“Climate Deniers are Increasingly Hiding in Plain Sight” – Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

First published JoNova; Are you or have you ever been a climate denier?

Climate Deniers Are Increasingly Hiding in Plain Sight

Donald Trump isn’t the only world leader backtracking on green policies.

October 2, 2025 at 1:30 PM GMT+10
Opinion
Lara Williams, Columnist

• Prime Minister Keir Starmer is reportedly planning to skip the COP30 United Nations climate conference in Brazil, despite previously stating his climate ambitions.
• Starmer’s decision is seen as hypocritical, as he criticized Rishi Sunak for skipping COP27 in 2022, and would make his climate ambitions look insincere or weak.
• Other leaders, including US President Donald Trump and EU members, are also being criticized for not following through on their climate promises, with many countries still fighting over emission-reductions targets and delaying implementation of anti-deforestation rules.

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Other leaders are also still talking the talk while neglecting to walk the walk. After Trump’s ranting UN speech last week, more than 100 countries have either announced new goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or promised to submit updated climate plans, known as NDCs, before the Brazil climate summit. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, spoke at the UN the day after Trump, reassuring us that “the world can count on the European Union’s continued climate leadership.”

Those soothing words aren’t backed up by recent events. Mere weeks away from COP30, EU members are still fighting over their 2035 and 2040 emission-reductions targets. In just the last week, the bloc has once again delayed the implementation of new anti-deforestation rules for another year — the Commission blamed technical issues — while a forest monitoring law, which would have helped protect the continent from wildfires, was rejected by a right-wing coalition on Wednesday. The ongoing simplification regime, via a series of “Omnibus” packages, essentially waters down a whole host of green regulations.

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Could this be the chilling effect of the US’s war on environmentalism? That seems unlikely to be the only reason. A report published last week by research institute Stockholm Environment Institute found that governments globally plan to produce 120% more fossil fuels in 2030 than what’s required to limit warming to 1.5C. And some 74% of Paris Agreement signatories have failed even the very basic task of submitting new NDCs with targets for 2025. 

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Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-10-02/brazil-cop30-climate-deniers-are-increasingly-hiding-in-plain-sight?embedded-checkout=true

The hilarious part is author Lara Williams fails to identify one leader who lives up to her ideals of what a green champion should be, and appears confused about why her beloved green movement is falling to pieces.