KATOWICE, Poland — The word “ambition” was on everybody’s lips during the United Nations climate summit, almost as if everyone was reading from the same script. But it was not the sort of ambition parents urge their children to show in their studies, their sports training, or their future careers. Instead, the term was being used to describe how “ambitious” the governments and totalitarians who made up the “Parties” of the COP24 climate conference would be in imposing draconian, unpopular, and, in many cases, totalitarian policies on the people they rule.
The attendees of the 24th “Conference of the Parties” intend to be fairly ambitious in centralizing and consolidating their power, though once again the participants did not get all they wanted.
After two weeks of negotiations and months of pre-negotiations, almost 200 governments and dictators from all over the world agreed on a massive and absurdly complicated document that promises to redistribute more wealth and institutionalize the mechanisms to control human emissions of carbon dioxide — and by extension, to control every human activity.
As is usual with such events, the resulting document is mind-numbingly complicated. In an official press release, even the UN itself described the agreement as a “complex and difficult document.” That may be an understatement. But the complexity was obviously by design. If humanity clearly understood what was happening — essentially the fastening of shackles on people and nations under the guise of controlling the climate — there would likely be blood running in the streets. The uprisings across France in response to a new carbon tax, one component of the overall agenda being pushed by the UN and its members, would seem mild by comparison.
And so the almost 150-page agreement inked in Katowice was written in a way that makes it virtually impenetrable to all but the most highly trained lawyers and policy wonks. But while the rules may be obscure and difficult to read, they are reportedly extremely important. And they assuredly will be, since the UN and other alarmist groups will surely find in them the power to do myriad things. As the state-funded BBC put it, these rules “will govern the way the world tackles climate change for decades to come.”
And because nearly every human activity in the New World Order falls under the umbrella of “fighting climate change,” the importance of this effort is hard to overstate.
Officially, the document, being referred to as everything from the “Paris Agreement Working Programme” to the “Katowice Climate Texts” or the “Katowice Package,” is meant to prevent global temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above “pre-industrial” levels. More than a few observers, though, recalled the famous story of King Canute. According to legend, in an effort to prove that his power was limited and that God was supreme, Canute placed his throne at the sea shore and commanded the tide to stop rising. Obviously, it continued to rise. “Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws,” Canute was recorded as saying.
More specifically, the goals of the UN Paris Agreement on climate include restructuring the global economy, phasing out cheap and abundant energy, redistributing the wealth of Western taxpayers to the UN and Third World regimes, and empowering the UN to oversee the planetary climate regime currently under construction. For a detailed overview of the Paris Agreement, see the cover story “UN Climate Summit: Shackling the Planet to ‘Save’ It” in The New American magazine’s January 4, 2016 special report focusing on the UN climate confab held in Paris in December of 2015. This new deal approved in Katowice is basically the guidelines for implementing it.
Taken together with the Paris Agreement, the new agreement provides the details and guidelines for national governments to impose the UN-backed climate policies on their populations in a consistent and harmonized manner. The easiest way to understand the overwhelmingly complex document is to look at it as the operating manual for implementing the “commitments” made at the 2015 climate summit in Paris. That may be good news for globalists and tyrants, but it is bad news for freedom, national sovereignty, prosperity, and self-government.
A key element of the agreement is the decision that a mere $100 billion in wealth redistribution each year was not enough. Under the Paris deal, Western governments, led by Obama, agreed to hand over $100 billion per year, mostly tax money, to Third World governments, all via a UN slush fund. But under the Katowice agreement, negotiators outlined a way to decide on even more ambitious wealth transfers from 2025 onward. They also agreed to institutionalize the transfer of technology and know-how from the people and nations that created the new products and systems to Third World dictatorships, which will supposedly use the new (stolen) technologies to “fight climate change.”
There was also a meeting of the minds having to do with “transparency.” Typically, transparency is a good thing. But when globalists use the term, not so much. The “transparency” envisioned here creates a framework for uniform reporting of CO2 emissions by all national governments. The scheme would track how governments are implementing their “national action plans” — with an eye to influencing the plans. Plans to be tracked might include monitoring the amounts of tax monies spent on climate schemes such as wind and solar power or federal subsidies to “green” companies, the amount of tax money paid to the UN and its member governments, implementing “carbon pricing” to charge people for CO2 emissions, and more.
For now, global rules for a planet-wide “cap and trade” regime and “carbon pricing” remain elusive. Apparently the negotiators were unable to agree on the details. However, with the UN openly pushing for a “carbon budget” in which each nation or region is given a quota for how much CO2 its citizens are able to emit, a global “cap and trade”-style system is still on the agenda. Also left unsettled is the issue of “loss and damage.” Essentially, Third World dictators want Western taxpayers to write a blank check so that every time a natural disaster strikes, they can blame “climate change” and extort the West to pay for the damages. But no deal was reached in time.
