Calling them wasteful and a threat to America’s sovereignty, freedoms and prosperity, President Trump pulled the United States out of 66 international organizations – most importantly the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the foundation for “climate crisis” treaties and policies.

He also withdrew the US from the Paris climate agreement, vetoed US attendance at the 2025 COP30 climate conference, and revoked multiple costly regulations based on “climate crisis” claims.

Dozens of banks have withdrawn from the Net Zero Banking Alliance. At this year’s World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, climate action, renewable energy and sustainable development received little attention – by the wealthy political, corporate and financial elites who populate the WEF.

(However, the WEF may simply be going into stealth mode, using its “financialization of nature” concept to “treat ecosystems as assets,” dollarize them – and set the stage for the “international community” or UN to replace local, state and national decision-making on development.)

Bill Gates now says climate change is not a crisis, and the world must start focusing instead on improving lives, healthcare and living standards for the world’s poorest people, especially by ensuring they have plentiful, dependable, affordable energy – which only coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear can provide.

Running counter to these trends, Western Europe is still committing economic suicide – or more accurately, its elites are committing economic and real manslaughter against poor and working classes.

But meanwhile, China, India, Indonesia and other recently impoverished and still developing countries are increasingly using fossil fuels to lift millions, even billions out of poverty, disease and despair. African and other nations are eager to follow – and tell Western climate scolds to buzz off.

Winter Storm Fern caused dozens of deaths across the United States. Hundreds of thousands went hours or days without electricity, mostly due to ice breaking power lines amid days-long frigid temperatures.

But every year, in still-poor countries, nearly 750 million people still have no access to electricity – 600 million in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. Billions more have minimal, sporadic access. They subsist in permanent or rolling blackouts.

Not dozens, but millions of them die every year. From indoor air pollution from having to burn wood, charcoal, grass and dung, because they don’t have natural gas, propane or electricity for cooking and heating. From bacteria and parasites in their water and food, because they don’t have electricity, water treatment or refrigeration. From malaria and other diseases, because their substandard clinics and hospitals lack electricity, clean water, sufficient vaccines and antibiotics, even window screens.

As energy and science researcher Vijay Jayarj recently noted, 460 coal plants are under construction worldwide, another 500 have permits or soon will, and 260 more new coal-fired power plants could be announced soon. Oil and gas are also growing in importance as fuels and raw materials. Wind and solar are add-ons but can never replace coal, hydrocarbons or nuclear power.

The vast majority of the coal plants are in China and India, with Indonesia and other nations also surging ahead – building reliable generation for affordable electricity, securing supply lines, and drilling and mining their way out of dependence on foreign supplies.

They’re also following the path that Europe, the United States and other nations did to become developed and wealthy. Every investment in new power generates industries, jobs, tax revenues and more money for future investments. Free enterprise financing, invention, inspiration, perspiration and production – with essential, non-stifling government regulation – remain the fastest, surest way forward.

Simply put, the world doesn’t need some “miracle of prosperity.” It needs to eradicate the anti-miracle tragedy of continued poverty. There is simply no reason poverty should continue – or that prosperity should not be found everywhere.

Books, courses and the internet enable every politician and citizen to learn what technologies are available, what they’ve accomplished, and how to achieve health and prosperity.

These resources also bear witness to the failures across Europe and other countries that have sent living standards back 50-100 years – and sentenced their citizens to energy deprivation, joblessness, and dying because they can no longer afford proper heating and air conditioning or even nutritious food – due to misplaced devotion to climate and renewable energy ideologies.

We might call this the Reverse-Midas Effect: everything climate alarmists touch turns to lead – which brings lead poisoning, developmental delays, learning and behavioral problems, memory dysfunction, even comas and death. In people and nations.

Governments and institutions must support basic human rights of access to abundant, reliable, affordable energy to support modern living standards. Not free; but access to that energy. They must stop financing the WEF, UN, World Bank and other institutions that often despise America and support only such health and living standards as wind and solar power can provide.