Coal, oil and natural gas – in conjunction with innovative free-enterprise capitalism — have lifted billions out of drudgery and poverty and brought unprecedented prosperity to billions of people. They’ve blessed humanity with pharmaceuticals, plastics, cell phones, sanitation and countless other benefits that wouldn’t have otherwise existed.
For example, thanks to modern fertilizers (made possible by fossil fuels), countries from Brazil to Zimbabwe are enjoying record harvests of grains and other crops. (RELATED: STEPHEN MOORE: The Night The Lights Went Out In Europe)
And yet, according to the fulminations of far-Left politicians and activists, such as those who recently attended the UN’s COP-27 climate conference in Egypt, fossil fuels and capitalism bring only human misery and planetary destruction.
Despite claims to the contrary, man-made carbon emissions are only a bit player compared to the powerful natural forces that have always propelled climate and weather fluctuations. By any measure, there is no statistically significant uptick in wildfires, hurricanes, tornados, droughts, flooding or any other severe weather events that some say are “smoking-gun evidence” of climate catastrophe.
That certain scientists have crafted climate models indicating trouble ahead might be convincing, if their models actually reflected some basis in reality. Thus far, they haven’t. Yet we’re supposed to accept such scary computer models as “settled science” and adopt the radical solutions they propose to cure our “climate ills” — namely, ditch fossil fuels.
One has to believe there’s more at play here than simply the altruistic desire to “Save the Earth.” And at times, the leaders of the climate alarm movement have all but admitted such.
Former-UN climate executive secretary Christiana Figueres, for example, once stated “we are setting ourselves” the task “to intentionally transform the economic development model” that has reigned for at least 150 years. (RELATED: GORDON CHANG: China Insults A Submissive Biden Desperate To Talk To Xi)
Her UN colleague Ottmar Edenhofer was equally blunt: “International climate policy has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.” It is the means by which “we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth.”
And then there’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s former chief-of-staff who revealed his boss’s Green New Deal “wasn’t originally a climate thing at all. We really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”
As for President Joe Biden, whether he shares these views or not, he’s clearly onboard the global warming bandwagon. He made it clear that his administration would tolerate “no more drilling” and “no more pipelines.” He would use every regulation, executive order and other available means to de facto transform our energy and economic system, even if it drives Americans into the energy poverty already afflicting millions in the UK and EU.
On top of that, at COP-27, he signed off on his Climate Envoy John Kerry’s de facto pledge obligating the United States to send $1-billion or more to poor countries every year, to compensate them for “losses and damages” from “unprecedented manmade climate disasters.” And do so even as the USA is supposed to “go green” and de-industrialize!
Meanwhile, banks, politicians and climate activists are telling impoverished nations to “leapfrog” fossil fuels and limit development, farming and living standards to what “green energy” will support.
Of course, none of this applies to our adversaries. They get a pass. In fact, the climate agenda works to their benefit.
China has become an economic and military powerhouse by using oil, gas and especially coal — plus technologies and intellectual property rights stolen from capitalist companies. China controls the supply chains and manufacturing for wind, solar and battery power that’s supposed to replace fossil energy in currently wealthy countries that Figueres, Edenhofer, AOC and Biden intend to “transform.”
In fact, China generates almost 70% of its electricity with coal — and emits more greenhouse gases than all other developed countries combined. Yet it isn’t obligated to reduce its fossil fuel use or pay into UN climate losses, damages and reparations wealth-transfer funds. (RELATED: STEPHEN MOORE: No, The US Does Not Owe The World Climate ‘Reparations’)
If we’re going to have massive UN wealth redistributions (primarily to ruling elites in poor nations), the accounting system ought to be fair and equitable. That means any payments should be offset by the value of fossil fuel benefits still-poor nations have received. In some cases, that could mean countries like China and India should be paying us!
And if poorer nations have been slow to adopt the free-enterprise, private-property rights and fossil-fuel energy sources that made rich countries rich — they shouldn’t be rewarded with “reparations” for not embracing such practices. They should be encouraged to implement them more quickly.
These exemplary systems have been promoted for decades, or centuries. Countries that utilized them (even partially, like China and India) have benefited mightily.
In short, developing nations should ignore the climate cabal’s far-Left, ideological anti-fossil-fuel crusade that is hindering their economic development, and making kids and parents in the West emotionally distraught.
Their struggling masses will be eternally grateful.
Craig Rucker is president of the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org).
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
