Paris and the Politics of Climate

To some, particularly in the green movement, this month’s Paris climate change summit represents something like the great synods of the early Christian era, where truth and policy, for example, on pastoral celibacy, were determined by the princes of the church. Some others, largely marginalized on the fringes of the Right, insist the whole extravaganza is part of a vast left-wing conspiracy to delude people into accepting a world government.

Lost in translation is that the Paris conference is largely a sideshow camouflaging a potentially epic struggle among national, regional and economic interests. This mundane reality is often lost amid the apocalyptic rhetoric, such as employed by Gov. Jerry Brown, that insists draconian action is necessary to avoid the species’ imminent “extinction.”

In the real world, everything boils down to the winners and, arguably, the many more losers from the relentless drive to “decarbonize” the economy. Economist Bjorn Lonborg suggests that, by 2100, climate change policies will cost about a $1 trillion each year. Although scientists, bureaucrats, nonprofits and connected corporatists might actually benefit from decarbonizing quickly, it’s hard to see how most people will benefit from such an upheaval.

Not surprisingly, a growing number of people in key countries have become increasingly less interested in sacrificing their lives for some impending but not-yet-occurring catastrophe. In fact, a recent BBC poll covering some 20 countries found a decreasing interest in the climate agenda in all but three – Russia, Turkey and Spain. In many countries, including the United Kingdom, despite almost incessant media coverage, the public has become more skeptical about paying for far-reaching climate policies.

Read the entire piece at The Orange County Register.