Day: November 14, 2025

COP30: President Lula Calls for an End to Climate Denialism

“… It is time to impose a new defeat on denialists …”

An astronaut stands next to a golden lunar rover on the moon's surface, with Earth visible in the background and a small asteroid floating nearby.

Watts Up With That?

Essay by  Eric Worrall

“… It is time to impose a new defeat on denialists …”

From pledges to action: Leaders push for faster climate progress at COP30

By Felipe de Carvalho 

  Climate and Environment

COP30 opened in Belém on Monday with a clear message: the era of half-measures is over. Climate change is here, devastating communities and driving up costs, but solutions are within reach. Clean energy is surging, resilience saves lives, and cooperation can still bend the curve further. 

“This is the moment to match opportunity with urgency,” said Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, calling for a decisive defeat of climate denial and faster action to keep the 1.5°C goal alive.

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“Your job here is not to fight one another – your job here is to fight this climate crisis, together,” he said. “This is the growth story of the 21st century – the economic transformation of our age.”

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In his opening address, President Lula warned that “climate change is not a threat to the future – it is a tragedy of the present.”

Citing Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean and a tornado in Paraná, the President declared this “the COP of truth,” warning that denial and delay are no longer options. “We are moving in the right direction – but at the wrong speed,” he said. “Crossing 1.5°C is a risk we cannot take.”

He went on to call strongly for an end to climate denialism, underscoring that: “In the age of disinformation, obscurantists reject not only scientific evidence but also the progress of multilateralism. They control algorithms, sow hatred, spread fear, and attack institutions, science, and universities. It is time to impose a new defeat on denialists. Without the Paris Agreement, the world would be heading toward catastrophic warming of nearly 5°C by the end of the century.”

…Read more: https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/11/1166322

Clearly we are not past the age of demonising climate skeptics.

On a positive note climate skeptics are winning, otherwise we wouldn’t occupy so much realestate in the minds of green true believers.

The reference to “control algorithms” is intriguing. I’ve said for a while that I believe Silicon Valley big tech abandoned climate activism and secretly helped President Trump win in 2024, because they desperately need a secure supply of abundant cheap energy to power their AI systems, to keep up with competitors in Asia. Is President Lula’s references to “algorithms” corroboration of this suspicion? If anyone notices green true believers lashing out at big tech in the next few weeks or months, please leave a story tip comment.

If you are interested in why AI needs so much energy, what drove big tech to abandon Democrat climate activism, the following article delves into the relationship between AI and energy.

Artificial Intelligence: A Working Demonstration, and Why Big Tech Ditched Big Green

Sweden’s pension disaster rings alarm bells for Reeves

Eighty kilometres from the Arctic Circle, Europe’s decarbonisation dream is falling apart.

A solar panel field with large wind turbines in the background under a clear blue sky.

Retirement funds face huge losses after being exposed to high-risk green projects

Eighty kilometres from the Arctic Circle, Europe’s decarbonisation dream is falling apart.

Icy towns in Sweden’s far north have found themselves at the centre of a “green rush” fuelled by promises of a new industrial frontier grounded in the clean energy revolution. The Telegraph has the story.

The Swedish government has channeled billions in pension fund savings into start-ups in the region – including the first steel mill to be built on the continent for half a century.

But after years of grandiose rhetoric, those promises appear to be disintegrating.

Two of the country’s flagship green manufacturers have run into serious financial difficulties, sparking a row over potentially eye-watering pension fund losses.

The challenges in Sweden serve as a stark warning to Rachel Reeves, the UK’s Chancellor, who is considering forcing large pension funds to invest in national assets in a bid to boost Britain’s struggling economy.

Industry leaders have warned that the move would put the Government’s objectives of the day ahead of the retirement prospects of millions of savers.

Funds exposed

Sweden helped pioneer the strategy of mobilising deep capital markets and pension funds to help finance government development goals. Unlike in Britain, a portion of Swedish workers’ state pension contributions are invested in government-controlled funds.

In the run up to the Paris Agreement, Stefan Löfven – the former Social Democrat prime minister who led a coalition government with the Greens – promised a “new green industrial revolution” that would be “as transformative as the one 250 years ago”.

Read the full story here.

