From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

“… the delayers and defeatists are losing the climate fight …”

We delivered a clear message at Cop30: the delayers and defeatists are losing the climate fight

Ed Miliband
Mon 24 Nov 2025 04.57 AEDT

For all its flaws, the Brazil conference underlined the wish by a global majority for clean energy and climate action – and the UK will keep leading the way

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It is true that Britain wanted more from this Cop, including details of how we would speed up the global energy transition through an agreement that explicitly pledged a roadmap for the transition away from fossil fuels. This didn’t happen because some countries would not agree.

Yet on this issue, we have seen the emergence of an impressive coalition of 83 countries from the global north and global south, backed by more than 140 global businesses and civil society groups. And Brazil will launch a roadmap to help countries transition away from fossil fuels and scale up clean energy.

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The message coming out of Belém was clear: despite the noise, clean energy and climate action remain the foundation on which the global economy is being remade and rebuilt. We are up against the march of time and massive global forces that would slow down or stop action. In the face of this opposition, multilateralism is our best hope. For all its flaws, Cop has reaffirmed the belief of the vast majority of the world in this ideal. Those who would deny or prevent action are not winning the argument, they are losing.

…Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/23/cop30-ed-miliband-climate-change-brazil-conference-clean-energy

Miliband’s analysis of COP30 is, how shall I put it, a bit of an outlier.

UN warns world losing climate battle but fragile Cop30 deal keeps up the fight

Reaching agreement in divisive political landscape shows ‘climate cooperation is alive and kicking’, says UN climate chief

Damian Carrington, Oliver Milman, Jonathan Wattsand Damien Gayle
Mon 24 Nov 2025 04.46 AEDT

The world is not winning the fight against the climate crisis but it is still in that fight, the UN climate chief has said in Belém, Brazil, after a bitterly contested Cop30 reached a deal.

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“We knew this Cop would take place in stormy political waters,” said Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, after a long and occasionally angry final plenary at the climate summit. “Denial, division and geopolitics has dealt international cooperation some heavy blows this year.”

But Cop30 showed that “climate cooperation is alive and kicking”, Stiell added, making an oblique reference to the US, which under Donald Trump opted not to send anyone to Belém. Trump, who has called the climate crisis a “hoax” and a “con job” has come to embody the opposition to progress on dealing with dangerous global heating.

Stiell said: “I’m not saying we’re winning the climate fight. But we are undeniably still in it, and we are fighting back. Here in Belém, nations chose unity, science and economic common sense. This year there has been a lot of attention on one country stepping back. But amid the gale-force political headwinds, 194 countries stood firm in solidarity – rock solid in support of climate cooperation.”

…Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/23/un-warns-world-losing-climate-battle-but-fragile-cop30-deal-keeps-up-the-fight

If even the UN is saying the world isn’t winning the climate fight, why is Miliband so positive?

Miliband’s plan to power Britain with solar panels is absurd. Even where I lived in the South of England, you were lucky to see the sun in Winter, with overcast skies and only 8 hours of daylight. Even when the sun does peak through, it is low in the sky, only 15º above the horizon in midwinter.

Wind turbines fare a little better in British winters, but Britain still sometimes suffers prolonged and bitterly cold wind droughts.

UK Electricity Grid Rescued by Gas as Massive Winter Wind Droughts Disrupt Supply

So long as those gas plants are required to prop up Britain’s fake green energy system, the owners of those plants will demand the same profits they would have made if the plants were operating full time, otherwise they’ll pack up and relocate somewhere more profitable. That is why green energy is such a failure, the hidden cost which has pushed up British energy prices.

Greens like Miliband are losing the climate fight, not just because of climate skeptics, but because the solutions they are pushing simply don’t work. Despite the positive thinking delusions of the climate faithful, sooner or later nations like Britain will run out of money to spend on fake green energy solutions. What happens next is anyone’s guess.