A bit of a gut punch reading that, Susan. Literally found myself physically shaking my head at the b.s. offered by the usual suspects to their fellow nations.
I’ll tack on the following analysis of U.S. media coverage of COP30:
On a more pleasant note, may I extend to you Susan and all my fellow commenters and our hosts my Thanksgiving wishes for you and yours!
Piotrsays
David: “ I found myself physically shaking my head at the b.s. offered by the usual suspects to their fellow nations.
Some are usual suspect, other not so usual
Let’s start with the usual: Saudi Arabia filling in for MAGA USA:
” the Arab group and India opposed references to the IPCC and to specific findings from the WMO. It also reported that Saudi Arabia had “called for deleting a reference to enhancing efforts to ‘counter misinformation’.”
not surprisingly – why would they wanted to support the effort to counter their own propaganda? ;-)
Or, big surprise “ Saudi Arabia said the idea of targeting the energy sector was “off the table”
Not content with no having any carbon pricing themselves – they went after those who have it. The national or EU carbon pricing may exist only if their economies are protected from the unfair competition from the countries that have no price on carbon. Enter Saudi Arabia:
In Belém, Saudi Arabia said that unilateral trade measures would “hinder [climate] ambition, violate the right to development and exacerbate poverty, clearly attacking the very concept of just transitions”
Extra points, for Saudi Arabia, portraying itself as an advocate of …. economic equality and bringing up the poor nations off the poverty ;-):
Sadly, their self-serving duplicity resonated among some …. less obvious suspects:
” Meena Raman, head of the climate change programme at Third World Network, said “This is the issue about equity, linking it to the trade measure. So it’s not about saying that what the EU is doing is not important for its own industry, but it’s being viewed as a protectionist, discriminatory measure rather than cooperating. It feels punishing.”
No Mr./Ms. Raman – it is all about THIS – without trade measures to even up the playing field – the EU would not be able to run it – as it would mean the economic suicide of EU – destroying both the export and domestic economies whose products subject to the carbon tax would not be able to compete against the external products that are not subject to that tax.
Therefore. both petro-states and developing economies not only don’t want carbon tax at home – but also actively try to make the carbon tax in EU and other countries economically impossible.
I guess the Trump’s and the Right’s ideology, appealing to the egoism (national, class, race, individual), although geared up to preserving the privileges of the privileged, has been promoted also among the unprivileged.
It’s like in the US – where the working poor are voting in politicians who cut taxes for the rich , financed from the cuts to the programs used by the poor. It does not make sense, UNLESS:
– you bought the narrative that what’s good for the rich is good for the poor (the trickle-down economics)
– believe in the “American dream” – that you will get rich one day and then you wouldn’t want to have taxes on the rich
– spite is your central motive – you think that you get to where you are with your hard work, AND that those who are poorer than you have only themselves to blame. Therefore, you are OK to the cuts to your social programs as long as these cuts hit much harder those below you.
Like in that old joke about having been granted three wishes, but with a catch that what you get you neighbour will get twice, so you end up wishing that you lose one eye ….
Mr. Know It Allsays
And a belated Happy Thanksgiving to your and yours as well, sir! Your article did have some good news:
Quote: “In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on November 8, Figueres explained some of the progress since the landmark Paris agreement in 2015: “Ten years ago, one in every hundred vehicles that were being sold was electric. Now, we have one in five. We have two times as much investment into renewable energy as we do into fossil fuels. Solar has been deployed 15 times faster than we ever expected 10 years ago, and on and on and on. There are many proof points that there is a new economy rising.”
Amanpour also interviewed Al Gore, who pointed out the cost of the U.S. ceding the clean energy economy to others.
“China is now exporting to other countries more green technology like electric vehicles and windmills and solar,” Gore said. “The value of their green tech exports now far exceeds the exports from the United States to the rest of the world. … ” Unquote.
Did you see that? 2X as much investment in RE as there is in FFs. Good news, right?
And of course, Al Gore, cozied up to leftists most admired nation, Communist China. (Here comes Kevin.) What he failed to mention is that they are BY FAR the greatest emitters of GHGs on the planet. Now, before you object to the phrase “leftists most admired nation, Communist China”, listen to the de facto leader of leftists around the world proclaim his love for China’s dictatorship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RBK1mMDiCk
In Susan’s Carbon Brief article, the inclusion of non-science Social Justice Warrior topics, does significant damage to the credibility of COP 30. A couple of examples:
Want people to believe your science? Leave out the SJW stuff.
And having an entire section of the report on deforestation AFTER CUTTING DOWN 100,000 old-growth rainforest trees in the Amazon to make a road TO COP 30, looks just A TAD hypocritical, and undercuts their credibility:
“Bangladesh said it was “deeply concerned” about efforts to avoid endorsing the IPCC. It said:
“ We are also deeply concerned about the consistent attempt to weaken the reference of the IPCC as the provider of the best available science, not only under this agenda item, but across several others. The IPCC remains the cornerstone of credible policy-relevant climate knowledge and its integrity must be protected.”