COP30: The climate empire strikes back

Wednesday afternoon at the COP30 Climate Summit, the United Nations declared war on free speech and scientific inquiry.

A large group of uniformed stormtroopers standing in formation on a rugged terrain with a spaceship above them.

From CFACT

By Peter Murphy

UN pharisees are brooking no dissent to its climate narrative

Belém, Brazil

Wednesday afternoon at the COP30 Climate Summit, the United Nations declared war on free speech and scientific inquiry.

Through its Orwellian-sounding Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change, the UN pushed back hard against “climate disinformation,” which was the very purpose for establishing this UN Global Initiative in June 2025.

Specifically, the Initiative issued a “landmark declaration” that “calls on governments, the private sector, civil society, academia and funders to take concrete action to counter the growing impact of disinformation, misinformation, denialism and deliberate attacks on environmental journalists, defenders, scientists and researchers that undermine climate action and threaten societal stability.”

That’s a mouthful.

Our climate masters are getting antsy and cannot brook dissent or contrarians. “Question authority” is so … yesterday.

We at CFACT have never seen such a hysterical, ostentatious display in three decades of attending climate summits, as these masters of the planet attempt to quash dissent.

The existential climate narrative has always been accompanied by tropes such as the “science is settled” and “we’re past the time to ‘debate’ climate change.” This climate summit in Brazil is raising to a much higher level its attempt to silence free speech and scientific challenges to its climate dogma.

Accompanying Wednesday’s “declaration,” less than halfway through the conference, ten nations endorsed this attack on speech and science that refuses to accept the climate summit’s embellished, shopworn narrative. They are Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and Uruguay.

Shame on Canada and the European nations that purport to stand for democracy and freedom — until it challenges their political climate agenda — even as they welch on their financial commitments to “fight” climate change. That is, talk is cheap. These same nations, and many others expected to sign on, will never put their share of $300 billion in annual support of  UN climate funds to back up their “declaration” against dissent.

As for the others thus far, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, glomming on to squashing opposition to their climate agenda is another crass way of exacting billions of dollars from wealthier nations to redistribute to their national treasuries to finance climate projects in the developing world.

In genuine Orwellian fashion, this UN “Information Integrity” outfit invokes “international human rights law, including freedom of expression standards,” even as it attempts to stifle those of us who refuse to play along with their climate dogma.  In other words, they define “freedom of expression” as following the party line on climate — straight from the totalitarian playbook. History is replete with such examples of tyrannical doublespeak.

Wednesday’s declaration also contains this gem of calling on governments to “foster cooperation and capacity-building to address threats to information integrity” — meaning, nations must quell any challenge to the climate narrative and its control society.

The COP30 Summit’s urgency in announcing this attack on freedom, this threat to dissenters, includes this revealing nugget: “resources [are] falling short of needs globally.” This reference is about urging nations fund “research climate information integrity,” but I suspect the angst is way bigger; to wit, the wealthiest nation and the wealthiest private foundation are pulling back on funding the their climate agenda.

From his inaugural speech in January, President Trump made clear he’s defunding the “Green New Scam,” as he described, and Congress followed suit in reducing subsidies and prior financial commitments to solar, wind, and other climate schemes when it passed its Budget Reconciliation law in July.

Former Microsoft head, Bill Gates, last month renounced the “existential” climate narrative and is redirecting his vast foundation’s resources to other, more tangible and beneficial priorities in the developing world, such as fighting disease and poverty.

Rest assured, CFACT and its many organizational allies will continue to advance scientific facts about climate and counter the continuous hot-air hysterics from the UN bureaucracies and lemming nations. Their “landmark declaration” is pure posturing and will continue to be exposed.

Our monthly Climate Fact Check is but one of our many vehicles for advancing scientific truths and countering climate hysterics and groupthink. Our most recent Fact Check, issued in October, revealed peer-reviewed research that demolished the bogus claim of an increased number of “extremely hot days” this year. It also debunked the false assertion of “more intense and erratic” Indian summer monsoons, as such weather intensity has neither increased nor decreased since 1871, to cite two examples among other issues.

Attempts by the UN and its litany of NGO suppliants, corporations cashing in, and nations parroting their climate declarations will not intimidate or deter CFACT and its allies from fighting back with research, facts, and science about the nature and impacts of an ever-changing climate on our long-lasting planet.

