There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5°C” above preindustrial levels … Show me a roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuels that will allow for sustainable socio-economic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.
That wasn’t in the UN climate script!
Such a high-level proclamation couldn’t be left unchallenged. First up was U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, who pledged to lead all Americans, if not the world, headlong back to the proverbial caves. Kerry announced America would be joining the Powering Past Coal Alliance, a pact of nearly 60 countries that have promised to accelerate the phasing out of coal-fired power stations. “We will be working to accelerate unabated coal phase-out across the world, building stronger economies and more resilient communities,” he boasted.
Then Al Gore, former U.S. Vice President and climate pooh-bah emeritus, chimed in. He slammed Sultan Al Jaber, saying his, and the UAE’s, position as overseer of international negotiations on global warming this year was an abuse of public trust. “They are abusing the public’s trust by naming the CEO of one of the largest and least responsible oil companies in the world as head of the COP,” Gore said.
One has to feel for the Sultan, who probably thought chairing the COP meant dealing with business people and reasonable policy experts, not unhinged climate fanatics. He should have known better. CFACT could have told him.
With that backdrop, the conference resumed Monday, and CFACT’s team went straight to work. One UN panel CFACT attended was to “create feasible and just transitions” to achieve carbon “net-zero” by 2050 (or whenever).
It’s all technologically “feasible” to get there, panelists insisted, if only enough countries would do what they are supposed to. The big impediment to net zero, they explained, is “institutional.” Nations just won’t play ball. Among them was the People’s Republic of China, one panelist acknowledged. That was a refreshing change from the usual blind eye climate campaigners point toward China.
One panelist was Isabela Tagomori, who works on integrated assessment of carbon dioxide Removal (CDR) at Utrecht University. Tagomori 
presented on “just transition scenarios,” which is all about infusing climate “justice” into determining the redistribution of “global carbon budget investments” among nations and communities.
Tagomori outlined multiple scenarios, which she called global “fairness principles” for “distributional justice.” She wants to ensure “well-being among justice communities,” in contrast to economic growth to increase prosperity for people at all income levels. The scenario she leaned toward most was the “egalitarian” approach, that is, wealthy and non-wealthy societies are to be made equal in resources.
During the question-and-answer period, I challenged her on this preferred egalitarian principle and pointed out that conflating redistributing resources among people and nations based on the weather smacked of Marxism.
She countered by saying her organization’s effort was merely to collect “many different (justice) dimensions.” When exposed, climate campaigners retreat to vague, opaque language.
Despite her nimble backpedaling from her egalitarian (i.e. Marxist) principle, it is clear that this panel well illustrated the overall UN climate agenda. Extracting billions, indeed trillions, of dollars from the U.S. and other “wealthy” Western nations (which are drowning in their own debt) to redistribute under the guise of “climate justice” is a central element of the COP28, and past summits. They are counting on politicians to glibly print and spend dollars, and pile more debt on to future generations.