Public policy, be it at the city, county, or state level or the national and even international scale, always involves a cost. That cost is borne by the citizens in one way or another, in taxes, in fees, in public debt that sooner or later will have to be paid off.
That's why, in discussions of public policy, everything eventually comes down to two questions: To what purpose? At what cost?
When the topic is "green" energy and climate change, the answers seem to be "to prevent the earth from warming at all from its current, apparently ideal temperature," and "at all cost." Case in point: The United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan, starting next week, known as COP 29 as it's the 29th such conference. The carbon footprint of the climate scolds jetting off to this conference will no doubt be earth-shaking - as are the spending proposals. At this meeting, spending will be proposed in the trillions of U.S. dollars.
Yes, that's right. Trillions. That's with a "T" followed by a "rillion." We're hoping to see these proposals fail. Policy analyst and blogger David Wojick has the receipts in a guest op-ed at Watts Up With That:
UN Climate COPs have always been about big money but until now there was a facade of emission reductions to hide it behind. This time the money is the big thing and it is amazingly crazy. They want many trillions from us starting next year.
That people take this nonsense seriously speaks volumes about the unreality of the UN climate program. But it will be great fun to watch them hit the NO WAY wall.
There are actually three big money issues to watch fail. First is the annual money for nothing from developed countries to developing ones that is supposed to jump from a measly $100 billion a year to a trillion a year and quickly growing to almost two trillion. I am not making this up.
Guess who's going to be asked to pony up these two trillion dollars? In large part the nation that already has an unforgivable, unrecoverable $35 trillion in debt. The United Nations seems to view the United States as a never-ending spigot of money that has two positions: "ON" and "ON HARDER." And part of the money appears to be something akin to climate reparations to the developing world:
Second is the as yet untold trillions we are supposed to pay the developing countries to make up for their bad weather. Which of these two is crazier is hard to say and I welcome suggestions.
Suggestions? How about "both"? Pouring money from the developed world into the developing world with few, if any, strings attached is likely to accomplish, in the immortal words of the late, great, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "doodley-squat."
But wait! There's more!
Third is perhaps the most fun. People want China, one of the strongest economies in the world, to stop pretending to be a developing country and put big money into these two pots. By some measures China is by far the strongest economy. For example they produce and use more electricity than the US and EU combined.
They have the biggest carbon footprint, too. And such a suggestion to China is liable to be met with a stonewalling that will make the Great Wall of China look like a small-town picket fence.
See Related: Well, That Didn't Take Long: Climate Scolds Panicking Over Trump 47
Hours After Trump Won Election, Biden Made Another Radical Move on the Environment
Here's the thing: The current administration, Harris/Biden, which just suffered the most stunning electoral loss since Mike Dukakis went down in flames in 1988, will be sending American representatives to this show. We are already committed to part of this, by international treaty:
The basis for these annual discussions is the 1994 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This is a treaty ratified by 198 countries including the US. The abbreviation COP stands for the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC.
The Paris Agreement is a 2015 supplement to the UNFCCC. It is not a treaty just what is called a Presidential Agreement in international law. President Trump cannot get us out of the UNFCCC but he can easily leave the Paris Agreement as he did last time he was Pres. Getting together under the Paris Agreement is called the Meeting of the Parties or the MOP.
COP 29 is actually part COP and part MOP. All three big money issues are on the MOP side where we will soon be absent. Off course the COP 29 MOP is under what is left of the Biden Administration so we will still be at the table but any promises made will be laughed at. This twist just adds to the frivolity.
It's a near-certainty that incoming President Trump will once more yank the United States out of the Paris Agreement. He did it before, after all. And while that seems like a decent first step, why stop there?
The UN is an organization that has outlived its usefulness, and it has been decidedly unfriendly towards the U.S. for quite a while. So, yes, let’s tell the UN to shove off. Kick them out of that posh, New York building. They are welcome to head off to Belgium, Belize, or Azerbaijan, why not? The only time the UN smiles at the U.S. is when they need something paid for. We don’t need that; we don't need their climate scolds demanding we pony up trillions of American taxpayer dollars, and we don’t need the UN. It's time we pulled out - and President Trump may just be the guy to get that done.
