By Craig Rucker, CFACT | November 21st, 2024
The sums of money being demanded at the UN climate conference in Azerbaijan are staggering.The UN estimates that the world currently spend $3 trillion per year on climate and wants to dedicate $3.5 trillion to energy transition per year by 2050. This would skyrocket total annual global climate spending to $5 trillion.
A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.
They are pushing for something they call the “new collective quantified goal” at COP 29 in Baku. This mainly means a fortune in climate redistribution from the developed to the developing world.
Delegates are all too aware that this spending largess in no way squares with President-elect Trump’s “America first” agenda, but they are hoping to wait him out as they did once before.
One surprising positive development, is that in the process of demanding redistribution, developing nations have woken up to one of the key absurdities of the UN climate regime. Nations such as China and India are given a pass on emissions reductions and paying out funds. This, despite the fact that China is the world’s number one emitter of greenhouse gases and boasts the second largest economy, while India’s economy is all the way up at number five.
This is due to something the UN calls “common, but differentiated responsibilities,” which has been baked into the climate regime going all the way back to 1997’s Kyoto Protocol. China, meanwhile, holds $8.16 trillion of U.S. debt.
Wherever climate policy goes next, China should equally bear the pain and shoulder the responsibility they advocate for us.
President Obama shoveled $1 billion over to the UN’s Green Climate Fund shortly before President Trump began his first term. This included $500 million transferred just three days before inauguration day.
Will the Biden Administration try to top that?
The last time President Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement it took four years. Under the terms of the Agreement, this time he can do it in one.
Let’s hope President Trump resurrects climate and energy reality for the U.S. and the world before much more damage is done.
Craig Rucker is a co-founder of CFACT and currently serves as its president. Widely heralded as a leader in the free market environmental, think tank community in Washington, D.C., Rucker is a frequent guest on radio talk shows, written extensively in numerous publications, and has appeared in such media outlets as Fox News, OANN, Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Hill, among many others.
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