The Climate Summit to Nowhere

By The Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal,  Oct. 29, 2021 - World leaders converge on Glasgow for a climate summit this weekend, and don’t laugh. This may be the worst-timed summit in history, but the delegates can still do substantial damage to the global economy, though none of it will matter to the climate.

It’s incongruous bordering on the bizarre to organize a summit like this while Europe is battening down for a winter fuel crisis, President Biden is begging OPEC to produce more oil, China is firing up its coal-fueled power plants amid an electricity shortage, and climate-change plans wilt as soon as they’re exposed to the sunlight of democratic politics. 

...rather than adjust to this political reality, the delegates will make even more unrealistic promises. ... Mr. Biden will claim the U.S. is also committed to net zero. ... commitments of developing countries are even flimsier and depend on bribes from the rich. ... 

The summit underscores the disconnect between the rhetoric over climate and what the world’s publics are willing to do about it. Climateers adopt the rhetoric of the Apocalypse even as they consume fossil fuels as before because they know modern society and development require it. (read it in full)