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Terence Corcoran: Climate politics and science run hot — and cold

The result is chaos and confusion as to the way forward

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Global climate policy seems to be dangling in unprecedented uncertainty, caught in the middle of intensifying conflict within and between politics and science. What follows is a random walk through the latest indicators that the way forward is far from clear.

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Last week the Trump administration pulled the plug on environmental policies aimed at controlling carbon emissions, a move condemned as a threat to life on Earth. Washington has also announced it will be withdrawing from two key United Nations climate agencies, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In Europe, the EU’s climate policies are under attack, with Germany — suffering from previous climate decisions that are undermining its economy — last week urging EU leadership to “postpone” climate policies related to carbon production.

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Canada’s climate policies are also failing, according to the activist-based Canadian Climate Institute. It said PM Mark Carney’s Liberals are falling behind announced plans and are “not aligned with its climate targets.” Ottawa has since announced revised policies, including the reintroduction of a subsidy of up to $5,000 for new electric vehicles sales — although economist Ross McKitrick argues that forcing fossil fuel vehicles off the roads ”would kill our auto industry.”

A new poll finds that United Kingdom public support is declining for plans for net-zero carbon emissions objectives by 2050 amid concerns the government is about to cut research spending. The poll “reveals a striking decline in the public’s sense of urgency around climate action,” said Prof. Bobby Duffy of the Policy Institute at King’s College London.

At the same time, global auto companies are pulling back on plans to hike electric vehicle production. Financial Times reported that the “end of electric vehicles euphoria” has triggered a US$65-billion hit at Ford, GM and other automakers. Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kallenius called on EU leaders to ramp up government-driven industrial strategy to help save Germany’s auto industry.

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As economic reality strikes climate policy-making, and activists and others keep up the pressure on industry and politicians, with help from the media, they seem to be creating a paralytic environment.

The political clash — now in its fourth decade — pits extremists on one side who accuse climate activists of perpetrating a hoax, while activists see climate risks as cataclysmic quasi-religious truths that cannot be denied.

The reason for the political standoff relates to climate science, a field of inconclusive complexity based on knowledge, speculative models and factual claims that are beyond the mental capacity of 99 per cent of the world’s population to analyze. The debate might as well be about the existence of a divine being.

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And so it went last week when the world’s leading political climate atheist, U.S. President Donald Trump, joyously repealed the Obama-era conclusion that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide represent an “endangerment” to public health. As a result of repealment, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will presumably lose authority to regulate carbon emissions.

Saving Americans TRILLIONS!President Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announce the end of the Obama-era Endangerment Finding, ending costly and useless vehicle emission rules, eliminating the stop-start button, and saving taxpayers $1.3 trillion. pic.twitter.com/imnP3dJeEQ— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 12, 2026

Saving Americans TRILLIONS!President Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announce the end of the Obama-era Endangerment Finding, ending costly and useless vehicle emission rules, eliminating the stop-start button, and saving taxpayers $1.3 trillion. pic.twitter.com/imnP3dJeEQ

Political reactions were immediate. Former Democratic secretary of state John Kerry told the BBC that the Trump decision “takes Orwellian governance to a new height and it invites enormous damage to people, and property all around the world.” CBC television’s The National brought in its international climate correspondent, Susan Ormiston, for an alarmist report announcing that Trump was committing a climate mortal sin by reversing a policy “based on science that polluting emissions are dangerous for people.” Ormiston cited the Union of Concerned Scientists’ comment that Trump’s action is an unlawful, destructive action that is “an obvious example of what happens when a corrupt administration and fossil fuel interests are allowed to run amok.”

Nobel economist Paul Krugman, also reacting to Trump’s EPA endangerment decision, wrote a commentary filled with political and science overstatements: Climate change is not just continuing, it is accelerating; there is no science debate; and the cost of green energy is more favourable than it has ever been. Then he said the United States will be left behind as the world shifts to solar and wind.

All of Krugman’s science claims are debatable. He picked his sources carefully, including using a hockey-stick-shaped graph from Berkeley Earth to support the idea that the past three years have been the hottest in almost 200 years — even though Berkeley Earth warns that recent weather events are not proof that global warming is happening.

It’s all part of the confusing mix of biased politics and uncertain science. One climate science fiasco came to light in December when Nature magazine retracted a paper that claimed climate change would reduce global economic output by 62 per cent. What happened to peer review?

On the other side of climate research, questions keep emerging. A paper last year by scientist Donald Rapp concluded there is no “definitive evidence of cause and effect” between carbon emissions and warming temperatures. It’s a correlation, wrote Rapp, that has been used to produce a worldwide climate control movement.

Another new paper by a group of economists argues that even as climate change may have occurred, evidence suggests there are major benefits that come from adapting to warming, including increased crop yields, reduced death rates, increased affluence and other benefits.

The clash of global politics and science over climate change is not over yet, but the end may be coming.

• Email: tcorcoran@postmedia.com

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