Joe Biden’s climate plan will do ‘virtually nothing’

At his recent World Leaders Climate Summit, President Biden repeated his claim that climate change presents an "existential threat." This pervasive climate alarmism is the culmination of persistent eco-anxiety over the past decades. Already in 1982, the United Nations was predicting that climate change along with other environmental concerns could cause a worldwide “devastation as complete, as irreversible as any nuclear holocaust” by the year 2000. Needless to say, that didn’t happen.

Despite intense climate worries, electorates have been unwilling to spend the trillions needed to cut emissions dramatically. That is why climate campaigners have increasingly pursued a new strategy: forcing climate policy through courts. Across the world, the UN now counts at least 1,550 such climate cases in 38 countries and more than a thousand just in the U.S., often filed by young people invoking a fear for their future. Unfortunately, such cases undermine democracy, harm the poor and sidetrack us from smarter ways to fix the climate.

This Earth Day, dramatic warnings about climate change will be ubiquitous. At his climate summit, U.S. President Joe Biden will undoubtedly repeat that global warming presents an “existential threat.” But most of the hype will be vastly exaggerated. This pervasive climate alarmism is the culmination of persistent eco-anxiety over the past few decades. Already in 1982, the United Nations was predicting that, along with other environmental concerns, climate change could cause worldwide “devastation as complete, as irreversible as any nuclear holocaust” by the year 2000. Needless to say, that...