Now let’s see which interests could use the attacks on the credibility of mainstream climate science and on IPCC… The attacks from deniers are to be expected hence provide little mileage, unlike the millage provided by doomers: “Look, EVEN their own side questions the credibility of IPCC”.
That’s one way to use a doomer. The next one, is to discrediting our side by guilt by association with the most extreme, the least supported doomers claims – portray these as representative of the climate science. and you can dismiss the entire climate science as ideologically scientifically-unsupported driven propaganda.
The third way to use the most extreme prescriptions by the doomers – overthrowing capitalism and market economy, 10-fold reductions of the Earth’s population, resettlement and “reeducation” of the urban populations from consumption-obsessed cities to the virtuous rural lifestyle (a new version of the “Cultural Revolution” or Pol Pot program of resettlement and reeducation?) – and make them into representative of the anti FF people.
The fourth way to use a doomer is to sow apathy – if will be so bad, and nothing we do has any effect – then what’s the point – let’s enjoy our consumption while it lasts, and after us the Deluge!
So the above makes the doomers what Lenin called “useful idiots of Russia et al.” – they may wish well. but end up as a “useful” tool of the other side, and can’t see it and can’t bring themselves to admit it (hence the “idiots”). If they didn’t exist, Russia et al. would have to invent them.
Davidsays
Thank you Piotr, nice analysis. About “doomers,” that’s something I’ve never understood about their advocacy. For myself, if I felt that AGW efforts were futile and a terrible future was unavoidable, I wouldn’t waste another single minute arguing with anyone or making pronouncements. Let alone spending (not inconsiderable) amounts of time doing it again and again and again…
“The price of fossil fuels should include their costs to society, which implies the merit of a slowly rising carbon fee to achieve competition among clean energies, energy efficiency, and carbon capture. Instead, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and 2015 Paris Agreement are precatory (wishful thinking) agreements to try to reduce future emissions. The Paris meeting was preceded by substantial effort to inform the delegates about the need for a simple, honest, rising, carbon fee, but the response of the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change dismissed this with “(Many have said) we need a carbon price and (investment) would be so much easier with a carbon price, but life is more complex than that.”[7] In fact, a carbon price is the simple approach; it only requires agreement of the nations with largest emissions; it can be made near-global by border duties on products from nations without a carbon price. The reason a global carbon price does not exist is that governments are under the corrupting thumb of special interests and give little weight to the interests of young people and future generations.” https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/warning-this-colorful-chart-is-censored .
This is simply the essence of the matter, the reason why forty years of “climate talks” has lead to exactly nothing except for the fanatic global mobilization of all oiligarghic forces behind the fight for the relentless fossil fuel business as extremely usual. The reason for *the fossil fuel illusion* – the illusion that fossil fuels are an endless source of energy and thus can sustain endless exponential growth – is the only matter Hansen et al. omit to take into consideration. This reason was unearthed by Jeffrey S. Dukes in 2003 in his article “Burning buried sunshine – human consumption of ancient solar energy” https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/5212176.pdf . Dukes makes it clear that the energy in as little as one litre of gasoline is based upon the solar energy contained in the chemical bonds in as much as 23,5 tons of ancient plant matter, buried under sediments many tens of millions of years ago. The illusion is spontaneous. The costs are hidden, until many years after the burning of the fossil fuels. Mankind has run into an ecological trap created by nature. Only scientific enlightenment after 2000 opens the possibility to understand this danger fully. But given human nature, the spontaneous reaction is to run away from this complicated insight, which is very easy. It’s easy not to understand complicated matters, it’s easy to lie about them etc., which every new COP meeting have shown even more than the last one. Corruption is an understatement.
The failure of the climate activism has been and is more than ever not to have even tried to unite behind the clear and specified political demand for a carbon fee and dividend policy, instead of just moaning about too little “ambition” etc Confronted with a united and clear demand for carbon fee and dividend, it would be much more difficult for the Saudi despots, Putin, Trump, the chattering classes etc. to continue to censor the science and blur the matter behind endless “culture wars” etc.
Tomáš Kaliszsays
in Re to Karsten V. Johansen, 24 Nov 2025 at 5:19 PM,
As regards “Nesnahmij” (“Jim Hansen”), it is quite likely the same entity as “James Hnasen”, “Ned Kelly”, “Sabine”, “Pedro Prieto” or “Lavrov’s dog” starting their missions here on Real Climate with similar posts in the past.
In all these cases, it finally proved that it is someone with a zero credibility, selecting deliberately the wildest speculations published by James Hansen and his collaborators and using them merely as a bait for people who are desperate for fear of the consequences of rapid climate change and/or angry specifically at capitalists who don’t bother with these consequences.
This entity has its own agenda that is very far from any reasonable reform of our complex society. I am afraid that, for whatever reason, its goal is in fact simply destruction of everything, including things we appreciate and/or love. As you obviously are AGAINST totalitarism, please take care.
