COP30 round-up: Failure of a UN Climate Summit great news for humanity
By Marc Morano
Real Clear Wire
Thank You, Mr. President.
Trump’s masterclass move not to send U.S. delegation, blamed (credited) for the failure of UN climate summit COP30! POLITICO reported that the ‘U.S. absence allowed’ BRICS nations “to team up with petrostates, isolating the more green-oriented European Union and refusing to countenance even a reiteration of past deals to end fossil fuels.”
The UN COP30 failure was so spectacular that even the mainstream media could not paper over it. POLITICO cited a European government official asking: ‘What the (heck) are we even doing here?’ A great question indeed.
I have attended in-person 21 out of the past 23 international UN climate/environmental summits. I can declare that after spending a week in Brazil at COP30, it was the biggest UN climate crap-show ever. President Trump chose not to send an official U.S. delegation to the UN climate summit for the first time in its history.
COP30 morphed into Clear-Cut30 as tens of thousands of acres of Amazon rainforest were cleared for the summit’s climate highway. Massive energy-intensive cruise ships served as temporary hotels for delegates, while hamburgers, chicken, and other beef products were sold out at the UN food court (why were there no insects on the menu?), and the venue suffered from leaking and crumbling infrastructure.
The conference morphed into CRAP30 when the toilets failed, with world leaders going hours without access to bathrooms, and eventually leading to long lines with no toilet paper allowed in the conference center toilets. The conference then morphed into Combustion30 as it succumbed to a massive fire that shut down the entire summit. A blaze spread through the hastily built temporary venue, which felt like a windowless circus tent inside.
With any U.S. delegation absent from the meeting, China reveled in playing the role of “climate hero” in order to suck up all of the gullible countries that are deluded enough to empower China further. China sent the second largest delegation to the UN climate Summit in Brazil and had a massive pavilion complete with Chinese flags, books by Xi Jinping and standing room only media events — thus proving accurate the 2012 tweet by Trump warning that ‘global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.’
Bill Gates’ newfound climate skepticism also loomed over the summit. Gates declared just days before COP30, that climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” and rejected a “doomsday outlook. This angered Al Gore, who showed up in Brazil to call Gates ‘silly’ and declared Gates a bully victim of President Trump.
Despite the entire UN climate agenda warning about the evils and the huge carbon footprint of air-conditioning, Bloomberg News quoted a top UN official screaming for colder air-conditioning at the summit. You would think that the UN, which is trying to manage energy economies centuries into the future, would’ve been able to plan a climate summit that included adequate air-conditioning, functioning toilets, and insects on the menu.
UN climate agenda flushed ‘down the toilet’
President Trump has seemingly left the global climate movement in shambles. The NY Times in September 2025, revealed that the “‘old climate-activism playbook no longer works” and that under Trump, the climate movement has entered “a uniquely bleak time…the future is cloudier than ever.”
Longtime environmental activist Denis Hayes lamented: “Everything that I’ve worked on in my entire professional life has gone down the toilet in the last six months.”
But, as we celebrate a failing UN climate process, we must also recognize that it may come back, just like Jason in any "Friday the 13th" film. President Trump needs to finish off the UN climate agenda with one more bold action: Withdraw from the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or the Rio Earth Summit Treaty signed by then-GOP President George H.W. Bush in 1992 and ratified by the U.S. Senate.
Vacating this treaty would give permanence to Trump’s agenda and free America from this 33-year-old UN climate terror campaign.
As POLITICO reported on May 14, 2025: “During his first term, Trump declined to exit the UNFCCC, which the Democratic-led Senate had ratified during George H.W. Bush’s presidency following the ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio de Janeiro.”
“If Trump does pull the country out of the framework, it could be difficult for a new president to undo. Joining a treaty requires a two-thirds Senate vote — a high hurdle even in less polarized times,” Politico reported.
Trump 2.0’s climate legacy could become permanent, making it very difficult for a future President, AOC, or Gavin Newsom to get the U.S. back into the UN climate fiasco.
Mr. President, tear up this treaty.
Trump 2.0 is poised to strike a fatal blow to the climate hold that has been oppressing America these past 33 years.
While the teeth gnashing over the COP FLOP continues, we must never forget: Failure of a UN climate summit is great news for humanity.
Marc Morano is publisher of CFACT’s Climate Depot and Former Senior Staff U.S. Senate Environment & Public Works Committee.
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