Biden Administration Slammed for Signing Away $1 Billion in Climate Reparations

Biden Administration Slammed for Signing Away $1 Billion in Climate Reparations

When I wrote about the climate “loss and damage pact” yesterday, I noted that Climate Czar John Kerry distanced himself from the term “reparations.”

The US and other developed nations have long sought to avoid such provisions that could open them up to legal liability and lawsuits from other countries. And in previous public remarks, US Climate Envoy John Kerry had said loss and damage was not the same thing as climate reparations.

“‘Reparations’ is not a word or a term that has been used in this context,” Kerry said on a recent call with reporters earlier this month. He added: “We have always said that it is imperative for the developed world to help the developing world to deal with the impacts of climate.”

Details on how the fund would operate remain murky. The text leaves a lot of questions on when it will be finalized and become operational, and how exactly it would be funded. The text also mentions a transitional committee that will help nail down those details, but doesn’t set specific future deadlines.

It turns out I wasn’t the only one who concluded that the fund is, indeed, reparations. The Wall Street Editorial Board slammed the Biden administration for agreeing to this inanity.

In return for climate reparations, Mr. Kerry tried to force an agreement to phase down “unabated” fossil fuels. Low-income countries understandably refused since doing so would consign their citizens to poverty. The Biden climate agenda has increased energy prices in the U.S., and the climate lobby doesn’t mind if this misery spreads around the world.

Details about the reparations fund—such as which countries will pay, how much, and which countries will benefit—will be fleshed out over the next year. Biden officials claim the agreement doesn’t create new liabilities for Americans. But the U.S. and Europe are conceding the principle that their emissions cause climate damage even though there isn’t a definitive link between rising CO2 levels and natural disasters such as the monsoon flooding in Pakistan this year.

All of this ignores the benefits for humanity, rich and poor, that economic growth spurred by capitalism have provided. American taxpayers are being asked to pay because the U.S. industrialized first and then lifted billions of people out of poverty via investment and trade.

The New York Post Editorial Board was just as disparaging. It noted that the funds would likely end up going to the politically connected and encouraged the new Republican majority in Congress to nix the funding before a penny is sent.

No matter that Western nations already ship billions to poorer ones, in the form of general economic aid and to promote climate measures. Nor are most of the Third World “climate-caused disasters” clearly that: It’s just that global media, fully on board with the hysteria, refuse to check the favored narrative.

Nor will average citizens of countries that get funds likely ever see a cent of the new aid themselves: The narrative demands ignoring how their kleptocratic leaders behave. These countries count as “victims,” so no questions can be asked.

Americans have suffered enough thanks to green-agenda idiocy at home: Limiting fossil-fuel production, despite a lack of viable alternatives, has energy prices skyrocketing, while most green subsidies amount to nothing more than corporate welfare.

Republicans, who now narrowly control the House, need to block any US money from being shipped out to fund “climate reparations.”

Fox Business pundit Larry Kudlow notes that the US is already a world leader in emission reductions.

Now, for the umpteenth time, I will note that the U.S. is the world leader — at least among the advanced countries — world leader in reducing carbon emissions — by far. We will talk to climate scientist Bjorn Lomborg later in the show, who has steadfastly argued that the poor countries would like as much energy as they can to improve their poverty-stricken economies. Most of them would very much like to have oil and gas power, including fertilizer to solve the plague of food scarcity.

In fact, most of the low-income countries have no interest in abolishing fossil fuels. They’re way smarter than Mr. Kerry and his radical New Green Deal followers. Heck, even Germany and the European Union has now relabeled natural gas as a clean-burning green fuel. In other words, the European greenies are a lot smarter than the U.S. greenies.

There is one upside to the agreement if the funding goes through: By the time Bidenflation hits its maximum level, that $1 billion dollars will be as worthless as the United Nations and its “loss and damage” pact.

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