Greeting
Tomáš
Piotrsays
Karsten V. Johansen 24 Nov “ Indeed, Nesnahmij! You are right on the money!
Shocking, nobody seen this coming …. ;-)
Perhaps it would be easier, if in the future you tell us when Multi-troll is NOT on the money?
Karsten V. Johansensays
Tomazc, could you just, instead of insinuations and diverse wild conspiracy “theories” and other whataboutisms, tell us in plain english: why you are against James Hansen’s proposal for a carbon fee and dividend? Why are you avoiding the discussion about carbon fee and dividend, which was the theme of my comment?
This proposal was the subject of my citation from Hansen, which you would have understood if you had read what I wrote. Which you apparently didn’t do for some reason which is very unclear.
On the internet you often don’t know who you are speaking with, because many unfortunately use pseudonyms. So of course I haven’t got the faintest idea who this phantom you are talking about is, and frankly I don’t care at all.
I just found the citation I took from the article by Hansen this person linked to, interesting and precise concerning the COP “process” and the fossil fuel capitalist interests which all the time have been controlling it almost completely and thereby securing that not one of the 30 COP meetings until now have come up with anything but even more attempts to hide the main causes of AGW and further the vested interests of Saudi Arabia’s despotic and criminal rulers, and all other petrostate elites like the russian oligarchy, the US oligarchy etc.
While considering what really lies behind the socalled “peace”-initiative, in fact the newest US-Russia ultimatum to Ukraine from misters Trump and Putin now (at least some of the text seems to have been written in russian first, which tells you a lot) one should note the fact that this gives the russian oligarchy control over the main natural resources in Ukraine and implies a silent agreement between the two main nuclear imperialist powers in the world, US and Russia (with China lurking behind), that they can both do whatever they want in what they obviously see as their own backyards. So the Trump regime gets free hands to take control over the world’s greatest remaining oil reserves which “accidently” are situated in Venezuela, where Trump “accidently” is gearing up for regime change in favour of the extreme right – the same thing as Putin has been trying to do in Ukraine for some time.
The old latin question “Cui bono?” is always a very relevant question concerning imperial wars, the outcomes from international meetings etc. Which is exactly why this question is never put clearly and objectively by neither most mainstream media pundits nor “influencer”s etc.: they earn their money by *not* asking this question objectively.
For example: “COP30 Results- Global Warming Wins Once Again
According to Reuters d/d November 22, 2025: “World secures compromise deal at COP30 that sidesteps fossil fuels.” This is one more COP failure to properly address the key reason behind starting UN climate conferences 30 years ago. The first UN climate conference, COP1, held in Berlin in 1995 started a process of negotiations to create “legally binding emission reduction targets” for the developed countries of the world. That initial “statement of purpose” remains fluttering in midair directionless, heartless, meaningless, out of reach with each annual meeting. Next year Antalya, Turkey will host the staging arena for COP31’s chatter, wine, caviar, nearly guaranteed disappointing results, and photo ops for state leaders.
The Ultimate Impact of Failure to Challenge Climate Change
Senator Whitehouse’s Senate speech (Nov. 21) discusses the outcome of failure to address climate change. Accordingly, big trouble is on the docket by avoiding the climate change issue. This threat of upcoming trouble is voiced by leading figureheads in finance. Senator Whitehouse refers to it as the Great Climate Insurance Collapse, warned by finance authorities, claiming climate change alone could reduce global GDP by 10-20%.
“In 10 or 15 years, there are going to be regions of the country where you can’t get a mortgage” (Federal Reserve Board Chair Powell) because people will not be able to get home insurance. This, in turn, eliminates home mortgages. “Whole regions of the U.S. are going to become so climate risky that they’re uninsurable.” (Whitehouse)
According to the senator, Florida is on a fast-track: “In Florida the insurance market is already trembling, propped up, perhaps even fake.” The likely scenario is a cascade: “It goes from climate risk-to un-insurability-to mortgage failure-to property value collapse-to recession.” Still, a typical Florida family home is $407,830 in 2025 versus $410,000 in 2023, not too much of a decrease in value in two years but still a decrease as sources say typical Florida buyers experience “climate change denialism” to an extreme despite several obvious risks. Meanwhile, Florida is the most expensive state for home insurance in the country and likely going higher, pricing many buyers out of the market.” https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/11/26/pay-to-pollute-starting-in-2026/ .
Unfortunately Hunziker omits the central question of “who pays the price?” when introducing a carbon fee. If as usual the common man is to carry the whole burden of the fee, it will still be very easy for Trump, Saudis, EU right wing leaders, Putin etc. to sabotage any attempt to apply any effective and sufficient rise in the price of fossil fuels through a carbon fee. Because then “yellow vests”, truck drivers, all poorer car owners etc. will be easy to mobilize against it.