The goals of the confab were apparent in a debate that took place over whether the final text should “welcome” the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest report. The report, dubbed “Special Report 15” or SR15, calls for “unprecedented changes” to society to save the climate, including cutting CO2 emissions in half by 2030, and cutting them completely by mid-century, if the planet is to avoid climate disasters of apocalyptic proportions.
Fervent believers in the report, a report that was widely ridiculed, and governments seeking big climate reparation payments, demanded that the agreement “welcome” the report’s findings. However, the governments of Russia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United States rejected the report. In the end, so-called compromise language was adopted stating that COP24 “expresses its appreciation and gratitude” to the IPCC for the report, while falsely claiming it reflects “the best science.” In reality, numerous scientists and experts, including many who have worked with the IPCC, have exposed the report’s fraud and deception.
At the conference, there was almost no apparent notice taken of the irrationality of the actions supposedly being taken to remedy the climate or the shakiness of the science upon which the climate claims were made. As to the actions that must be taken to do what the UN suggests, Bjørn Lomborg, who believes in the global-warming hypothesis and is the former director of the Danish government’s Environmental Assessment Institute, writes that making changes to limit Earth’s temperature rise to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit would cost upwards of $100 trillion — much more money than it would take to respond to warming temperatures. As well, both solar and wind power — the alarmists’ planned sources of green energy — are intermittent power sources that must be backed up by conventional power plants.
As usual, some of the most strident attendees were rent-a-mob activists funded by tax dollars and globalist billionaires: They complained that the agreement was not strong enough to do what they claim needs to be done. They apparently were on hand to make the “Parties” look reasonable by comparison and make it look as if the decisions taken were in response to a mass grassroots uprising. The ritual, too, was the same as always: The non-governmental organizations (NGOs) shrieked that the deal was not strong enough to save the climate, or humanity, or biodiversity, or the ozone layer, or whatever the cause du jour happens to be, and the climate bureaucrats made supposed concessions to mollify the complainers.
What Others Were Saying
At the UN, globalists involved in the summit could barely contain their glee. “We have been working on this package for three years.… We can be proud of ourselves,” said COP24 President Michał Kurtyka at the plenary session at the end of the climate summit. “Our common efforts didn’t consist solely of producing texts or defending national interests. We were conscious of our responsibility to people and commitment for the fate of Earth, which is our home and the home of future generations who will come after us.”
Claiming that the interests of all parties were taken into account in a sustainable way, Kurtyka claimed the impact of the Katowice Package on the world “will be positive.” Thanks to the new deal, he continued, “we have taken a big step towards achieving the ambitions set in the Paris Agreement.” Thanks to those ambitions, he added, “our children will look back at some point and consider that their parents made the right decisions in an important historical moment.”
UN Climate Chief Patricia Espinosa was similarly elated. “This is an excellent achievement! The multilateral system has delivered a solid result,” she gushed. “This is a road-map for the international community to decisively address climate change. The guidelines that delegations have been working on day and night are balanced and clearly reflect how responsibilities are distributed amongst the world’s nations. They incorporate the fact that countries have different capabilities and economic and social realities at home, while providing the foundation for ever increasing ambition.”
And the head of the UN, card-carrying socialist boss António Guterres, celebrated the “Paris Agreement Work Programme” as “the basis for a transformative process which will require strengthened ambition from the international community.” “Science,” he added, “has clearly shown that we need enhanced ambition to defeat climate change.”
While encouraging his minions, Guterres unintentionally gave warning to that part of the world’s citizens who enjoy independence and like living a modern lifestyle: He repeatedly boasted of using “climate action” to “transform the world” and even your “mind.” “From now on,” he said, “my 5 priorities will be: ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition and ambition…. Ambition will be at the center of the Climate Summit that I will convene in September 2019,” he said. “It is our duty to reach for more and I count on all of you to raise ambitions so that we can beat back climate change.”
Others, though, suggested the grandiose announcements were perhaps a bit overblown. Speaking after COP24, Heartland Institute Senior Fellow for Environment and Climate Policy James Taylor said that “not much of great importance” came out of the deal. “This is basically hammering out minor rules and procedures,” he said, calling it “good news” that the UN was unable to create any new schemes to restrict freedom or access to energy. The most meaningful development was the “determination that the $100 billion extorted each and every year under Paris was not enough,” Taylor told The New American. “Now there is a new demand for even more money and they need to agree to a higher number for wealth transfers.”