Worst COP Ever? — The Climate Realism Show (Guest: Chris Martz) #182

On Episode #182 of The Climate Realism Show, we’ll break down what’s really happening at COP30 and what it reveals about the people who want to control every aspect of our lives to “save the planet.”

Promotional graphic for 'The Climate Realism Show' featuring the text 'WORST COP EVER!' alongside a person's image and a globe background.

Logo of The Heartland Institute, featuring a green leaf and text.

From The Heartland Institute

Is COP30 shaping up to be the worst UN climate conference ever? The 30th Conference of the Parties is underway in the Brazilian jungle — some of which was cleared and paved to bring the private jet-set and bureaucrats into the venue. And just days in, the whole thing is already descending into chaos.

A large group of angry indigenous protesters have stormed the conference, furious that the agenda left them out. Poor planning and shoddy infrastructure have led to rain leaking through light fixtures, broken air conditioning, and even problems with something as basic as toilet paper disposal.

Maybe sensing this impending farce, at least 30 major countries — including the United States — have declined to send official government delegations. We’re only a few days in, and it’s already looking like the worst COP ever. That takes some doing.

On Episode #182 of The Climate Realism Show, we’ll break down what’s really happening at COP30 and what it reveals about the people who want to control every aspect of our lives to “save the planet.”

The Heartland Institute’s Jim Lakely, Anthony Watts, Sterling Burnett, and Linnea Lueken will also cover some of the Crazy Climate News of the Week.

Join us LIVE at 1 p.m. ET on YouTube, Rumble, X, and Facebook — and jump into the live chat!

Daily Express: Starmer’s Climate Policies are Making you Poorer

“Keir Starmer just backed making you poorer – while rest of world laughed at him”

A man speaking at a podium during a climate summit, with the words 'COP30' and 'BRASIL' in the background.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

h/t MrGrimNasty – “Keir Starmer just backed making you poorer – while rest of world laughed at him”

Keir Starmer just backed making you poorer – while rest of world laughed at him

Is it any wonder our enemies on the world stage think Britain is a joke?

By Esther McVey
18:00, Mon, Nov 10, 2025

Keir Starmer jumped on a jet last week and headed to Brazil. A 12,000-mile round trip to a climate summit where he re-committed the UK to Carbon reduction targets that will further impoverish people in the UK – without making a blind bit of difference to global temperatures – and either collapse or relocate abroad our once world-leading manufacturing industries.

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Starmer’s obsession with net zero is putting a giant, self-inflicted nail in the coffin of UK PLC. …

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I had a meeting last week with the UK’s chemical industry leaders where they explained to me how a combination of high energy prices, environmental regulation and carbon prices were killing the sector and, worse still, destroying critical supply chains and making us dependent on China for chemicals for even the most basic of things like purifying our water.

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How ironic that Labour used to be the party that championed heavy industry and the working-class, whereas now it’s consigning those workers to the dole queue.

…Read more: https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2132117/keir-starmer-make-you-poorer

You might wonder at the complacency of labor unions in the face of job losses and industry shutdowns, but I received some insight into this paradox from a speech by far left British politician George Galloway, who explained why unions were so open to climate alarmism – from memory his words were “Corporations have stuffed up everything else, so why not the environment and the planet as well?”.

I suspect what remains of climate support in the UK hinges on people like Galloway. Galloway is a skilful public speaker, who once appeared before the US senate and put on a strong performance, answering questions about his relationship with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. If people like Galloway ever turn on the climate movement, what is left of the climate consensus in Britain will collapse.

New Study Suggests CO2 Levels Were Necessarily as High as Today 10,000 Years Ago

It is widely acknowledged that the enhanced CO2 fertilization effect due to the modern rise in atmospheric CO2 is the predominant driver of the dramatic increases in global greening, or “gross primary production” (GPP). Global greening attribution estimates for CO2 fertilization range from 70% (Zhu et al., 2016) to 86% (Haverd et al., 2020).

Animated map showing global land cover and vegetation distribution, highlighting areas of greening in relation to CO2 levels.

