Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
They tried it with CLIMATE. They tried it with COVID. It’s all about CONTROL.
Now, they’re coming for PLASTIC.
Plastic is the great equalizer that made affordable goods available to all. Plastic is so ubiquitous, however, that the Left determined that if they can get a piece of it, they control everything.
In a statement, Uthmeier said, “Environmental groups are pressuring corporations to abandon free market principles and raise prices on consumers for products they don’t want.”
“Contrary to what green activists would like the public to believe,” Mooney reports, “plastics come with significant benefits as a direct result of human innovation. They keep food fresh, alleviate waste, make products lighter and therefore more affordable. They also contribute to life-saving medical devices.
“If environmental activists turned government bureaucrats were genuinely interested in environmental improvements, they would focus on more efficient waste management, enhanced recycling infrastructure, and biodegradable innovations. But none of those solutions are on the table. Instead, the radicals push a top-down policy approach that suffocates the free market.”
Mooney quotes CFACT’s own Bonner Cohen saying, “What needs to be understood about ‘sustainable development’ is that what is being peddled is itself unsustainable. Absent government mandates, industry collusion, and interminable lawsuits, the alternatives to plastics could not stand on their own two feet. The marketplace, which reflects consumer preferences, is the best place to separate the sheep from the goats. Just as the PC vanquished the electric typewriter, and internet transmissions quashed the fax machine, superior products prevail over inferior ones. But this is an arena the anti-plastics lobby does not dare to enter. They know they will lose. Florida’s attorney general sees this game for what it is and is to be applauded for taking appropriate action. May other state AGs follow his example.”
CFACT’s Melanie Collette concludes that, “The message to the environmental, social, and governance establishment is becoming clear: If your “voluntary” frameworks function as mechanisms for coordinating market behavior and suppressing competition, then state attorneys general are prepared to treat them that way.”
Public officials such as AG Uthmeier have had enough of false flag Green operations designed to accomplish nothing except the expansion of left-wing funding and control.
People cannot afford another phony Green crusade.
CFACT has been pushing back against the Left’s moves to control business through schemes such as climate, DEI, and ESG. CFACT’s Nate Myers just nailed three big energy companies during their annual shareholder meetings and demanded answers. Here’s the full story.
According to Reuters, the European Union has finally agreed on a watered-down climate target for 2040 after a long night of political wrangling in Brussels. The headline might read like a victory for European unity, but the story beneath it tells us something quite different: Europe’s climate ambitions are fraying at the edges, caught between utopian promises and economic realities.
According to Reuters, the European Union has finally agreed on a watered-down climate target for 2040 after a long night of political wrangling in Brussels. The headline might read like a victory for European unity, but the story beneath it tells us something quite different: Europe’s climate ambitions are fraying at the edges, caught between utopian promises and economic realities.
The deal, struck just before the COP30 summit in Brazil, calls for a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 compared to 1990 levels. But that number, bold as it sounds, hides a series of escape hatches. Ministers agreed that up to 5% of the reduction could be achieved by purchasing foreign carbon credits — paying other countries to cut emissions on Europe’s behalf. That means European industries will only need to achieve an actual 85% domestic reduction.
In a particularly revealing twist, the EU also agreed to “consider” using another 5% worth of international credits in the future, which would effectively soften the target even more. For all practical purposes, the “90%” headline figure is now little more than political theater, designed to placate activists and bureaucrats alike while leaving ample room for economic pragmatism.
As Danish Climate Minister Lars Aagaard put it, “Setting a climate target is not just picking a number, it is a political decision with far-reaching consequences for the continent.” He added that the goal had to be “reached in a way that preserves competitiveness, social balance, and security.” Those are not the words of a man leading a crusade against carbon — they are the words of a politician trying to keep factories open and voters fed.
Reuters reports that some nations, like Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, resisted the 2040 target altogether, citing concerns about the damage to industrial competitiveness. Their opposition was ultimately overruled, but the dissent underscores an important point: the European project of “leading the world” on climate action is now colliding with the hard wall of economic reality.
In another concession, the launch of a new EU carbon market was delayed until 2028 — a move clearly meant to soothe anxious member states wary of rising costs. And it’s not hard to see why. European manufacturers are already facing high energy prices, supply chain disruptions, and competition from cheaper Chinese imports and U.S. goods. Piling on another layer of climate regulation was bound to push some of them over the edge.
Originally, the European Commission had proposed a stricter framework: a 90% domestic emissions cut with only 3% flexibility through carbon credits. Its own scientific advisers had warned against buying foreign CO₂ offsets, arguing that such schemes “divert much-needed investments away from European industries.” But those warnings were ignored once the political negotiations began.
Countries like France and Portugal lobbied for a 5% carbon-credit loophole, while Poland and Italy wanted as much as 10%. The divide reveals a truth that climate idealists prefer to ignore: for many governments, the rhetoric of decarbonization stops where industrial survival begins. As Polish Deputy Climate Minister Krzysztof Bolesta said bluntly, “We don’t want to destroy the economy. We don’t want to destroy the climate. We want to save both at the same time”.
