are smugly secure in their moral high-ground delusion and, at the time, populated all UK major political parties.
The Act was such an economy-destroying instrument that it should, in a real democracy, at least have been debated in public. So important are the implications of the act, some commentators suggest it should have been subject to a referendum. But sensing that a referendum might not go their way – as the 2016 Brexit referendum proved – the Act was passed with a minimum of Parliamentary debate.
The carbon reduction of 60% (by 2050) was costed at £205 billion, but a last-minute change of the target to 80% (by the zealot-in-chief Ed Miliband) pushed this estimate to at least £404 billion with few benefits, if any, for the UK.
Most independent observers believe that the 80% reduction target is unachievable in any practical sense and , in trying, will cost much more than £404billion.
The Parliamentary debate was silent on any sensible pathway to the target reduction. This stranded MPs, the majority of them not having a clue about energy policy, to speculate among themselves what contributions might be made by (i) near total de-industrialisation, (ii) accelerated use of biofuels and (iii) renewable power driven by windmills and solar or nuclear.
Most MPs, of all political parties, initially basked in the warm glow of the UK being the first (and, by 2025, only) country to legislate such a stretching target.
That they did all of this without giving a thought to the damaging cost of implementation is, to many (possibly now a majority) UK voters an economy-wrecking crime.
Given that the UK’s emissions at the time contributed 1.6% of global emissions, an 80% reduction represented a neaar-negligible reduction of global emissions per annum until 2050. China’s additional emissions since 2008 dwarf the UK’s paltry reduction by two orders of magnitude!
Why the UK Government chose to condemn its citizens to known and massive immiseration to make only a token change in Global emissions is a question to which it is difficult to find rational answers.
The UK Quango ‘The Climate Change Committee (CCC)’ was set up by the Act to advises the UK and devolved governments on emissions targets and reports to Parliament on progress towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change.
The CCC advises on five-year carbon budgets and monitoring progress towards these budgets and the net-zero target. It also produces a UK-wide Climate Change Risk Assessment every five years and assesses progress on the National Adaptation Programme.
Note that there is nothing here about the environment or mitigating known or suspected changes in local weather patterns – the whole thrust is to cut anthropogenic emissions by phasing out the use of fossil fuels.
Although the CCC is ‘recognised’ as an independent body providing evidence-based climate policy advice and holding the government accountable it is essentially a bureaucratic Climate Anointed Quango which can only comment as the Anointed expect. Its obsession with fossil fuels mirrors the obsession of the UK zealots and UN agencies.
The 2008 Act was followed in 2019 by UK Legislation for Net Zero emissions passed by the Conservative government led by Prime Minister Theresa May it introduced the legally binding target to bring all Greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050
It amended the existing Climate Change Act 2008 which had committed the UK to an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050. The 2019 amendment increased this to 100% (i.e. Net Zero) based on recommendations from the independent Committee on Climate Change – the Climate Change Quango set up by the 2008 Climate Change Act.
The legislation passed with broad cross-party support at the time, making the UK the first major economy in the world to pass a Net Zero emissions law.
The insanity of this legislation is becoming ever more evident, and the UK is the only Government in the world to pass such economy-destroying legislation.
If the originator’s intention was to ‘set an example' because 'it is the right thing to do’ – it has certainly worked - as no other country has followed the UK’s lead.
In 2023 The IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) was published. It is little changed from the fifth report and continues to peddle the same political narrative that embodies the dogma of the Climate Change Anointed.
It predictably highlights the urgency and scale of Climate Change, emphasizing human influence as the primary driver of warming and its widespread impacts.
Using their models, the report warns, once again, of significant and potentially irreversible damage to the climate system if emissions are not drastically reduced. They highlight that the most vulnerable populations are facing the brunt of the consequences - a natural conclusion of eco-socialist thinking.
The report also emphasizes that immediate, rapid, and large-scale emission reductions are crucial to limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C and securing a liveable future.
AR6 once again reinforced ‘Climate Guilt’. The sense of urgency and alarmism continues to feed ‘Climate Anxiety’ and encourages vigilante ‘Climate Action’.
Pronounced CO2 as a danger to human life enabling the full weight of US environment law to be used against CO2 - now deemed a dangerous pollutant.
As the page 'Postcript' due to Ridley' emphasises, we continue to see alarmism everywhere. But the alarmist message is wearing thin. So many exagerated alarm messages made in times gone by have proved themselves to be wrong - not just wrong but spectacularly incorrect.
Some right-wing political parties are openly crticising alarmist messages and policies such as Net Zero while left-wing parties cling to eco-socialist Climate Change zealotry.
Other than President Trump, no established political party (including 'populists') go as far as saying anthropogenic emission actually contribute next to nothing to Global Warming and Climate Change. Trump's outrageous 'It's all a scam' might be stretching it a bit but many experts (including the author of this website) consider him to closer to reality than the continous outpourings of the Anointed.
The issues of natural climate variability and other human activities (particularly land-use change) that affect local or regional climate are still, largely, ignored.
It is so easy to blame Climate Change and highlight those guilty of this percieved crime so why bother with finding real causes and fixing real problems?