Climate change hysteria continues to escalate in our world, and the consequences are dire. Climate alarmists claim that severe weather will increase, millions of human lives will be lost, species of animals and plants will go extinct and Earth will become a boiling, burning inferno if climate change is not stopped.
To that end, governments pledged billions of dollars at the December 2023 COP28 climate change conference in Dubai. COP28 is short for the official title—the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Each year, a different country hosts this meeting as the U.N. promotes its climate change agenda to the world. The decisions made at COP each year are far-reaching since almost every country in the world is a member of this conference.
The U.N. estimated nearly 85,000 people from around the world attended COP28 in Dubai, making it the largest number to ever attend this conference, and twice as many people as attended the summit in Egypt last year.
What Were the Goals?
Leading up to COP28, the U.N. urged countries to address climate change by committing financial resources to help developing countries battle climate change. To motivate the world to pick up the pace, the U.N. stated, “The window for meaningful change is closing, and the time to act is now.” What “window” is the U.N. referring to? “[W]e are not on track to limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius.”
Why do climate change activists emphasize 1.5° Celsius? “There is a shrinking window of opportunity to address the climate crisis. Average global temperature is currently estimated to be 1.1°C above pre-industrial times,” says the Green Climate Fund’s official website. “Based on existing trends, the world could cross the 1.5°C threshold within the next two decades and 2°C threshold early during the second half of the century.”
The Green Climate Fund was established as part of the Paris Climate Agreement. This international climate fund argues, “Limiting global warming to 1.5°C is still narrowly possible and will be determined by the investment decisions we make over the next decade.”
What kind of global changes did COP28 participants call for? Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is outspoken in his impassioned pleas to stop global climate change. At COP28, he voiced his concerns about the direction the COP is headed and its ability to make significant strides toward global climate change. “If there is an agreement to phase out fossil fuels, it will be a success. If there’s not, it will be a failure,” stated Al Gore.
What Decisions Were Made?
Did COP28 produce the kind of statement Gore considered essential to the success of the conference?
Typical of political posturing, COP28 produced an ambiguous advisory document, not a policy statement, about phasing out fossil fuels. No hard and fast deadlines or action steps were provided. Oil and gas companies pledged to decarbonize operations instead of reducing the production of fossil fuels. Gore considers the COP28 inaction toward phasing out fossil fuels to be one of the biggest failures in human history.
Although COP28 failed to produce the kind of climate change action Al Gore demanded, world governments pledged billions of dollars to various COP funds. Current U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris attended COP28 and pledged $3 billion from American taxpayers to the Green Climate Fund and another $17.5 million into a climate reparations fund. “Since day one, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and the entire Biden-Harris Administration have treated climate change as the existential threat of our time,” said a Dec. 15, 2023, White House press release.
Where Is This Money Going?
The funds for the climate reparations are a pseudo-tax on first-world countries. Consider the logic: since first-world countries like America built their countries by using methods that emitted carbon dioxide, they are responsible for paying climate reparations to developing countries that are “suffering” the effects of carbon dioxide emissions. Thus, the U.S. government pledged $17.5 million to the reparations fund.
The $3 billion pledged to the Green Climate Fund will be used for all things climate change. Similar to the climate reparations fund, the GCF is a guilt-driven response by first-world countries for its perceived role in climate change.
Is Earth Facing a Climate Crisis?
Behind the billions of dollars pledged to combat climate change is a major worldview assumption: Earth is facing an existential climate crisis and humans are to blame. But is this true?
Contrary to what many climate change activists claim, the science of climate change is far from settled. Climate science is a relatively new field of study and much of the complex climate data we have goes back only to the 1970s when some groundbreaking equipment allowed scientists to measure temperature change more accurately and widely. Scientists readily admit there is much about the climate and weather that remains unknown at present.
Climate Change Is Constantly Changing
The term “climate change” is vague. The fact is the climate is constantly changing. Earth has witnessed warming and cooling trends. Scientists Jessica DeFord and Avery Foley write in an article titled “Climate Alarmism: Five Scientific Reasons Not to Panic About Climate Change,” “historical records indicate there were several warm periods including the medieval warm period (MWP) between AD 900 and 1300 in which people were able to farm in Greenland—an area currently covered in ice.”
DeFord and Foley argue that contrary to climate hysteria, warmer is better. Plant life thrives in warmer weather, so crops have more time to grow and agricultural production increases significantly. Colder weather cuts the growing seasons short and could lead to food shortages.
Even if the world governments that joined the Paris Climate Agreement spend billions of dollars to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to keep global warming below 2° Celsius over pre-industrial revolution levels, they will not meet their goals.
DeFord and Foley state, “Assuming projections of this climate agreement are correct, full compliance would reduce the global average temperature by only 0.17°C by 2100. Realistically, such a small number has zero impact on the environment and human well-being. Now, the cost of the PCA, according to backers, is one to two trillion dollars per year from 2030 to the end of the century ($70-140 trillion total). That means a cost of $23.3-46.6 trillion per 1/10°F in warming reduction. The benefits don’t justify the costs!”
Carbon dioxide is the targeted enemy of many climate change activists. “But research has shown that a doubling of the CO2 concentration can increase plant-growth efficiency,” writes DeFord and Foley. “Increased CO2 also reduces stress to plant health and increases plant water retention and crop yield. The result is more food for everything that eats plants and everything that eats something that eats plants. For us, that means more abundant, and therefore cheaper, food.”
Bad Ideas Have Bad Consequences
Climate change alarmism doesn’t merely cost taxpayers billions of dollars, this worldview impacts lives. Fear is the motivational tool of choice in all climate change messaging. Climate alarmist messengers continue to predict the soon collapse of Earth without urgent and significant changes.
The outworking of this line of thinking impacts more than taxes, bank accounts, and food supply. There is an existential threat to the human race. Ironically, the existential threat is climate change logic working itself out in the daily lives of its adherents.
On November 20, 2023, The New Yorker magazine published an article titled, “The Morality of Having Kids in a Burning, Drowning World.” This piece is a review of two books that question the ethics of “procreation in the age of man-made climate change.” The author argues that it is presumptive, if not downright immoral, to have children when their impact on the planet will make it less livable for other life forms.
Fear, guilt, and dread of the predicted climate apocalypse are altering people’s lives and families forever. Ultimately this is a spiritual worldview issue. When one begins with the wrong worldview, worship is directed to creation instead of the Creator, and the consequences are dire. On the other hand, when one begins with the proper worldview, worship is directed to the Creator God, and fear, guilt, and dread of the future melt away.
The biblical worldview teaches that “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1). God entrusted humanity as caretakers of Earth. A biblical worldview is not an excuse for trashing the planet; rather, it is a call to properly manage the resources God has blessed us with. Proper science reveals the Creator and how humanity can best care for His creation.
Pastor Larry Spargimino recently said on SWRC’s Watchman on the Wall program that Bible prophecy never mentions a time when humans will destroy planet Earth. Bible prophecy reveals that God will make all things new.
There is no need for climate hysteria because Earth’s climate was designed by an all-knowing God. He is governing the universe according to His perfect plan.