Climate ‘Catastrophe’ or Another Taxpayer-Funded Junket?

What Happened?

There’s nothing like a climate conference to get the airplane engines whirring.

According to the Carbon Brief website, more than 65,000 delegates registered to attend the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. It lasted from November 11^th through to today.

The ‘climate catastrophe’ folks from Brazil sent 1,914 delegates, Turkey sent 1,862, and the United Kingdom sent 470. The U.S. sent 405 delegates, representing more than 20 government departments and agencies, according to the State Department website.

So, what will it all achieve? If history is anything to go by, not much.

Why it Matters

We don’t have a science background to know if the ‘climate crisis’ is a genuine threat or not.

But we do have common sense. So we know that sending 65,000 delegates to one of the most inconvenient travel destinations in the world, is unlikely to solve anything.

Furthermore, the fact this summit is the COP29 edition, tells you there have been 28 previous summits. The first was held in Berlin in 1995.

Nearly 30 years later, and the summits have just gotten bigger and bigger… and longer.

The truth is that these events aren’t really about solving any actual or perceived problems. The real purpose is to exert control over domestic populations and to create economic and military alliances overseas.

By promising to ‘do something’, governments have cover to increase taxes and debt — after all, it’s for a crucial cause. They also have the opportunity to spend tax dollars on ‘foreign aid’, which typically ends up in the pockets of corrupt leaders, in order to gain and maintain influence in various corners of the globe.

The extent of how the United Nations wants to ensure an ongoing money-flow, is the fact that it has a target for governments to contribute $100 billion per year to the UN to ‘fight’ climate change.

And all of it without any external oversight for how it would spend the money.

How it Affects You

It’s already affecting people around the world, including in the United States. Higher taxes and higher inflation are all partly due to the desire by governments to spend more on climate change.

Energy costs have risen because governments have closed coal and gas power stations, assuming that renewables can easily fill the space.

Grocery prices have risen as the cost of transport has gone up… because again, energy prices have risen.

So, is there a way to minimise the impact? We believe so. Investors should allocate part of their investment portfolio into assets that appreciate as inflation continues to rise. Real estate and gold have traditionally worked well — over the long term.

Others say that Bitcoin has become a new way to protect against inflation, also over the long term. But it’s a relatively new asset class, so time will tell if that’s true.