Ten Years After the Paris Climate Agreement, Climatism is Crumbling – Watts Up With That?

By Steve Goreham

Originally published in RealClear Energy.

COP30, the United Nations climate conference, is underway in Belem, Brazil. Thousands of representatives from all over the world have journeyed to discuss how to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to try to fight human-caused climate change. But ten years after the Paris Climate Agreement, the global consensus on climate change is crumbling.

COP30 is the thirtieth “conference of the parties.” The first took place in Berlin in 1995. At COP21 in Paris in 2015, more than 190 countries signed the Paris Climate Agreement, pledging to cut emissions and to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

About 50,000 people are attending COP30 from more than 190 nations. But key world leaders are not attending, including President Xi Jinping of China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, and President Donald Trump of the United States. Climatism, the ideology pushing for a global transition to Net Zero energy, faces a rising tide of opposition across the world.

Two weeks before COP30, billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates posted a memo to COP30 on his website titled “Three Tough Truths About Climate.” In it he states that “Climate change is a serious problem, but it will not be the end of civilization,” and also that “Unfortunately, the doomsday outlook is causing much of the climate community to focus too much on near-term emissions goals … ” He also said that “Our chief goal should be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world’s poorest countries.”

This is a remarkable change of position for Mr. Gates, who has spent billions in the fight against climate change over the last two decades. In 2021, he wrote a best-selling book titled How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. His shift of emphasis away from stopping emissions to solving real world problems is a move away from climate alarmism and toward common-sense policy.

President Trump called climate change “the greatest scam ever perpetrated on the world” in his address to the UN General Assembly in September. During the last 10 months, the Trump Administration has shut down permits for offshore wind, slashed subsidies for wind, solar, and electric vehicles, cut climate funding, and banned climate change rhetoric in government documents. The US is not sending delegates to COP30.

But in addition to the United States, opposition to Net Zero and Climatism is rising in other nations. Reform UK, the opposition party led by Nigel Farage in the United Kingdom, is now using the phrase “Net Stupid Zero.” Reform UK is now leading in some political polls.

Alternative für Deutschland, the number two political party in Germany, wants to tear down all wind turbines, calling them “windmills of shame.” Germany has more than 20,000 wind turbines installed, one of the highest densities in the world. Last month the Nationals party in Australia voted to abandon support for Net Zero. Nationals leader David Littleproud said, “We believe in reducing emissions, but not at any cost.” Just this week, Australia’s Liberal party also abandoned Net Zero and pledged to bring down energy prices instead. Australia, Germany, the UK, and other nations are struggling with escalating energy costs and no apparent benefit from Net Zero policies.

What have thirty UN climate conferences accomplished since 1995? The answer is “no measurable climate benefit.” Since 2000, the world has spent about $10 trillion on renewable energy, but hydrocarbons─coal, natural gas, and oil─still provided 87% of world energy in 2024 according to the Energy Institute.

Since 1965, global energy consumption has quadrupled and has accelerated since 2000.  Every year the world adds about an additional UK worth of energy consumption. Except for the recession year of 2012 and the COVID-19 year of 2020, wind, solar, and other renewables failed to generate enough new energy to provide for the global increase in consumption, let alone replace hydrocarbons.

Last year, former US Secretary of State John Kerry said, “There shouldn’t be any more coal-fired power plants permitted anywhere in the world.” But global coal consumption continues to rise. Today, more than 6,500 coal-fired power plants operate across the world and another 1,000 are in planning or under construction. In 2024, coal provided 34% of the world’s electricity, the largest source of power.

Global energy consumption will continue to rise. The US has about 80 vehicles for every 100 people, but vehicle usage in Africa and India remains below 10 vehicles for every 100 people. Today, developed nations use up to 20 times as much plastic as poor nations on a per-person basis. Developing nations will continue to use more hydrocarbon fuels to enable their economies to grow.

As Mr. Gates has observed, poverty still characterizes many of the world’s people. Almost 700 million people do not have access to electricity and another two billion have blackouts or brownouts every other day. Over two billion people do not have access to clean water. Millions die each year from malaria, typhoid, and other diseases. World leaders should concentrate on these real problems, instead of unfounded concerns about carbon dioxide emissions.

From the political scene to the continued growth of hydrocarbon energy, the global climate consensus and the push for Net Zero is crumbling. It’s time for nations to return to sensible energy policy.

Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy and author of the bestselling book Green Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure.