Josh Hammer is host of “The Josh Hammer Show” and a research fellow at the Edmund Burke Foundation
The 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference is melting faster than an Arctic iceberg.
It is a collection of the world's rich and influential who want to save all of humanity by getting rid of fossil fuels. But apparently the engines of this international powwow don't run well on bull manure.
John Kerry, the failed presidential candidate who now moonlights as President Biden's 'special presidential envoy for climate', is leading the US delegation for the COP28 summit.
True to form, Kerry, our Bay State plutocrat, reportedly flew aboard a private plane that belched carbon.
And Kamala Harris, our waving vice president, deemed the meeting urgent enough to justify the greenhouse gases needed to fuel Air Force Two and also fly her to the lavish affair.
Would it be too much to ask them to share?
And the location of COP28: Dubai.
Yes, you read that right: Dubai.
Look, no hatred for the United Arab Emirates or its glittering international metropolis. The Emirates were first out of the gate during the 2020 Abraham Accords peace deals with Israel, and their response to the war in Gaza has been more measured than that of most Arab states.
The 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference is melting faster than an Arctic iceberg. (Above) COP28 group photo with His Excellency Dr. Sultan Al Jaber (center left) and US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry (center right)
Kamala Harris, our waving vice president, deemed the meeting urgent enough to justify the greenhouse gases needed to fuel Air Force Two and also fly her to the lavish affair. (Above) Harris waves as she arrives in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on December 2, 2023.
Last year I was even in Dubai. My fiance and I watched the iconic New Year's Eve fireworks show from the towering Burj Khalifa skyscraper. But here's a thought that didn't occur to me as I immersed the show in an oil-rich country that's beating the sweltering heat by air-conditioning the desert: “Dubai will one day lead the world to clean energy.”
That would only make sense in a “Saturday Night Live” parody.
Yet here we are, and the full reality is even more absurd.
Amazingly, the president of COP28 is Sultan Al Jaber, an Emirati official who serves as the Emirati Special Envoy for Climate Change and as Director General and CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, a state oil company.
That's some serious whiplash.
The sultan has also been accused of laundering this glitzy prank to sell new oil and gas contracts to hungry buyers (he has strongly denied this). Perhaps best of all, Sultan Al Jaber has reportedly argued that there is “no science” to support the push to phase out fossil fuels.
Excuse me? Isn't that the whole justification for this Oil Burning Man?
Al Jaber has apparently said that a complete phase-out of fossil fuels makes no sense “unless you want to put the world back in caves.”
John Kerry's answer? The Sultan's comments may need some 'clarification'.
Understatement of the century?
As the online jargon goes: LOL.
If a Republican presidential candidate were to suggest that there is “no science” to support phasing out fossil fuels and that climate fanatics want to “take the world back into caves,” the left-wing media would laugh him out of the mainstream. But when the chairman of an international climate change summit says this, America's chief envoy dismisses it as an innocent mistake.
The elitism, hypocrisy and competitive lack of self-awareness are simply astonishing.
Kerry is a hypocrite of world-historic proportions. He's a fabulously wealthy man (by marriage) who flies around the world aboard gas-guzzling planes to useless junkets to admonish the plebeians who drive to work in gas-guzzling cars. And to top it all off, Kerry had the audacity in Dubai this weekend to preach that all coal-fired power stations should be closed urgently.
His reason? Coal-fired power plants kill people every day.
You know what else is killing more people every day, and on an order of magnitude significantly greater than climate change? Poverty. And there is no more proven, efficient method to combat poverty than ensuring the widespread availability of affordable energy.
Here's a thought that didn't occur to me while enjoying the show in an oil-rich country that's beating the sweltering heat by air-conditioning the desert: “Dubai will one day lead the world to clean energy.”
Al Jaber (above, right) has apparently said that a complete phase-out of fossil fuels makes no sense “unless you want to put the world back in caves.”
Unfortunately, the climate fanatics care more about appeasing power brokers in Washington and Brussels than about improving the lives of millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa or the Indian subcontinent.
If there's one upside to this energy-intensive desert party, it's that the globalist green energy blob is finally starting to tear itself apart.
On the sidelines of COP28, Al Gore, the patron saint of the green church, has been critical of the conference and reproached the environmentally conscious but sensible British Prime Minister: 'I am not impressed by Prime Minister Sunak's climate policy. I think they're terrible. They are very disappointing.”
Sunak's crime? Postponing a ban on petrol cars and gas boilers to give working people more time to adapt to tough new climate change laws.
Translation: Anything less than completely bending the knee to the extremists' pro-poverty, anti-growth agenda makes one an enemy.
The fanatics can barely contain their outright anger at those who agree with them about anthropogenic climate change but want to approach the problem one step at a time.
Even Greta Thunberg took a break from her recent pro-Hamas demonstrations to criticize Sultan Al Jaber.
The fanatics can barely contain their outright anger at those who agree with them about anthropogenic climate change but want to approach the problem one step at a time.
Even Greta Thunberg took a break from her recent pro-Hamas demonstrations to criticize Sultan Al Jaber.
They'd never admit it, but these radicals want to plunge the world into darkness – and stop us all from having children while we're at it. But these extremists cannot stop the overwhelming silent majority who recognize that the world cannot commit suicide on an altar of windmills and solar panels.
To his credit, Sultan Al Jaber says things that would never have been accepted in polite society before.
Maybe it's a sign of progress that Kerry hasn't yet boarded his plane and left in disgust?
Ironically, perhaps some good will come of COP28 after all: the collapse of the Net Zero Cult that wants to rid the world of fossil fuels – by any means necessary.