From No Trick Zone

By Kenneth Richard

It is widely acknowledged that the enhanced CO2 fertilization effect due to the modern rise in atmospheric CO2 is the predominant driver of the dramatic increases in global greening, or “gross primary production” (GPP). Global greening attribution estimates for CO2 fertilization range from 70% (Zhu et al., 2016) to 86% (Haverd et al., 2020).

As noted in a new study, Earth is thought to have been much greener than today during the Early Holocene (10,000 years ago), with over 50% more forest cover.

Since an increase in the CO2 concentration is recognized as the most dominant factor in greening, it would not be consistent with what we know about the requisite physics of GPP (CO2 residence time, water and nutrient availability, the diminishing returns effect of CO2 fertilization) to assume the lower levels of CO2 (under 300 ppm) suggested by Antarctic ice core records are accurate reflections of the actual CO2 levels from 10,000 years ago.

To achieve the high levels of Early Holocene greenness, CO2 levels needed to be as high or higher than today’s 420 ppm at that time too. The Earth could not have been as green as it was back then with atmospheric CO2 concentrations of only 280 ppm or less.

“Employing Mitscherlich’s Law, the research models the global GPP response to increasing CO₂, based on the mean value of eight different long-term GPP datasets. It illustrates a diminishing return of vegetation associated with rising CO₂, as additional factors such as nutrient and water availability impose constraints on the fertilization effect. Due to this diminishing return the average residence time of CO₂ in the atmosphere increases significantly with higher GPP values. High CO₂ levels, similar to today’s, were therefore necessary for comparable GPP during green periods like 10,000 years ago. A CO₂ concentration of 280 ppm would only be possible if nature’s response to CO₂ were fundamentally different from what we observe today, with other constraining factors exceptionally more favorable.”

Interestingly, a chart from the paper uses the IPCC’s carbon cycle estimations to asses nature’s CO2 emission rates have risen 4 times more (+44 GtC/year net, or from +166 GtC/year in 1750 to +210 GtC/year in 2022) than human emissions rates have (from 0 GtC/year in 1750 to +11 GtC/year today). Since Earth’s natural sinks don’t distinguish between natural vs. human CO2 emissions, the bulk of the modern increase in CO2 can be said to have been derived from rising natural CO2 emissions, not human activity.

A research paper discusses historical CO2 levels during periods of global greening, highlighting the correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and vegetation growth. It includes charts and data on CO2 emissions from natural and anthropogenic sources, emphasizing the need for higher CO2 levels in the Early Holocene to explain increased forest cover.
Image Source: Schrijver, 2025

Ed Miliband flies to Brazil climate conference twice

Ed Miliband is making two identical 12,000-mile round trips to attend the UN climate summit in Brazil.

A group of men in suits disembarking from a private jet, with one man speaking on a phone while another approaches a black vehicle.

Energy Secretary racking up 24,000 air miles between Britain and Cop30

Ed Miliband is making two identical 12,000-mile round trips to attend the UN climate summit in Brazil.

The Energy Secretary joined world leaders in Belem last week for the Cop30 conference but has since returned to the UK. The Telegraph has the story.

Yet the former Labour leader, 55, who recently warned that the British way of life was “under threat” because of climate change, will fly back to Brazil on Saturday to continue negotiations.

The Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) insisted that “any emissions from attending Cop are dwarfed by delivering our agenda,” but Tories have accused the minister of hypocrisy.

Claire Coutinho, the shadow Energy Secretary, told the Daily Mail: “It is beyond parody that Ed Miliband is flying halfway across the world and back not once, but twice, all while lecturing the rest of us in the name of saving the planet.

“While Ed jets off again to the forest-thinning climate jamboree in Brazil, closer to home it’s ordinary Brits who are suffering thanks to his policies, which are pushing up everyone’s energy bills.”

The newspaper reported that Mr Miliband’s four-leg plane journeys are costing the taxpayer an estimated £22,000 and creating around six tons of CO2 emissions.

At the conference last week, where he was joined by Sir Keir Starmer and the Prince of Wales, Mr Miliband called for further action to tackle climate change.

“The world is moving on climate and clean energy, but it needs to move faster,” he told The Times.

He added: “The action and the atmosphere at this summit, in my view, already demonstrates that the doubters are wrong. The vast majority of the world continues to act on clean energy.”

Read the full story here.