Progress on global warming despite information wars and an emerging “ecological cold war”[1]
PATRICK S. WOLFE
In 2003, as President and CEO of EnCana, the oil and natural gas company, Gwyn Morgan was called “the most powerful man in Canada’s oil patch” by MACLEAN’S magazine.[2] A frequent contributor to the TIMES COLONIST newspaper, Morgan’s Nov. 25, 2025, commentary, “As businesses struggle, Carney shifts carbon tax,” quotes the U.S. Department of Energy and its Secretary, Chris Wright, as if they are reliable sources of information.
The United Nation’s Antonio Guterres (left) and U.S. President Donald Trump hold opposing views on global warming. (Official White House Photo of Oct. 2, 2017, by Shealah Craighead)
Although Wright now admits that “Climate change is real,”[3] he’s the same guy who, in a Jan. 2023 video posted to LinkedIn, maintained: “There is no climate crisis and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.”[4]
Morgan quotes a July 2025 Department of Energy report that says, “CO2-induced warming appears to be less damaging economically than commonly believed and aggressive mitigation policies could be more detrimental than beneficial,” which strikes me as a rationale for the Trump administration’s do-nothing approach.
None of this should come as a surprise given President Trump’s Sept. 2025 speech to the United Nations General Assembly in which he called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetuated on the world.” Nor should it be a surprise that, as the headline of an Aug. 2, 2025, GLOBE AND MAIL news story states, “Europe is breaking reliance on U.S. science.” According to the story, cuts to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2026 budget are aimed at programs that, in the words of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, spread “fake Green New Scam ‘science’,” a reference to climate change research and policy.[5]
Chris Turner is the author of HOW TO BE A CLIMATE OPTIMIST: BLUEPRINTS FOR A BETTER WORLD, which won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Canadian political writing. In a Nov. 2025 essay, he noted “the growing divide between predominantly oil-producing countries—most prominently the United States, Russia and Saudia Arabia—and countries pursuing electrostate goals, in particular China … and the European Union.” All of which, he added, has been deemed “an emerging ‘ecological cold war’,” according to a recent essay in FOREIGN POLICY.[6]
An Oct. 2025 report from the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit in London, England, states, “Clean energy investment will reach $2.2 trillion in 2025, double the spend on fossil fuels,” and investment in photovoltaic technology that converts sunlight directly into electricity exceeds “all other power generation combined.” Moreover, among the “’big four’ energy geographies (China, the US, EU and India) … clean energy investment [is] outpacing fossil fuel investment at a rate of $2.6 for every $1, more than double what it was [at the time of the Paris Agreement] in 2015.” Indeed, “at least 83% of the global economy is covered by net zero targets, most of which are now enshrined in law or formal policy. This includes 19 members of the G20.”[7]
Turner agrees. “Before Paris, ‘net zero’ didn’t even exist as a concept,” he points out, adding that “the biggest climate story of the past 10 years is the simply staggering speed at which the global energy transition has zoomed from margin to mainstream…. The transition is now inevitable.”[8]
Morgan contends that “80 per cent of the world’s energy still comes from fossil fuels.” But Turner says this claim “masks the pace and scale of the change now underway.” Factor in the fact that “clean power is intrinsically much more efficient than fossil fuel…. and fossil fuel’s share of primary energy drops to 68 per cent. After little more than a single decade of concerted effort, emissions-free sources already meet one-third of the world’s energy needs.”[9]
In summary, according to the Energy & Climate report, for 2005-2014, the decade before the Paris Agreement, “global greenhouse gas emissions rose at 1.70% per year,” but since the agreement (2015-2023) “that annual increase has slowed to just 0.32%–a five-fold drop in growth rate.”[10]
Things have improved, but much work remains. In 2015, “the planet,” Turner says, “was racing toward an increase in average global temperature of more than 4°C by 2100…. Today, the warming curve with current climate pledges in place worldwide has already been bent to around 2.5°C—still very bad news, but not an on-ramp to FURY ROAD.”[11]
The author of A SNAKE ON THE HEART: HISTORY, MYSTERY, AND TRUTH – THE ENTANGLED JOURNEYS OF A BIOGRAPHER AND HIS NAZI SUBJECT, Patrick Wolfe has been writing about global warming since 2019. A collection of his writing on this and other subjects is available at https://patrickswolfe.com/
This article was first published on LinkedIn on Dec. 10, 2025. ↑
Progress on global warming despite information wars and an emerging “ecological cold war”
Progress on global warming despite information wars and an emerging “ecological cold war”[1]
PATRICK S. WOLFE
In 2003, as President and CEO of EnCana, the oil and natural gas company, Gwyn Morgan was called “the most powerful man in Canada’s oil patch” by MACLEAN’S magazine.[2] A frequent contributor to the TIMES COLONIST newspaper, Morgan’s Nov. 25, 2025, commentary, “As businesses struggle, Carney shifts carbon tax,” quotes the U.S. Department of Energy and its Secretary, Chris Wright, as if they are reliable sources of information.