It’s beyond me why reasonable people like Robert Hunziker doesn’t seem to grasp the utmost political importance of this and thus not the importance of the equal dividend proposal, which means that the wealthiest (which are the overwhelmingly dominant CO2 polluters) get to pay most of the carbon fee.
Piotrsays
Karsten V. Johansen: “ Why you are against James Hansen’s proposal for a carbon fee and dividend?”
Perhaps because he wasn’t responding to the carbon fee, which isn’t to us anything new, but to your “ Indeed, Nesnahmij! You are right on the money!
When “right on the money” is the guy who dismisses the existing technological and economic ways to mitigate AGW, because for him AGW is a just a justification to …. overthrow capitalism, market economy and western democracy.
That’s why his defense of Russia (the last country in the world that would like to see adoption of the carbon fee) and his promotion of the rule of the Communist Party of China, not too big on the free market mechanisms either. :”You are right on the money!” eh?
Then there are you, trivializing the genocidal Russian aggression on Ukraine, calling the many 100,00os of dead and wounded, civilians deliberately targeted in their homes, hospitals and on streets, their infrastructure in ruins, with many cities annexed to Russia or obliterated – by calling it …. “ the same thing ” as “US is gearing up for regime change” in Venezuela.
Tomáš Kaliszsays
in Re to Karsten V. Johansen, 26 Nov 2025 at 2:52 AM,
To clarify some misunderstandings, I would like to confirm that Piotr exactly grasped my point, namely that I merely tried to warn before encouraging the Multitroll and no way commented on James Hansen’s proposals regarding carbon fee and dividend.
With respect to these policies, I could not comment at all, because I have not managed yet learning the respective economical substance.
As regards our positions towards Russia and present US policies, I think that in fact, none of us including Karsten anyhow endorses Russian aggression against their neighbour countries. I think that also none of us is happy about present trajectory of the US foreign policy that, unfortunately, more and more resembles that of Russia.
I would, however, agree with Piotr that putting the equality sign between the USA and Russia is (fortunately) still improper. That does not make my concern about the above-mentioned dangerous trajectory less serious.
Greetings
Tomáš
Davidsays
The following is (imo) a useful article that came out a couple of months ago looking at political appetite and carbon tax prescriptions (in IAM’s). It serves up some food for thought on this important issue beyond IAM treatment:
Di Benedetto, A., Wieners, C.E., Dijkstra, H.A. et al. Political processes affect the feasibility of climate policy in Integrated Assessment Models. npj Clim. Action 4, 88 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-025-00298-3
Susan Andersonsays
Science/climate/medical literacy taking a beating. Avoiding deaths and disease not a goal. Ignorance and delusion needed for higher office. FDA to impose strict new vaccine requirements, claiming child covid shot deaths. Vinay Prasad, the nation’s top vaccine regulator, said his team concluded that coronavirus shots were linked to children’s deaths, necessitating a new approach. – https://archive.ph/285X3 https://bsky.app/profile/davelevitan.bsky.social/post/3m6rky3g6bh27
from replies: “Stephen Murphy: “Shut up”, he explained.
Nigeljsays
“FDA to impose strict new vaccine requirements, claiming child covid shot deaths. Vinay Prasad, the nation’s top vaccine regulator, said his team concluded that coronavirus shots were linked to children’s deaths, necessitating a new approach.”
Unjustified policy. The benefits of vaccines hugely outweigh the risks and the testing is already vigorous. Inevitably with many millions of vaccine shots a couple of people may die but you are saving many thousands of lives. Why cant they get their head around that simple logic?
Of course people are naturally a bit worried about vaccines. and having a bad reaction to them. So was I because I get a lot of allergies, but people just need to be calm and remember the risks are incredibly small.
All medications have risks. Antibiotics like penicillin have a well known risk of a potentially fatal allergic reaction. Then theres the thousands of people who die from opiate overdoses. Are these guys in the Trump Administration and FDA going to more heavily restrict antiobiotics and other common medicines as well? No of course not, because they have a “thing” about vaccines. Its like a tin foil hat wearing “thing”
Carbon Brief on COP, section on climate science (inadequate shading into dishonest):
https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop30-key-outcomes-agreed-at-the-un-climate-talks-in-belem/#climatescience
A bit of a gut punch reading that, Susan. Literally found myself physically shaking my head at the b.s. offered by the usual suspects to their fellow nations.
I’ll tack on the following analysis of U.S. media coverage of COP30:
https://www.mediamatters.org/media-matters-studies-climate-change-coverage/corporate-broadcast-news-combined-covered-years-cop30
On a more pleasant note, may I extend to you Susan and all my fellow commenters and our hosts my Thanksgiving wishes for you and yours!
David: “ I found myself physically shaking my head at the b.s. offered by the usual suspects to their fellow nations.
