If you’ve been paying attention to the news for the last week or so, it would be hard to miss the story about the current COP (Conference of the Parties) 2025 climate bunfest. This annual event is being held this year in Belem, Brazil, in the middle of the rainforest. In typical “climate cult” fashion, most attendees ensured that they would generate as many carbon emissions as absolutely possible by flying in via private jet, as they usually do. Even worse, to enable delegates to arrive at the conference without any inconvenience, over 100,000 trees in the Amazon rainforest were bulldozed to permit the construction of a highway to the COP venue.
There can be no doubt the climate crusade is losing adherents world-wide. Part of this is due to deadline after deadline of dire predictions as to how much sea levels will rise, how ice will disappear from the poles, how many species will be endangered because of climate change etc. passing with none of these things happening. For countries like Canada that have been aggressively implementing carbon taxes, constraints on key industries, import carbon measures and similar policies, the destruction to the economies and the standard of living of average citizens has been shocking.
As well, the fabled “green” jobs we heard so much about have failed to materialize and many more jobs in traditional industries have been eliminated. In some European countries, it is estimated that for every green job created, five or six jobs in the regular economy have been lost. Some of these predictions are getting almost comical. There was even a recent media story that because of the supposed future collapse of the Gulf Stream we could be facing another ice age. And here we thought we were going to boil to death! The ice age fear was the common refrain of the climate extremists back in the 1970s, so it seems we’ve come full circle.
This COP meeting is especially notable as it will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Paris Accord in 2015. You know, the one that former prime minister Justin Trudeau triumphantly attended with the largest delegation of any other country, on our dime of course. The Paris Accord laid out the climate goals that all countries were to achieve, and how much funding the developing world would be anteing up to help less developed countries reduce their emissions. Not surprisingly, no country – zero – has achieved the Paris goals. Although developing nations would love to get their hands on the many billions promised by the developed world, they remain disappointed.
The good news is that a completely different approach to climate change is gaining momentum. This approach involves a sensible focus on adaptation to climate change, not foolish attempts to change the climate. Danish political scientist Bjorn Lomberg has been preaching this for years, and recently Bill Gates bought in to Lomberg’s perspective. As Gates has invested mightily in climate change measures for decades, this is an important development. Another point emphasized by Lomberg is the reality that it is immoral to impose climate measures on countries that are already suffering from energy poverty.
The use of fossil fuels is a key reason the West enjoys the wealth and comfortable lifestyle it does today. To deny this to the poorest countries in the world borders on the criminal. For an excellent depiction of what energy poverty means, have a look at this video from the Climate Discussion Nexus entitled “In the Dark: Senegal as a Case Study in Energy Poverty.”
The current COP has also attracted fewer country leaders and an ever-diminishing number of countries that still claim to be attempting to meet the Paris targets. Despite the waning enthusiasm for climate policies around the world, the Canadian Liberal government keeps handcuffing the Canadian business community and our economy by imposing even more climate-related taxes and regulations. Just recently, the Carney government said it was planning to levy an even higher industrial carbon tax on the steel industry to “make it more competitive”. The Canadian steel industry exports over half of its annual output to the U.S. The U.S. does not have an industrial carbon tax. Carney moans about U.S. tariffs – a form of tax – increasing the cost of imports to Canadians yet claims imposing more tax on Canadian steel companies will not make them less competitive. The Liberals must be getting tired of trying to suck and blow at the same time.
The hypocrisy and dishonesty of the climate cultists is plain for all to see. What is mystifying is why any informed person would buy into what has been repeatedly proven as a giant boondoggle, or why anyone would support a government that continues to profess belief in destructive climate policies. The answer could be the so-called “bamboozle” effect described by American scientist Carl Sagan. Sagan describes this as follows: “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” Wise words, Canadians.
She has published numerous articles in journals, magazines & other media on issues such as free trade, finance, entrepreneurship & women business owners. Ms. Swift is a past President of the Empire Club of Canada, a former Director of the CD Howe Institute, the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, SOS Children’s Villages, past President of the International Small Business Congress and current Director of the Fraser Institute. She was cited in 2003 & 2012 as one of the most powerful women in Canada by the Women’s Executive Network & is a recipient of the Queen’s Silver & Gold Jubilee medals.