In practice, that means the EU’s vaunted “science-based” targets are being reshaped not by scientists but by accountants and trade ministers. The bloc’s independent climate panel might say that only full domestic reductions count as “in line with science,” but policymakers have different priorities — especially when those scientific models come with astronomical costs and uncertain benefits.
The backdrop to this entire debate is telling. The article notes that COP30 will “test the will of major economies to keep fighting climate change in the face of opposition from U.S. President Donald Trump.” Once again, climate politics are framed as a moral contest — a clash between the virtuous and the heretical. Yet the very fact that the EU felt compelled to weaken its target betrays an uncomfortable truth: even Europe’s political class recognizes the limits of its green crusade.
This is the inevitable outcome of treating energy policy like a theology rather than a trade-off. The Green Deal promised both economic growth and deep decarbonization, but now member states are realizing they can’t have both. You can’t tax, regulate, and subsidize your way to prosperity while deliberately strangling your cheapest and most reliable energy sources.
The European ministers’ midnight compromise, for all its flaws, may actually be the first sign of sanity creeping back into the conversation. After years of posturing about “net zero at any cost,” the bloc is now quietly admitting that there are costs — and they’re steep. The carbon-credit loopholes, the delayed market mechanisms, the vague promises to “consider” future adjustments — all of these are political ways of saying the same thing: the dream is shrinking to fit the budget.
According to Reuters, some governments still argued for keeping the higher targets on the grounds that worsening extreme weather “requires ambitious goals” and that Europe must “catch up with China” in green manufacturing. Yet even those appeals ring hollow when one recalls that China’s emissions continue to rise year after year, with new coal plants opening monthly. “Catching up with China” in green manufacturing sounds noble, until you realize it means subsidizing expensive technologies to compete with a country that has no intention of playing by the same rules.
The EU’s decision is, therefore, less a triumph of diplomacy than a quiet admission of failure — or, more charitably, a long-overdue encounter with economic gravity. Europe has been trying to lead the world into a low-carbon future for three decades now, and what it has mostly achieved is higher energy prices, shuttered industries, and rising political discontent. Each new “target” merely pushes the problem further down the road, to be redefined again in another crisis meeting years later.
When Lars Aagaard said the EU must balance “competitiveness, social balance, and security,” he was describing the real hierarchy of priorities — one that climate idealists pretend doesn’t exist. Those words, buried in the middle of a Reuters dispatch, are far more honest than any of the slogans that will be shouted at COP30.
The lesson here is simple: reality always wins. You can promise 90% cuts, 100% renewables, or net-zero utopia, but in the end, the factories must run, the lights must stay on, and people must be able to afford to live. The EU’s new “weakened” climate target isn’t a betrayal of the cause — it’s a confession that the cause was unrealistic from the start.
If the architects of Europe’s climate policy truly want to save both the economy and the environment, they might start by abandoning the illusion that central planners can fine-tune the global climate through accounting tricks and summit speeches. The world does not bend to political deadlines, and the atmosphere doesn’t respond to press releases. It’s time policymakers did.
The United States is increasing pressure on its European allies to weaken or completely roll back regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, part of the Trump administration’s broader attempt to undermine international efforts to tackle climate change.
The United States is increasing pressure on its European allies to weaken or completely roll back regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, part of the Trump administration’s broader attempt to undermine international efforts to tackle climate change.
President Donald Trump has long dismissed concerns about climate change as well as the effects of greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, urging European leaders to also abandon their green crusade.
Since his first day in office, Trump has pushed for the U.S. to step back from climate change discussions on the international stage, pulling the country out of the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement for a second time.
The administration also moved to pull the U.S. from discussions with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in February, ordering federal scientists to halt work on all climate assessment-related activities.
More recently, Trump and his Cabinet have taken aim at several European Union- and United Nations-backed climate-focused rules and regulations.
While EU leaders have publicly defended these policies, vowing not to roll them back completely, ramped up pressure from the Trump administration appears to have created more wiggle room in some negotiations.
The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive
Just this week, the Department of Energy sent a letter to EU officials urging the bloc to roll back the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.
This directive, set to take effect for some companies in 2027, would require those affected to provide reports on ESG effects and establish liability for ESG violations. The primary aim of the rule is to limit harm to the environment and human rights throughout EU and non-EU supply chains.
Under the current language, companies that fail to comply with the regulations will face a fine of 5% of the company’s global net turnover.
The rule has been heavily criticized by U.S.-based companies, who claim it would cause major barriers to trade between the U.S. and the EU.
“[T]he CSDDD, as it is worded today, poses a significant risk to the affordability and reliability of critical energy supplies for households and businesses across Europe and an existential threat to the future growth, competitiveness, and resilience of the EU’s industrial economy,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright wrote in the letter sent this week, which was cosigned by the Qatari government.
However, while the EU has given no indication that it plans to walk back the directive, European officials appear willing to negotiate some provisions.
Earlier this week, the European Parliament said it would further negotiate changes to the rule during a scheduled vote and hopes to finalize any amendments by the end of the year.
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