For nearly 30 years, the world has poured more than $10 trillion into renewable energy — solar panels, wind farms, subsidies, mandates, the whole green enchilada — under the banner of UN climate COP meetings and the relentless push for net zero. The result? Atmospheric CO2 keeps climbing relentlessly, with no detectable bend in the curve, no meaningful slowdown in global emissions trends, and certainly no reversal of supposed warming that alarmists promised would be catastrophic without drastic action; the world should have ended by now from their past predictions. This isn't a minor setback; it's a colossal policy failure by any honest metric, even within the alarmist framework that claims every fraction of a degree matters.
The numbers don't lie. Since the UNFCCC kicked off in 1992 and COP meetings became annual rituals drawing tens of thousands of bureaucrats, activists, and virtue-signallers, global CO2 concentrations have risen steadily — NOAA data shows no inflection point, no "thanks to renewables" plateau. Coal consumption hit all-time highs in 2024, providing 34% of world electricity, with over 6,500 plants operating and more than 1,000 in planning or construction. Oil and gas demand? Still projected to grow through 2050 per IEA's own scenarios. Meanwhile, developing nations — home to billions without reliable power — can't afford the luxury of intermittent wind and solar when they need dispatchable energy to lift people out of poverty. About 700 million lack electricity entirely, and two billion face frequent blackouts. The Green agenda has done nothing to fix that; if anything, it diverts resources from real development.
Even the vaunted "transition" is crumbling under its own weight. Big Oil majors like BP and Shell launched splashy green campaigns — BP's $200 million push in 2020 — but quietly scaled back renewables investments because returns hover around 6% versus over 10% for fossil fuels. ESG and net-zero commitments? They're evaporating. Financial giants are bailing from alliances like the Net Zero Banking Alliance after political backlash, especially post-Trump's re-election and Republican state-level pushback. Tech titans pouring $380 billion into AI infrastructure in 2024 aren't betting on unreliable renewables — they're turning to natural gas and nuclear for 24/7 power. Google's emissions jumped 48% in recent years thanks to AI demands. Intermittent sources can't handle that load without massive, expensive backups.
From a climate-critical standpoint, this exposes the fundamental scam: The trillions spent haven't bent the emissions curve because renewables aren't replacing fossil fuels at scale — they're adding marginal, unreliable capacity on top of growing demand. Wind and solar are great when the sun shines or wind blows, but grids need baseload power. The result? Higher energy costs, blackouts in places pushing too hard (parts of Europe and California), and no climate payoff. Bill Gates himself has shifted tone, criticising the "doomsday outlook" and urging focus on preventing suffering in poor countries rather than obsessive near-term emissions cuts.
The human cost is staggering. Forcing high-cost, low-output renewables on the grid drives up electricity prices, hurting the poorest first. In developing nations, denying access to cheap coal or gas condemns millions to energy poverty. Even in the West, policies chase illusory temperature drops while real threats, like reliable power for hospitals, homes, and industry, get sidelined. Adaptation, not mitigation fantasies, has always been how humanity thrives through climate variability.
The COP circus — endless meetings, declarations, and trillions funnelled into a failing experiment — has achieved one thing: massive wealth transfer from taxpayers and consumers to green cronies and virtue-signalling corporations, with zero evidence of climate impact. CO2 marches upward; temperatures fluctuate as they always have; extreme weather shows no clear long-term spike attributable to emissions trends. It's time to admit the Green agenda is a trillion-dollar boondoggle that enriches a few while impoverishing many and doing squat for the planet.
Patriots and realists know the score: Affordable, abundant energy from all sources, including fossil fuels, nuclear, and yes, renewables where they make economic sense, is the path to prosperity and resilience. Ditch the net-zero cult, embrace energy realism, and watch living standards soar without the climate hysteria. The data is in, the experiment failed spectacularly. Time to move on.