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Conveniently in time for our upcoming federal election, the UN Secretary-General has slammed Australia for not being even quicker at phasing out coal. Instead of demonising coal mining and peddling climate change myths, the United Nations should focus on its raison d’etre: reducing armed conflicts throughout the world.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has accused Australia of “holding out” for refusing to rapidly phase out coal, by mandating a ban on anything, and everything coal-related.

In a pre-recorded speech addressing the March 21 UN Sustainability Summit, Guterres demonised dependency on fossil fuel, labelling the natural resource a “stupid investment.”

The leader of the UN accused those supporting coal of “costing the world its climate goals”, stating: ‘the private sector still financing coal must be held to account.’

He then pushed for an “end [to] fossil fuel subsidies” and demanded a stop to “the expansion of oil and gas exploration.”

Without qualifying definitions, he also spoke of “climate-proofing” infrastructure and “communities living in high climate impact zones.”

Guterres also demanded “enormous increases” in finances for the “net-zero and climate-resilient transition,” and spoke of increasing “public finance, blended finance and private finance,” in order to “unlock trillions [the] transition [from coal] needs.”

Translated, this means higher taxation, increased government regulations, and higher consumer prices.

Inciting images of nuclear fallout, Guterres melodramatically called the “addiction to fossil fuels, mutually assured destruction.”

He then praised countries like India, while advocating for an “even greater sense of urgency” in funding a global response to “climate change”.

Ulterior Motive

Australia’s not-so diplomatic slap-in-the-face from the UN ignores CO2 emissions reductions since 2005, and the Morrison government’s pragmatic “technology, not taxes” strategy.

In response, Australian Communications Minister Paul Fletcher fired back, “The chattering classes of the UN can say what they want… we’re getting on with delivering outcomes.”

Both The Guardian and SBS cited Tim Flannery’s Climate Council head of research — “climate justice” advocate — Simon Bradshaw, who described António Guterres’ indirect attack as “very unusual” and “striking to see.”

Bradshaw might be forgiven for overlooking the pending federal election.

Guterres was appealing to Australian voters and any political opportunists who may want to cash in on the UN Secretary General’s attempt to wack Scott Morrison over the knuckles.

From a political expediency perspective, there’s nothing strange or striking about climate change cultists singling out an incumbent Australian government in an important election year.

Sleight of Hand

Full of newspeak, Guterres’ speech is a glaringly obvious example of the UN’s utter irrelevance.

He claims to rest on science, yet replaces “natural disasters” with “climate disasters” — as if no one would notice.

This switch in the terminology appears to have permitted Guterres room to infer that 30 million people were displaced in 2020 by “catastrophic” climate change, adding that this was “three times more than those displaced by war and violence.”

Buzzwords like “climate shock”, “the science is clear”, “sleepwalking to climate catastrophe”, “global warming,” “doomsday,” “transition,” and “renewable energy” also point to the UN’s disconnect.

This all seems to take energy and focus away from immediate and long-term concerns about the human cost of war, COVID-19 government overreach, inflation, and surviving all three.

While Guterres conflates climate change “inaction” with “mutually assured destruction,” he ignores the danger of inflation and the infringement of civil liberties. As well as the displacement of millions because of war in Ukraine, Yemen, and a growing list of other hot spots around the world.

It would appear that the UN is more committed to seeking out compliance with the climate change catastrophising narrative, and its crystal ball modelling, than the UN is about ending, and mitigating wars — the sole reason for the United Nations’ existence in the first place.

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Originally published at Caldron Pool.