Critics Respond to UN Climate Deal to Phase Out Fossil Fuels: ‘Soviet-Style Central Planning’

The UN said its ‘global stocktake’ requires a 43 percent drop in emissions by 2030 if planetary temperature increases are to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

DUBAI—Governments from around the world agreed to a global transition away from “fossil fuels,” greater limits on energy use, and a new fund to compensate governments of poorer nations for alleged damages caused by CO2 emissions from wealthier countries.

The outcome follows two weeks of negotiations at the United Nations climate summit held in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates.

The deal, adopted by consensus of the nearly 200 governments in attendance, is being framed by U.N. officials as a turning point for the world.

Critics, however, are sounding the alarm, saying the agreement and the broader process threaten both prosperity and liberty while doing little to nothing for the environment.

Climate Depot editor Marc Morano, a former U.S. Senate aide who has long worked on climate policy, said Republican leaders in Congress must push back against the agenda.

“This is Soviet-style central planning that simply must be stopped,” he told The Epoch Times.

He said all Republicans, from the leaders on down, “need to get to work stopping this anti-human agenda.”

Mr. Morano, who attended the COP28 and has been a staple at the events for almost two decades, ridiculed as “absurd” and “psychotic” the notion that humanity can stop using hydrocarbon energy. He predicts the U.N. agreement will do nothing to help the climate.

Separately, numerous experts have pointed out that Russian, Chinese, and Arab governments don’t appear likely to rein in traditional energy sources.

U.N. officials said the agreement is a significant step toward protecting the climate, which the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says is threatened by human emissions of carbon dioxide and methane.

“Whilst we didn’t turn the page on the fossil fuel era in Dubai, this outcome is the beginning of the end,” said U.N. Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell at the close of the event.

“Now all governments and businesses need to turn these pledges into real-economy outcomes, without delay.”

One of the major takeaways from the event was what the U.N. calls the “global stocktake,” described by the international organization as the “central outcome of this year’s climate summit.”

According to the stocktake, the “science” requires a 43 percent reduction in emissions by 2030 if planetary temperature increases are to be kept below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Those projections, based on computer models that have long been heavily criticized by scientists and experts for being unreliable, serve as the basis for the entire climate process.

Other policies that the U.N. said are required by 2030, based on the stocktake, include a tripling of “renewable energy” such as solar and wind power, along with a doubling of energy efficiency.

As part of that, the U.N. called for a phase-down of coal power and a “just, orderly, and equitable” transition away from fossil fuels.

Under the plan, governments of wealthier nations such as the United States are expected to lead the way in winding down traditional energy while providing funding for governments of poorer nations to follow suit later.

On the sidelines of the event, data provided by the “Climate Action Commitment Counter” showed billions of dollars pledged throughout the conference by governments and other interests.

The funds are intended to go toward “green” energy, adapting to climate change, “inclusion,” reparations, development, and other projects.

To help achieve the goals agreed to by governments at the COP28 and earlier summits, the Biden administration pledged billions of additional dollars to various U.N. programs including the “Green Climate Fund.”

The fund is meant to help governments of poorer nations prepare for potential future climate change impacts.

Administration officials also joined other Western governments in pledging hundreds of millions for a new “loss and damage” fund, painted as a mechanism to provide “climate reparations” for poorer nations supposedly harmed by previous CO2 emissions. The fund is to be held by the World Bank.

Perhaps even more significant, the Biden administration pledged to further tighten regulations on power plants that experts warned could produce devastating consequences for the United States.

Stephen Moore, chief economist at FreedomWorks, said the administration’s pledges would shut down 60 percent of U.S. electrical power generation.

“Biden is playing a dangerous game of unilateral energy disarmament,” said Mr. Moore. “Whether intentional or not, this radical green agenda will cripple our global economic leadership, cost our economy millions of jobs, and make Americans colder in their homes in the winter and hotter in the summer.”

Other critics ridiculed the Biden administration’s efforts, especially in light of what other governments are doing.

“At the conclusion of COP28, there was a sense of euphoria among the climate faithful that they achieved something monumental, specifically securing a document called the ‘UAE Consensus’ to ’transition’ away from fossil fuels,” said Craig Rucker, who attended the summit as head of the conservative-leaning environmental group Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).

“But let’s face it, China has been constructing new coal plants at a rate of two per week and India is expected to increase its coal fleet 25 percent by 2030,” Mr. Rucker told The Epoch Times.

“Only Western nations steeped in global warming alarmism will undertake the foolish measures the Greens demand to gut their energy infrastructure.”

He said COP28 meant nations were recommitting to past commitments that “they’ve failed to deliver on time and time again.”

“The whole thing is a joke,” Mr. Rucker said.

Asked at the summit about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rapid expansion of coal-fired electrical power generation, even as the U.S. government further restricts traditional energy sources, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the only Republican to attend as part of the Senate delegation, acknowledged the issue and called for Beijing to cooperate.

Ultimately, however, Ms. Murkowski—one of a handful of Republican lawmakers openly onboard with U.N. climate goals—said the U.S. government must continue its efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and “lead” on the process internationally.

“Everybody needs to be a participant in the broader solution,” she said.

“The Chinese need to be part of this discussion, and I think the Chinese need to be challenged on what they are doing and how they are doing it, and brought into the overall solutions.”

Asked whether the United States will continue pursuing anti-emissions policies if the CCP refuses to rein in its CO2 output, the senator said the United States will continue to use its own resources while also cracking down on emissions.

The prospect of former President Donald Trump returning to the White House loomed large over the conference, especially with multiple polls showing him leading the field.

However, U.N. and U.S. officials said that nothing can stop the “transformation” that is now underway.

“The transformation is unstoppable,” declared giant monitors and posters scattered throughout the sprawling Expo Center that hosted the COP28.

Read more of this article at The EPOCH Times.