The UN climate shakedown is a road to nowhere, right through the rainforest.
There used to be a bumper sticker popular with environmentalists and other left-wingers: “Think Globally, Act Locally.” The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) should really have dug it up and used it to theme its Conference of Parties (COP) that recently concluded in Brazil. Except that the UNFCCC acted like it was thinking globally, while partying thoughtlessly in the middle of the Amazon rainforest.
For years, the annual COP was used as the global stage for the international drama production centered around climate change, once known as global warming. Each COP proved itself to be nothing more than a UN Disney-esque fantasy, where the rich and powerful would take their private jets to luxury international locales to absolve themselves of humanity’s supposed sin of greenhouse gas emissions. They signed big checks redistributing the wealth of first-world countries (which they had no part in creating) to third-world countries in the name of something called “climate justice.” Throwing other people’s money at problems is easy and fun.
And since this is the UN, you don’t even have to really care; Saudi Arabia chaired the annual session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women last March. COP 30 in Belém, Brazil, was more of the same, except for two things: President Trump has again pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord that was spawned by the UNFCCC (too late to save the $14 billion Biden forked over, but better late than never), and the scars on the local environment are more noticeable than usual.
Let’s start with the jaguar in the room: the world’s foremost authority on climate change and regulations felled parts of the Amazon Rainforest to build a “sustainable” road for COP30 that drew the ire of locals and conservationists alike. That alone screams the opposite of “green,” considering the literal greenery destroyed for the conference is what offsets the environmental impact of the reported 350 private jets that made up approximately 40 percent of air travel at the conference, hosting 56,000 people. But then, COPs run on absurd hypocrisy – California Governor Gavin Newsom was there preening as an unofficial U.S. delegate while simultaneously attempting to salvage what’s left of his state’s decimated oil refining capacity.
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The demolition of more than eight miles of rainforest for a $2 billion convention center has raised deforestation alerts by 15 percent. That new “Freedom Avenue” quickly became Lawless Lane as cocaine and illegal timber moseyed their way down, away from sewage-filled streets still reeling from the city-sized population influx. And, days before COP30, Brazil greenlit drilling efforts at the mouth of the Amazon River — the same river on which green elites partied on floating luxury hotels — while the nation’s president went on to push for the final agreement to include a plan to end the use of fossil fuels.
But never mind. These are important people of importance (John Kerry was there), thinking about important things of global importance. Besides, they have the “science” to justify their preoccupations, like the now-canceled Billions Project that was supposedly tracking the cost of climate-caused disasters to the U.S., which did not see a hurricane make landfall this year – a good thing without the Billions Project to record it.
All this spending, this deforestation, and these carbon emissions, what were they for? Not much, it appears. The traditional media itself even said the UN-sponsored climate talks fizzled out after the so-called landmark Paris Accord was struck a decade ago. Almost 200 countries treated some of their elites to a Brazilian luxury vacation to posture about saving the world from impending carbon doom. But international pressures apparently suppressed any real or meaningful action against their fossil fuels boogeyman. All that was really accomplished was a pledge to “at least triple” the funding for third-world countries to deal with climate change.
But global green welfare is starting to look as far-sighted as propping up the buggy whip industry. The world is moving past the Green Revolution and the authoritarian policies it championed. Electric vehicle subsidies and tax credits are expiring, so Americans are buying the cars they really want. October 2025 saw a 30-plus percent year-over-year decrease in EV sales.
With this new geopolitical landscape, evolving market realities, and recorded environmental devastation from COP30, what is the UN’s plan going forward? Well, of course it is to host COP31 in Turkey, a nation heavily reliant on fossil fuels; currently engaged in political persecution against Christians and other non-Muslims; and enduring authoritarianism under its Islamist president, Recep Erdogan, who is seeking a 2,000 year prison sentence against a political rival.
So more global thinking and local obliviousness.
Michael Chamberlain is Director of Protect the Public’s Trust.
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