Some are usual suspect, other not so usual
Let’s start with the usual: Saudi Arabia filling in for MAGA USA:
” the Arab group and India opposed references to the IPCC and to specific findings from the WMO. It also reported that Saudi Arabia had “called for deleting a reference to enhancing efforts to ‘counter misinformation’.”
not surprisingly – why would they wanted to support the effort to counter their own propaganda? ;-)
Or, big surprise “ Saudi Arabia said the idea of targeting the energy sector was “off the table”
Not content with no having any carbon pricing themselves – they went after those who have it. The national or EU carbon pricing may exist only if their economies are protected from the unfair competition from the countries that have no price on carbon. Enter Saudi Arabia:
In Belém, Saudi Arabia said that unilateral trade measures would “hinder [climate] ambition, violate the right to development and exacerbate poverty, clearly attacking the very concept of just transitions”
Extra points, for Saudi Arabia, portraying itself as an advocate of …. economic equality and bringing up the poor nations off the poverty ;-):
Sadly, their self-serving duplicity resonated among some …. less obvious suspects:
” Meena Raman, head of the climate change programme at Third World Network, said
“This is the issue about equity, linking it to the trade measure. So it’s not about saying that what the EU is doing is not important for its own industry, but it’s being viewed as a protectionist, discriminatory measure rather than cooperating. It feels punishing.”
No Mr./Ms. Raman – it is all about THIS – without trade measures to even up the playing field – the EU would not be able to run it – as it would mean the economic suicide of EU – destroying both the export and domestic economies whose products subject to the carbon tax would not be able to compete against the external products that are not subject to that tax.
Therefore. both petro-states and developing economies not only don’t want carbon tax at home – but also actively try to make the carbon tax in EU and other countries economically impossible.
I guess the Trump’s and the Right’s ideology, appealing to the egoism (national, class, race, individual), although geared up to preserving the privileges of the privileged, has been promoted also among the unprivileged.
It’s like in the US – where the working poor are voting in politicians who cut taxes for the rich , financed from the cuts to the programs used by the poor. It does not make sense, UNLESS:
– you bought the narrative that what’s good for the rich is good for the poor (the trickle-down economics)
– believe in the “American dream” – that you will get rich one day and then you wouldn’t want to have taxes on the rich
– spite is your central motive – you think that you get to where you are with your hard work, AND that those who are poorer than you have only themselves to blame. Therefore, you are OK to the cuts to your social programs as long as these cuts hit much harder those below you.
Like in that old joke about having been granted three wishes, but with a catch that what you get you neighbour will get twice, so you end up wishing that you lose one eye ….
And a belated Happy Thanksgiving to your and yours as well, sir! Your article did have some good news:
Quote: “In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on November 8, Figueres explained some of the progress since the landmark Paris agreement in 2015: “Ten years ago, one in every hundred vehicles that were being sold was electric. Now, we have one in five. We have two times as much investment into renewable energy as we do into fossil fuels. Solar has been deployed 15 times faster than we ever expected 10 years ago, and on and on and on. There are many proof points that there is a new economy rising.”
Amanpour also interviewed Al Gore, who pointed out the cost of the U.S. ceding the clean energy economy to others.
“China is now exporting to other countries more green technology like electric vehicles and windmills and solar,” Gore said. “The value of their green tech exports now far exceeds the exports from the United States to the rest of the world. … ” Unquote.
Did you see that? 2X as much investment in RE as there is in FFs. Good news, right?
And of course, Al Gore, cozied up to leftists most admired nation, Communist China. (Here comes Kevin.) What he failed to mention is that they are BY FAR the greatest emitters of GHGs on the planet. Now, before you object to the phrase “leftists most admired nation, Communist China”, listen to the de facto leader of leftists around the world proclaim his love for China’s dictatorship:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RBK1mMDiCk
In Susan’s Carbon Brief article, the inclusion of non-science Social Justice Warrior topics, does significant damage to the credibility of COP 30. A couple of examples:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop30-key-outcomes-agreed-at-the-un-climate-talks-in-belem/#gender
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/13/row-over-definition-of-gender-hangs-over-cop30-plans-to-support-women
https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop30-key-outcomes-agreed-at-the-un-climate-talks-in-belem/#just
Want people to believe your science? Leave out the SJW stuff.
And having an entire section of the report on deforestation AFTER CUTTING DOWN 100,000 old-growth rainforest trees in the Amazon to make a road TO COP 30, looks just A TAD hypocritical, and undercuts their credibility:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop30-key-outcomes-agreed-at-the-un-climate-talks-in-belem/#climatescience
They might want to avoid that deforestation mistake as they build their “road” to COP 31 in Antalya, Turkey:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop30-key-outcomes-agreed-at-the-un-climate-talks-in-belem/#road
;)
KIA: “leftists most admired nation, Communist China.”
BPL: We admire their progress in renewable energy. We don’t admire anything else about them. Stop with the McCarthyism,
Carbon Brief’s companion article to their thorough COP30 story Susan linked to above:
“COP30: Key outcomes for food, forests, land and nature at the UN climate talks in Belém”
Multiple Authors
26.11.2025 | 4:42pm
https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop30-key-outcomes-for-food-forests-land-and-nature-at-the-un-climate-talks-in-belem/
“Bangladesh said it was “deeply concerned” about efforts to avoid endorsing the IPCC. It said:
“ We are also deeply concerned about the consistent attempt to weaken the reference of the IPCC as the provider of the best available science, not only under this agenda item, but across several others. The IPCC remains the cornerstone of credible policy-relevant climate knowledge and its integrity must be protected.”
Now let’s see which interests could use the attacks on the credibility of mainstream climate science and on IPCC… The attacks from deniers are to be expected hence provide little mileage, unlike the millage provided by doomers: “Look, EVEN their own side questions the credibility of IPCC”.
That’s one way to use a doomer. The next one, is to discrediting our side by guilt by association with the most extreme, the least supported doomers claims – portray these as representative of the climate science. and you can dismiss the entire climate science as ideologically scientifically-unsupported driven propaganda.
The third way to use the most extreme prescriptions by the doomers – overthrowing capitalism and market economy, 10-fold reductions of the Earth’s population, resettlement and “reeducation” of the urban populations from consumption-obsessed cities to the virtuous rural lifestyle (a new version of the “Cultural Revolution” or Pol Pot program of resettlement and reeducation?) – and make them into representative of the anti FF people.
The fourth way to use a doomer is to sow apathy – if will be so bad, and nothing we do has any effect – then what’s the point – let’s enjoy our consumption while it lasts, and after us the Deluge!
So the above makes the doomers what Lenin called “useful idiots of Russia et al.” – they may wish well. but end up as a “useful” tool of the other side, and can’t see it and can’t bring themselves to admit it (hence the “idiots”). If they didn’t exist, Russia et al. would have to invent them.
Thank you Piotr, nice analysis. About “doomers,” that’s something I’ve never understood about their advocacy. For myself, if I felt that AGW efforts were futile and a terrible future was unavoidable, I wouldn’t waste another single minute arguing with anyone or making pronouncements. Let alone spending (not inconsiderable) amounts of time doing it again and again and again…
https://youtu.be/JTTcfF2_-zE?si=KCBsHVPgq0TB9KDL
James Hansen the Head of the IPCC tried to block the publication of his paper similar to 1988.
Seems a bit strong
Solar in Africa, useful as he always is (Dave Borlace, Just Have a Think):
How an African energy revolution could save ALL of us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOmQJ6nKErs
[some surprising info about China’s world and banking towards the end, e.g., The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth. The narrative wrongfully portrays both Beijing and the developing countries it deals with. – https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/
Indeed, Nesnahmij! You are right on the money!
“The price of fossil fuels should include their costs to society, which implies the merit of a slowly rising carbon fee to achieve competition among clean energies, energy efficiency, and carbon capture. Instead, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and 2015 Paris Agreement are precatory (wishful thinking) agreements to try to reduce future emissions. The Paris meeting was preceded by substantial effort to inform the delegates about the need for a simple, honest, rising, carbon fee, but the response of the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change dismissed this with “(Many have said) we need a carbon price and (investment) would be so much easier with a carbon price, but life is more complex than that.”[7] In fact, a carbon price is the simple approach; it only requires agreement of the nations with largest emissions; it can be made near-global by border duties on products from nations without a carbon price. The reason a global carbon price does not exist is that governments are under the corrupting thumb of special interests and give little weight to the interests of young people and future generations.” https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/warning-this-colorful-chart-is-censored .
This is simply the essence of the matter, the reason why forty years of “climate talks” has lead to exactly nothing except for the fanatic global mobilization of all oiligarghic forces behind the fight for the relentless fossil fuel business as extremely usual. The reason for *the fossil fuel illusion* – the illusion that fossil fuels are an endless source of energy and thus can sustain endless exponential growth – is the only matter Hansen et al. omit to take into consideration. This reason was unearthed by Jeffrey S. Dukes in 2003 in his article “Burning buried sunshine – human consumption of ancient solar energy” https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/5212176.pdf . Dukes makes it clear that the energy in as little as one litre of gasoline is based upon the solar energy contained in the chemical bonds in as much as 23,5 tons of ancient plant matter, buried under sediments many tens of millions of years ago. The illusion is spontaneous. The costs are hidden, until many years after the burning of the fossil fuels. Mankind has run into an ecological trap created by nature. Only scientific enlightenment after 2000 opens the possibility to understand this danger fully. But given human nature, the spontaneous reaction is to run away from this complicated insight, which is very easy. It’s easy not to understand complicated matters, it’s easy to lie about them etc., which every new COP meeting have shown even more than the last one. Corruption is an understatement.
