Authoritarians Are on the March in the Name of Climate Change

A very funny meme targeting the energy transition and the authoritarians pushing it circulated across social media over the Christmas weekend. The meme features a young woman with European features who one could easily imagine chairing a propaganda session at the just-concluded COP28 or next month’s annual World Economic Forum conference, holding out her hands as if to ward off an assault and saying, “Calm down. We’re only doing fascism until we solve climate change.”

Unfortunately, as is the case with any good parody humor, the meme is only funny because it is so tellingly accurate. To see how accurate it really is, all one must do is pay attention to what the energy transition movement’s most prominent advocates say in their public pronouncements.

Take Biden Climate Envoy John Kerry as a prime example. As I pointed out in a recent piece here, Mr. Kerry was neither elected nor formally confirmed by the U.S. Senate to his ornamental position, and thus has no real authority to commit the United States to any international agreement. Yet, during COP28, Kerry announced he had committed the US government to become a signatory to a multi-national deal to ban unabated coal-fired power plants. That’s an authoritarian edict, plain and simple.