The mood at this year’s UN climate conference is subdued. Perhaps fearful. In CFACT’s talks with the representatives of government, business, even the more radical NGOs, we’ve yet to find anyone confident that a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol will emerge in Durban.

The usual sideshow has been assembled. You can find rows of displays making their standard pleas for your tax dollars. Wind farms, solar, mass redistribution in the name of “climate justice,” and all the usual scare tactics have assembled.

Oxfam actually sat at a conference table they had carried into the waves of the Indian Ocean. But the sea level had not risen – not in any meaningful way. They carried their table to the same place on the beach where the waves would have found them years ago, or had humankind never engaged in commerce, industry, or had the temerity to harness fire in the first place.

Carbon profiteers and the global warming left sense that the annual climate party isn’t quite the same shindig it once was. They are pulling out their usual tricks, but the public has seen through them.

For the massive global warming industry, all hope vests now in the technocrats. Behind closed doors, out of site of the huge plenary session and the NGO freak show, a very small cadre of bureaucrats are meeting. They dream of treaties, but these skilled inside operators won’t let that stop them. They are putting together side agreements which permit them a way to work around such inconvenient obstacles as the U.S. Senate and whichever protections have been created to protect the sovereignty of other nations. Do not underestimate, the potency and cost of these side agreements.

Global warming is about money. Billions. They want to make it trillions. Those cashing in on this fortune will not go gentle into that dark night. The Green Climate Fund alone is now set at $100 billion and they are pushing in Durban to make it $400 billion. $400 billion may sound like a lot of money, but it is only a very small slice of the global warming pie. Consider the subsidies, set asides, guarantees, handouts, grants, shakedowns, etc. The money is vast and the special interests protecting it are legion.

The global warming cause may not be what it was, but make no mistake – the danger in Durban is real. The climatecrats will leave Africa with their money intact and with fresh plans to renew their assault upon the economy of the free world next year.