The failure of the climate activism has been and is more than ever not to have even tried to unite behind the clear and specified political demand for a carbon fee and dividend policy, instead of just moaning about too little “ambition” etc Confronted with a united and clear demand for carbon fee and dividend, it would be much more difficult for the Saudi despots, Putin, Trump, the chattering classes etc. to continue to censor the science and blur the matter behind endless “culture wars” etc.
in Re to Karsten V. Johansen, 24 Nov 2025 at 5:19 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/11/unforced-variations-nov-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-842356
Dear Karsten,
As regards “Nesnahmij” (“Jim Hansen”), it is quite likely the same entity as “James Hnasen”, “Ned Kelly”, “Sabine”, “Pedro Prieto” or “Lavrov’s dog” starting their missions here on Real Climate with similar posts in the past.
In all these cases, it finally proved that it is someone with a zero credibility, selecting deliberately the wildest speculations published by James Hansen and his collaborators and using them merely as a bait for people who are desperate for fear of the consequences of rapid climate change and/or angry specifically at capitalists who don’t bother with these consequences.
This entity has its own agenda that is very far from any reasonable reform of our complex society. I am afraid that, for whatever reason, its goal is in fact simply destruction of everything, including things we appreciate and/or love. As you obviously are AGAINST totalitarism, please take care.
Greeting
Tomáš
Karsten V. Johansen 24 Nov “ Indeed, Nesnahmij! You are right on the money!
Shocking, nobody seen this coming …. ;-)
Perhaps it would be easier, if in the future you tell us when Multi-troll is NOT on the money?
Tomazc, could you just, instead of insinuations and diverse wild conspiracy “theories” and other whataboutisms, tell us in plain english: why you are against James Hansen’s proposal for a carbon fee and dividend? Why are you avoiding the discussion about carbon fee and dividend, which was the theme of my comment?
This proposal was the subject of my citation from Hansen, which you would have understood if you had read what I wrote. Which you apparently didn’t do for some reason which is very unclear.
On the internet you often don’t know who you are speaking with, because many unfortunately use pseudonyms. So of course I haven’t got the faintest idea who this phantom you are talking about is, and frankly I don’t care at all.
I just found the citation I took from the article by Hansen this person linked to, interesting and precise concerning the COP “process” and the fossil fuel capitalist interests which all the time have been controlling it almost completely and thereby securing that not one of the 30 COP meetings until now have come up with anything but even more attempts to hide the main causes of AGW and further the vested interests of Saudi Arabia’s despotic and criminal rulers, and all other petrostate elites like the russian oligarchy, the US oligarchy etc.
While considering what really lies behind the socalled “peace”-initiative, in fact the newest US-Russia ultimatum to Ukraine from misters Trump and Putin now (at least some of the text seems to have been written in russian first, which tells you a lot) one should note the fact that this gives the russian oligarchy control over the main natural resources in Ukraine and implies a silent agreement between the two main nuclear imperialist powers in the world, US and Russia (with China lurking behind), that they can both do whatever they want in what they obviously see as their own backyards. So the Trump regime gets free hands to take control over the world’s greatest remaining oil reserves which “accidently” are situated in Venezuela, where Trump “accidently” is gearing up for regime change in favour of the extreme right – the same thing as Putin has been trying to do in Ukraine for some time.
The old latin question “Cui bono?” is always a very relevant question concerning imperial wars, the outcomes from international meetings etc. Which is exactly why this question is never put clearly and objectively by neither most mainstream media pundits nor “influencer”s etc.: they earn their money by *not* asking this question objectively.
For example: “COP30 Results- Global Warming Wins Once Again
According to Reuters d/d November 22, 2025: “World secures compromise deal at COP30 that sidesteps fossil fuels.” This is one more COP failure to properly address the key reason behind starting UN climate conferences 30 years ago. The first UN climate conference, COP1, held in Berlin in 1995 started a process of negotiations to create “legally binding emission reduction targets” for the developed countries of the world. That initial “statement of purpose” remains fluttering in midair directionless, heartless, meaningless, out of reach with each annual meeting. Next year Antalya, Turkey will host the staging arena for COP31’s chatter, wine, caviar, nearly guaranteed disappointing results, and photo ops for state leaders.
The Ultimate Impact of Failure to Challenge Climate Change
Senator Whitehouse’s Senate speech (Nov. 21) discusses the outcome of failure to address climate change. Accordingly, big trouble is on the docket by avoiding the climate change issue. This threat of upcoming trouble is voiced by leading figureheads in finance. Senator Whitehouse refers to it as the Great Climate Insurance Collapse, warned by finance authorities, claiming climate change alone could reduce global GDP by 10-20%.
“In 10 or 15 years, there are going to be regions of the country where you can’t get a mortgage” (Federal Reserve Board Chair Powell) because people will not be able to get home insurance. This, in turn, eliminates home mortgages. “Whole regions of the U.S. are going to become so climate risky that they’re uninsurable.” (Whitehouse)
According to the senator, Florida is on a fast-track: “In Florida the insurance market is already trembling, propped up, perhaps even fake.” The likely scenario is a cascade: “It goes from climate risk-to un-insurability-to mortgage failure-to property value collapse-to recession.” Still, a typical Florida family home is $407,830 in 2025 versus $410,000 in 2023, not too much of a decrease in value in two years but still a decrease as sources say typical Florida buyers experience “climate change denialism” to an extreme despite several obvious risks. Meanwhile, Florida is the most expensive state for home insurance in the country and likely going higher, pricing many buyers out of the market.” https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/11/26/pay-to-pollute-starting-in-2026/ .