The United Nation’s Antonio Guterres (left) and U.S. President Donald Trump hold opposing views on global warming. (Official White House Photo of Oct. 2, 2017, by Shealah Craighead)
Although Wright now admits that “Climate change is real,”[3] he’s the same guy who, in a Jan. 2023 video posted to LinkedIn, maintained: “There is no climate crisis and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.”[4]
Morgan quotes a July 2025 Department of Energy report that says, “CO2-induced warming appears to be less damaging economically than commonly believed and aggressive mitigation policies could be more detrimental than beneficial,” which strikes me as a rationale for the Trump administration’s do-nothing approach.
None of this should come as a surprise given President Trump’s Sept. 2025 speech to the United Nations General Assembly in which he called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetuated on the world.” Nor should it be a surprise that, as the headline of an Aug. 2, 2025, GLOBE AND MAIL news story states, “Europe is breaking reliance on U.S. science.” According to the story, cuts to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2026 budget are aimed at programs that, in the words of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, spread “fake Green New Scam ‘science’,” a reference to climate change research and policy.[5]
Chris Turner is the author of HOW TO BE A CLIMATE OPTIMIST: BLUEPRINTS FOR A BETTER WORLD, which won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Canadian political writing. In a Nov. 2025 essay, he noted “the growing divide between predominantly oil-producing countries—most prominently the United States, Russia and Saudia Arabia—and countries pursuing electrostate goals, in particular China … and the European Union.” All of which, he added, has been deemed “an emerging ‘ecological cold war’,” according to a recent essay in FOREIGN POLICY.[6]
An Oct. 2025 report from the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit in London, England, states, “Clean energy investment will reach $2.2 trillion in 2025, double the spend on fossil fuels,” and investment in photovoltaic technology that converts sunlight directly into electricity exceeds “all other power generation combined.” Moreover, among the “’big four’ energy geographies (China, the US, EU and India) … clean energy investment [is] outpacing fossil fuel investment at a rate of $2.6 for every $1, more than double what it was [at the time of the Paris Agreement] in 2015.” Indeed, “at least 83% of the global economy is covered by net zero targets, most of which are now enshrined in law or formal policy. This includes 19 members of the G20.”[7]
Turner agrees. “Before Paris, ‘net zero’ didn’t even exist as a concept,” he points out, adding that “the biggest climate story of the past 10 years is the simply staggering speed at which the global energy transition has zoomed from margin to mainstream…. The transition is now inevitable.”[8]
Morgan contends that “80 per cent of the world’s energy still comes from fossil fuels.” But Turner says this claim “masks the pace and scale of the change now underway.” Factor in the fact that “clean power is intrinsically much more efficient than fossil fuel…. and fossil fuel’s share of primary energy drops to 68 per cent. After little more than a single decade of concerted effort, emissions-free sources already meet one-third of the world’s energy needs.”[9]
In summary, according to the Energy & Climate report, for 2005-2014, the decade before the Paris Agreement, “global greenhouse gas emissions rose at 1.70% per year,” but since the agreement (2015-2023) “that annual increase has slowed to just 0.32%–a five-fold drop in growth rate.”[10]
Things have improved, but much work remains. In 2015, “the planet,” Turner says, “was racing toward an increase in average global temperature of more than 4°C by 2100…. Today, the warming curve with current climate pledges in place worldwide has already been bent to around 2.5°C—still very bad news, but not an on-ramp to FURY ROAD.”[11]
Text copyright © 2025 Patrick S. Wolfe
All rights reserved. Short segments may be quoted with due attribution.
The author of A SNAKE ON THE HEART: HISTORY, MYSTERY, AND TRUTH – THE ENTANGLED JOURNEYS OF A BIOGRAPHER AND HIS NAZI SUBJECT, Patrick Wolfe has been writing about global warming since 2019. A collection of his writing on this and other subjects is available at https://patrickswolfe.com/
Like this: