Daily Caller
Climate Change Fanaticism Was The Big Election Loser
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Stephen Moore
A few days before last week’s election, Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a dire warning to voters. If Trump won, “the struggle against climate change will be over.”
He had that right.
Climate change fanaticism was effectively on the ballot last week. That green energy agenda was decisively defeated.
It turns out the tens of millions of middle-class Americans who voted for Trump weren’t much interested in the temperature of the planet 50 years from now. They were too busy trying to pay the bills.
The result shouldn’t be too surprising. Polls have shown climate change ranks near the bottom of voters’ concerns. Jobs, inflation and illegal immigration register much higher on the scale of concerns.
But if you asked the elite of America in the top one percent of income, climate change is seen as an immediate and existential threat to the planet. Our poll at Unleash Prosperity earlier this year found that the cultural elites were so hyper-obsessed with climate issues, they were in favor of banning air conditioning, nonessential air travel and many modern home appliances to stop global warming. Our study showed that not many of the other 99 percent agree.
Wake up, Bernie and Al Gore.
Climate change has become the ultimate luxury good: the richer you are, the more you fret about it.
Among the elite, obsessing about climate change has become a favorite form of virtue-signaling at the country club and in the faculty lounges. There is almost no cross that the green elites — the people who donate six figures or more to groups like the Sierra Club — aren’t willing to make lower income Americans bear to stop global warming.
Herein lies the political curse of the climate issue. A millionaire doesn’t care much if the price of gas rises by $1 a gallon or if they have to pay another $100 a month in utility bills. But the middle class hates paying more.
It wasn’t just economic concerns that turned the voters against climate crusaders like President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Workers weren’t too thrilled with the heavy fist of government commanding them to buy an electric vehicle — whether they wanted one or not.
It hasn’t helped the greens’ cause that the same progressives who are out to save the planet with grandiose transformations and global government, seem to have no problem with the garbage polluting the streets of our major cities or the graffiti or the feces and urine smell on the street corners of San Francisco and New York. That’s real pollution. And it’s affecting us here and now.
The good news is this year’s voter revolts against the radical green agenda are not a vote for dirtier air or water. The air that we breathe and the water we drink is cleaner than ever — a point that President Donald Trump correctly made. We will continue to make progress against pollution.
To try to sell middle America on the climate-change agenda of abolishing fossil fuels, the greens peddled bogus arguments that climate change would hurt poor communities most. In reality the financial costs of the climate policies and the paychecks lost were felt by the non-elite.
Democrats forgot to visit the steel-mill construction sites or the auto plants or the oil patch and ask those workers what they thought.
Well, now we know the reality. Americans think their shrinking paychecks and the higher price of gas they pay at the pump is the real clear-and-present danger. If Democrats don’t start to get that, they too will go to bed worrying about their jobs.
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity. His latest book is titled: “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
Business
Biden-Harris Admin Reportedly Backs Off On Major Emissions Initiative At UN Climate Summit
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Nick Pope
The Biden-Harris administration is quietly backing away from a plan to use the ongoing U.N. climate conference to announce an international call for emissions reductions, according to Politico.
It is not clear whether it is because President-elect Donald Trump decisively won last week’s presidential election, but Biden-Harris officials reportedly intended to partner with several other countries in announcing “ambitious” carbon emissions reduction goals for 2035 before the announcement fell through, according to Politico, which cited a draft press release it obtained and several unnamed officials. Had it not fallen through, the announcement could have gone live as early as Monday, the first day of the conference — commonly referred to as COP29 — in Azerbaijan, a Caucasian petrostate with a questionable human rights record.
The aborted call to action would not have been legally binding, though it would have served as a signal to corporations to invest in emissions reduction initiatives and pave the way for other nations to get on board, according to Politico. The countries that would have been named in the announcement would have committed to slashing emissions across nearly every sector of their respective economies, and they would have taken aim at specific chemicals like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.
The press release announcing the commitments “clearly won’t be published” at this point, one senior foreign diplomat told Politico, which granted the source anonymity to speak freely on the matter. Beyond Trump’s victory, other potential factors that may have interfered with the plan to roll out the 2035 targets include ambivalence from potential partners or bureaucratic logjam in the European Union, an American ally that typically collaborates on similar climate targets.
The U.S. circulated the idea of putting out a statement ahead of COP29 with “a lot of parties but never pushed for it to become something more,” a European official involved in climate negotiations told Politico.
Trump’s pending return to the White House is looming large at COP29, given the president-elect’s pledges to roll back green spending, regulations and initiatives and jack up fossil fuel production, according to CBS News. Moreover, Trump has also promised to withdraw again from the U.N.’s Paris Climate Accords, which he did in his first term before the Biden-Harris administration rejoined the deal.
The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Business
Energy Giant Wins Appeal In Landmark Lawsuit Blaming Company For Climate Change
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Owen Klinsky
Energy giant Shell won its appeal against a landmark 2021 legal ruling claiming the company was partially responsible for climate change and needed to cut carbon emissions.
The original decision handed down in 2021 ordered Shell to reduce its carbon emissions by 45% by the end of 2030, with anti-fracking group Friends of the Earth Netherlands bringing the claims. Now, a Dutch appellate court has thrown out the ruling, stating that climate science is not developed enough to impose specific emissions reduction requirements on private businesses like Shell.
“The court of appeal… takes as its point of departure that there is a broad consensus that, in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C, reduction pathways must be chosen in which CO2 emissions are reduced by a net 45% by the end of 2030 relative to at least 2019,” the Hague Court of Appeal wrote in its ruling. “The court cannot determine what specific reduction obligation applies to Shell.”
The court also noted Shell has already made efforts to lower emissions.
“To assume the impending violation of a legal obligation alleged by Milieudefensie [Friends of the Earth Netherlands] et al., the court would have to find that it is likely that Shell will not have reduced its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 45% by 2030, despite Shell’s concrete plans and the measures Shell has already taken to implement those plans,” the ruling stated. “Milieudefensie et al. have not provided sufficient arguments in support of that.”
The Hague’s decision comes as world leaders meet in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the United Nations’ COP29 climate summit this month, with the U.S. finalizing a levy on “excess” methane emissions from oil and gas producers Tuesday. A variety of world leaders, including President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opted not to attend this year, while representatives from Afghanistan’s Taliban are slated to attend the climate confab for the first time ever.
Friends of the Earth Netherlands, Shell and the Hague Court of Appeals did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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