From November 10 to 21, the latest climate summit, COP30, is taking place in Belém, Brazil — a global stage for fighting what is labeled the “climate-damaging gas” carbon dioxide.

Germany has sent a 170-member delegation to participate — ostensibly to “save the planet,” but more realistically to distribute German taxpayers’ money among the world’s climate faithful.

The German group travels in the slipstream of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who arrived in Belém early for a brief five-minute speech and a tour of the Amazon. Merz pledged that Germany would make a “significant contribution” to the so-called Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) — an initiative rumored to receive around €1 billion in German funds.

Indulgence Level Unknown

Last year, Germany already funneled €6.1 billion into global climate financing — a form of checkbook diplomacy with zero economic return.

How much will be paid this year remains unclear, but travel activity is intense: a 170-strong delegation from the ministries of economy and environment has flown commercial to Belém to negotiate Germany’s share in “saving the world’s climate.”

The sacred rule remains: every ton of CO₂ emitted must be compensated by equally costly “climate protection” measures. Greta Thunberg’s ghost clearly still haunts German ministries.

What we are witnessing is nothing but modern indulgence trading. The higher the payment, the purer the conscience. The entire climate circus survives on the illusion that sending money to global funds can stabilize the planet’s temperature. Simple, absurd, and lucrative.

Despite budget constraints, Berlin is again expected to pour over €5 billion into various initiatives. The tropical fund is a fresh addition — and Germany, as always, is in the thick of it.

Germany: The Taxpayer as Milking Cow

This is money siphoned from German workers to vanish in the opaque channels of the green clientelist economy, where corruption thrives and accountability is a relic. Reason, efficiency, and transparency have long been replaced by symbolism. Politicians now care less about impact and more about waving the green flag of virtue.

This became painfully evident in the alarmist speeches of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, both desperate to inject new life into the limping climate show.

Guterres lamented that the 1.5-degree target had failed, warning of advancing catastrophe — but insisted that “hope remains” to secure humanity’s survival on a livable planet. One might add with a smirk: everything now depends on the price of redemption, morally steadfast and fiscally “creative.”

Yet with Europe sliding into recession, public enthusiasm for man-made climate apocalypse has faded. Ordinary citizens have other worries than embracing Greta Thunberg’s and Luisa Neubauer’s “degrowth” fantasies that lead straight into economic ruin.

Thus, COP30 exists above all to manufacture public consent — keeping the moral machinery oiled and the green patronage networks supplied with fresh credit.

Chancellor Merz, the Climate Savior

After half a year under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, one thing is clear: Germany stays the course as climate policy front-runner, continuing the legacy of his predecessors.

Merz has not reversed the combustion-engine ban, nor touched the Building Energy Act, which will cost households billions. The nuclear exit remains final, Russian gas is history, and now even the gas grid faces dismantlement.

With his subsidized industrial electricity plan, Merz practices the classic shell game of interventionism: each political blunder is buried under a new subsidy — all at the expense of purchasing power and market efficiency.

CO₂ taxes continue to rise, hitting aviation and industry alike. The EU’s emissions trading reform, soon to cost German companies billions annually, remains untouched.

Merz is, in short, the perfect climate chancellor — soothing the middle class with rhetoric and fake reforms while faithfully executing Brussels’ dogmatic agenda. A believer in state omnipotence, he wields ever-more intervention as a cure for the very economic damage his policies cause.

Despite criticism from activist groups like Fridays for Future or Last Generation, the COP30 crowd in Belém will be delighted to see Merz’s delegation arrive bearing gifts. Germany’s lavish climate pledges confirm that domestic hardship will never interfere with global virtue signaling.

This is music to Ursula von der Leyen’s ears, as she pushes her 2028-2034 EU budget proposal — expanding the climate fund by over 30% to a staggering €750 billion. Facing resistance in the European Parliament, she badly needs Berlin’s continued compliance.

A European Affair

Since the United States abandoned the Paris Agreement and returned to an unregulated energy policy, the COP summits have become a Eurocentric spectacle. India refuses to foot the bill, while China plays both sides — funding climate NGOs in Europe that keep the green channel open, then using it to export its subsidized solar panels and batteries.

Meanwhile, China’s domestic energy strategy revolves around building hundreds of new coal plants, rendering Western emissions targets meaningless.

COP30 represents the lunatic apex of a Western climate dogma now facing real resistance — particularly from the United States. Under Donald Trump, carbon dioxide was removed from Washington’s list of “climate-killer gases,” where it had sat since Obama’s era.

That alone offers a glimmer of hope: that in the face of deepening global recession, this costly climate cult may soon meet its end.

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Thomas Kolbe, born in 1978 in Neuss/ Germany, is a graduate economist. For over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.