Canada’s Minister of the Environment, Climate Change, Climate Change and Climate Change jetted in to COP29, made some expensive promises and jetted right back out again. Showing how important he thinks the negotiations here are… or how important the negotiators think he is. A Canadian correspondent asked us if we’d seen him and we explained, part of our newfound hard-won wisdom about how COP conferences really work, that the bigwigs are not out mingling with the hoi polloi. There are quite literally back channels, special VIP entrances and massive road closures when they drop in to look important before rushing out again. But while Steven Guilbeault was flinging other people’s cash about we also saw that a number of wealthy Canadian foundations just kicked in nearly a half-billion dollars to promote climate alarmism and its supposed remedies. A point worth remembering when someone claims we skeptics are venal, crooked and peddling faulty information in return for a big pile of cash. Because if we were that sort of person, we’d go where the money is.

As might many people who really are poor, if Canada’s rich and self-satisfied were, as Parker Gallant notes, willing to spend some of their billions on dull useless stuff like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and so forth instead of putting out that great imaginary fire in the sky. As he also notes, the finances here are somewhat tangled, but the seven registered charities involved have assets of nearly $1.7 billion, not to mention the Clean Economy Fund. But they’re using their resources to make life more expensive not more affordable, a strange form of charity especially when food banks in Canada just had over two million visits in a single month. But it seems no poor people need apply. Who knows that sort anyway?

By the way, on the world-famous in Canada front: we do want to share this breaking, vital, planet-saved-film-at-11 press release from our peripatetic former “green Jesus”:

“Media representatives are advised that the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, will hold a media availability via teleconference from the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, where he will discuss Canada’s priorities and leadership in driving collective action to cut pollution, fight climate change, and build a low-carbon economy.”

Again, the notion that we are leading in driving collective action is parochial if not preposterous. Certainly nobody here has mentioned it to us, even to criticize it, and they do know we’re from Canada. Nor has anyone mentioned this brilliant initiative he unveiled on his way by. So, for the flavour, here’s what Guilbeault’s press release claims he said:

“Today, Canada is announcing the launch of GAIA, an innovative US$1.48 billion blended finance platform that aims to increase the availability of climate finance for high impact climate action projects in up to 25 emerging markets and developing economies. Seventy percent of the platform will support adaptation projects and twenty-five percent of the funds will be invested in small island developing states and least developed countries. Co-founded by FinDev Canada in partnership with the Mitsubishi Financial Group (MUFG), with an anchor investment from the Green Climate Fund, GAIA brings together much-needed public and private capital and expertise to action climate finance differently.”

To action climate finance differently does not even deliver English, let alone money for poor people suffering hurricanes we started. The French is marginally better but only grammatically: “GAIA réunit des capitaux et de l’expertise publics et privés fort nécessaires pour agir différemment en matière de financement climatique.” But there are lots of ways to do things differently and many are not an improvement even on something that wasn’t working anyway. Plus given the supposed scale of the crisis, and required response, a “$1.48 billion blended finance platform” is unlikely to impress even people who talk that way. But enough about politicians.

Here’s the the announcement in question from the philanthropists, also noteworthy for tone but in this case also for content:

“Sharing the big news! Nine wealthy Canadian families and foundations have made Canada’s largest-ever philanthropic commitment to climate action, pledging $405-million over the next decade to accelerate the shift to a low-carbon economy. Proud to share that Trottier Family Foundation last night announced its $150M pledge towards climate philanthropy. This is the single largest 🇨🇦pledge [sic] towards climate change in Canadian history…. Our commitment is a partial spend-down of the Foundation’s endowment. While TFF will remain in operation over the long term, a few years ago our board (Claire Trottier Sylvie Trottier Lorne Trottier Howard Trottier Louise Rousselle Trottier) felt that the urgency of the climate crisis required immediate catalytic capital. We cannot afford to wait any longer and the next few years are crucial for mitigating climate change. We know that solutions exist in decarbonizing our economy and we are playing our part in helping Canada get there. While $405M may seem significant, it’s important to recall that climate philanthropy in Canada is currently only 0.9% of total philanthropic giving. We need other high-net-worth families and foundations to join us and help address this challenge. Solving the climate crisis in Canada will inevitably better all Canadians.”

They then listed a group of chichi rich people who were involved in it all.

A number of things stand out about this announcement. And let’s start with a charitable one. We sometimes hear from people who share our skepticism about the “settled science” and shrill claims of alarmists but who also insist that climate change is some kind of hoax or fraud, which we absolutely deny. Can it really be supposed that people who not only put out an announcement of this sort, but also dig deep into the capital of their evidently very well-heeled foundation to fund emergency action on climate, do not believe what they say?

Not just that the “crisis” is urgent, or that we have now got less than a decade to act or ignite. But also that “solutions exist in decarbonizing our economy”. It may be wrong, even goofy. But these people are not fools and they are certainly not fraudsters. They are just deeply, sincerely, passionately wrong.

Also deeply, sincerely, passionately rich. To us at least it also stands out that they and their associates are people to whom $405 million is a small sum and they wish others would help top it up. We beg to differ. And to solicit donations even if you left your $400 million in your other suit, because CDN is heavily dependent on people who give a few bucks a month.

Finally, while we are very much in favour of charitable giving, and of the notion that in a free society you can do what you think best with your own money, we also ask for a modicum of common sense, decency and accuracy. And since we hear, over and over, that climate skeptics are just in it for the cash, we ask first that people (including skeptics) avoid paranoid theories that their debating opponents are sinister deliberate liars, and second that anyone who persists in thinking that money buys friends in this matter at least check where the money is going.

If we were venal, members of the Trottier family would be obliged to shoo us away from their doorstep or at least their office. Instead we’re over here saying no, you’re wrong, so unless you change your minds give your cash to someone else. Just don’t let them cry poverty, let alone persecution, in the process.