Unfortunately Hunziker omits the central question of “who pays the price?” when introducing a carbon fee. If as usual the common man is to carry the whole burden of the fee, it will still be very easy for Trump, Saudis, EU right wing leaders, Putin etc. to sabotage any attempt to apply any effective and sufficient rise in the price of fossil fuels through a carbon fee. Because then “yellow vests”, truck drivers, all poorer car owners etc. will be easy to mobilize against it.
It’s beyond me why reasonable people like Robert Hunziker doesn’t seem to grasp the utmost political importance of this and thus not the importance of the equal dividend proposal, which means that the wealthiest (which are the overwhelmingly dominant CO2 polluters) get to pay most of the carbon fee.
Karsten V. Johansen: “ Why you are against James Hansen’s proposal for a carbon fee and dividend?”
Perhaps because he wasn’t responding to the carbon fee, which isn’t to us anything new, but to your “ Indeed, Nesnahmij! You are right on the money!
When “right on the money” is the guy who dismisses the existing technological and economic ways to mitigate AGW, because for him AGW is a just a justification to …. overthrow capitalism, market economy and western democracy.
That’s why his defense of Russia (the last country in the world that would like to see adoption of the carbon fee) and his promotion of the rule of the Communist Party of China, not too big on the free market mechanisms either. :”You are right on the money!” eh?
Then there are you, trivializing the genocidal Russian aggression on Ukraine, calling the many 100,00os of dead and wounded, civilians deliberately targeted in their homes, hospitals and on streets, their infrastructure in ruins, with many cities annexed to Russia or obliterated – by calling it …. “ the same thing ” as “US is gearing up for regime change” in Venezuela.
in Re to Karsten V. Johansen, 26 Nov 2025 at 2:52 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/11/unforced-variations-nov-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-842385
and Piotr, 27 Nov 2025 at 12:55 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/11/unforced-variations-nov-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-842400
Sirs,
Thank you very much for your feedback.
To clarify some misunderstandings, I would like to confirm that Piotr exactly grasped my point, namely that I merely tried to warn before encouraging the Multitroll and no way commented on James Hansen’s proposals regarding carbon fee and dividend.
With respect to these policies, I could not comment at all, because I have not managed yet learning the respective economical substance.
As regards our positions towards Russia and present US policies, I think that in fact, none of us including Karsten anyhow endorses Russian aggression against their neighbour countries. I think that also none of us is happy about present trajectory of the US foreign policy that, unfortunately, more and more resembles that of Russia.
I would, however, agree with Piotr that putting the equality sign between the USA and Russia is (fortunately) still improper. That does not make my concern about the above-mentioned dangerous trajectory less serious.
Greetings
Tomáš
The following is (imo) a useful article that came out a couple of months ago looking at political appetite and carbon tax prescriptions (in IAM’s). It serves up some food for thought on this important issue beyond IAM treatment:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44168-025-00298-3
Di Benedetto, A., Wieners, C.E., Dijkstra, H.A. et al. Political processes affect the feasibility of climate policy in Integrated Assessment Models. npj Clim. Action 4, 88 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-025-00298-3
Science/climate/medical literacy taking a beating. Avoiding deaths and disease not a goal. Ignorance and delusion needed for higher office. FDA to impose strict new vaccine requirements, claiming child covid shot deaths. Vinay Prasad, the nation’s top vaccine regulator, said his team concluded that coronavirus shots were linked to children’s deaths, necessitating a new approach. – https://archive.ph/285X3
https://bsky.app/profile/davelevitan.bsky.social/post/3m6rky3g6bh27
from replies: “Stephen Murphy: “Shut up”, he explained.
“FDA to impose strict new vaccine requirements, claiming child covid shot deaths. Vinay Prasad, the nation’s top vaccine regulator, said his team concluded that coronavirus shots were linked to children’s deaths, necessitating a new approach.”
Unjustified policy. The benefits of vaccines hugely outweigh the risks and the testing is already vigorous. Inevitably with many millions of vaccine shots a couple of people may die but you are saving many thousands of lives. Why cant they get their head around that simple logic?
Of course people are naturally a bit worried about vaccines. and having a bad reaction to them. So was I because I get a lot of allergies, but people just need to be calm and remember the risks are incredibly small.
All medications have risks. Antibiotics like penicillin have a well known risk of a potentially fatal allergic reaction. Then theres the thousands of people who die from opiate overdoses. Are these guys in the Trump Administration and FDA going to more heavily restrict antiobiotics and other common medicines as well? No of course not, because they have a “thing” about vaccines. Its like a tin foil hat wearing “thing”