“The primary intent of Paris and Katowice is a wealth and power transfer from the United States and Western nations to the United Nations,” Taylor continued. “If climate change and CO2 emissions were the main concern, UN officials would look at how the United States has reduced emissions more than any nation in this century, and would applaud the U.S. and ask for advice on how the rest of the world could do that. The fact that instead the United States is vilified and criticized tells you this is not about reducing carbon dioxide emissions.” And he’s right about that: In 2017, China’s CO2 emissions were not only more than double the United States’ emissions, its emissions grew by 120 million tons. The United States’ emissions declined by more than 40 million tons. Meanwhile the emissions by the EU, Turkey, and India increased by more than 175 million tons. According to an AEI article, “This is the ninth time in this century that the US has had the largest decline in emissions in the world.”
“Their main objection and criticism of the United States,” according to Taylor, “is that we won’t submit our energy policy, our economic policy and our sovereign political rights to the United Nations.” He added, “Actions speak louder than words. The United States leads the world in the reduction of emissions. The rest of the world has increased its emissions. To criticize and vilify the United States as a climate outlaw defies explanation. This is about the U.S. defying UN power grabs and money grabs.”
Taylor urged Congress and the American people to “stand strong against global attempts to extort money and power from U.S. citizens and the U.S. government.” Plus, “the entire agreement is based upon an invalid scientific theory — a theory that is contradicted by sound science,” he said, celebrating the fact that the Trump administration had announced a U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. “We need to stand strong.”
Leading scientists who tracked the negotiations also criticized the new UN deal. “COP24 has failed the bureaucrats and technocrats of the world elite again,” said astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon with the Harvard-Smithsonian. “The angst does keep campaign money of Greenpeace flowing. But please make it quick before all the people like you and me whom have to earn a living realize that even $10 a gallon gasoline will do nothing to change the weather and climate.”
“Frankly I am bored by all these UN permanent traveling salesmen, insisting that they can use the UN mechanisms to tax us on the energy we need to live and in return there is not even any possibilities of changing the Earth weather and climate for the ‘better,’” continued Dr. Soon, a leading skeptic of the man-made warming hypotheses. “Nature is indeed trying to kill us and what we need is all the abundant and affordable energy to reduce and minimize those risks. How many more agreements must anyone sign to ensure a good weather?”
The U.S. Position
While countless Americans celebrated Trump’s announcement that the U.S. government would exit the Paris Agreement, the story is not over yet. In fact, at COP24, U.S. negotiators ostensibly working for the Trump administration helped the UN put together the Katowice Climate Package under the guise of protecting America’s national interests. Incredibly, the U.S. government even signed on to the Katowice deal, despite reiterating on several occasions during the summit that the Trump administration’s position on withdrawing from the Paris scheme had not changed.
However, Obama’s special envoy on climate change, Todd Stern, who played a key role in Paris, noted that U.S. negotiators in Katowice “are doing a good job.” Other radical leftists and pseudo-environmentalists agreed. For instance, in response to a question by The New American during a press conference about Trump calling the man-made warming hypothesis a “hoax,” Greenpeace Executive Director Jennifer Morgan said U.S. (and Communist Chinese) negotiators had been “constructive” throughout the negotiations.
The New American reached out to the U.S. State Department’s climate section to find out what was going on. A spokesperson for the department provided a statement that said very little. “The United States supports a balanced approach to promote economic growth and energy security and access while protecting the environment,” the spokesperson said, touting falling U.S. CO2 emissions and new technology that allows Americans to emit less CO2 into the atmosphere.
On the Paris Agreement, the spokesperson said the administration’s position was unchanged. “The President announced that the United States intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement absent the identification of terms of participation that are more favorable to the American people,” the spokesperson said. “The United States is participating in ongoing negotiations, including those related to the Paris Agreement, at the COP in order to ensure a level playing field that benefits and protects U.S. interests.” It was not immediately clear which U.S. interests were protected by participating.
The State Department concluded by touting U.S. efforts to provide “affordable, abundant, and secure energy to our citizens.” The U.S. approach to “addressing climate change,” the statement continued, “has unburdened communities, individuals, and industries by allowing them to develop and implement policies that fit their needs.” The spokesperson wrapped up by celebrating declining U.S. CO2 emissions — as if there were something wrong with emissions of the gas of life — while highlighting the progress of American energy in creating domestic jobs and supporting overseas opportunities for U.S. firms.
During his own speech to the Katowice attendees, former Vice President Al Gore suggested it was against U.S. law and international law for the U.S. government to withdraw from the Paris Agreement until after the next election. Of course, that is ludicrous. Obama’s “executive agreement” was never ratified, and it is unconstitutional on its face. Therefore, it is not binding on America. “But if there is a new president after the next election — excuse me for a moment (solicits applause) — we can give notice and be right back in,” Gore declared, touting the “We’re Still In” movement of states and cities vowing to comply with the Paris Agreement. Who will get the last laugh remains to be seen.
In the meantime, though, humanity will continue to suffer from unnecessary poverty while globalists, dictators, and their cronies make a killing. COP25 is set to take place in Chile in September of 2019.
Photo: © cop24.gov.pl
