Left-wing green agenda backed by John Kerry would be 'disaster' for developing world, experts say

The climate agenda pushed by Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and left-wing activists across the world would cause severe devastation to third-world countries, according to a series of experts.

The experts interviewed by Fox News Digital argued that green energy technologies that Kerry and groups like Just Stop Oil have pushed for as a replacement for fossil fuels like oil and natural gas are unreliable and would threaten the stability of global energy supplies. Such a green transition would acutely impact developing countries which have fewer traditional sources of backup power, they added.

"We're telling developing nations that we don't want them to go through the process of developing, we don't want them to have coal or natural gas or even nuclear. We want them to use wind and solar which is intermittent, which is ineffective, which is incredibly cost-prohibitive," Daniel Turner, the executive director of Power The Future, told Fox News Digital in an interview.

"It's the epitome of privilege," he continued. "There is no greater white privilege than being a climate change activist. It is the privilege of rich and elite folks — you could even throw in the word godless if you wanted — who need to feel like they care about something in this world. So, they cling to the climate change cult, but they're unaffected by the consequences of it."

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Turner said Western leaders are willing to leave poorer nations in energy poverty in exchange for them feeling good about "the nobility of embracing the climate cult."

Earlier this week, the United Nations kicked off its annual climate conference in Egypt where leaders have engaged in discussions about combating global warming and speeding the transition to clean energy. Among the topics of discussion, so-called climate finance, or the idea of wealthier nations pooling money for green energy infrastructure in poorer countries, has been front and center.

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On Wednesday, Kerry, who is leading the U.S. delegation at the conference, unveiled a plan to raise money for clean energy projects through private capital and a system of carbon credits. The announcement said annual green energy investment will increase to $4.2 trillion by 2030.

Kerry has previously pushed for financial institutions and the private sector broadly to drive much of the fundraising for green energy projects around the world. He has also urged African nations to move away from fossil fuel production and aggressively toward wind and solar.

"We can see the result already in Sri Lanka," Benny Peiser, the director of the London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation, told Fox News Digital. "You saw what happened when they introduced these green policies. The economy collapsed and you have complete and utter poverty. That's what happens."

In July, Sri Lankan citizens took to the streets in protest after green policies intended to decarbonize the nation's important agriculture sector. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the country's president who was ultimately forced to flee the country and resign amid the unrest, had stated at a 2021 UN conference that traditional fertilizers "led to adverse health and environmental impacts."

However, the policies led to food shortages, fuel shortages and an economic downturn, sparking the protests.

Broadly, Turner, Peiser and others argued that green energy sources are unreliable since they don't always produce energy and overall produce far less than their capacity would suggest. For example, wind turbines produce anywhere between 25-50% of their listed capacity while solar panels produce just 10-35% of their capacity, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. 

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By comparison, coal and natural gas power plants have a capacity factor of about 60-70%, the data showed.

"You can't do this stuff and have reliable electricity," Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, told Fox News Digital. "It just doesn't work. It doesn't work in the United States and we've been working on it for 40 years. It's going to be a disaster over there."

"It's the corrupt, small, poor governments have small, poor countries that the West is going to just give them money, a lot of which will be siphoned off for their own personal use," he continued. "You can't implement the green agenda even in wealthy countries. How are you going to do it in poor countries?"

While developing nations have been open to implementing a green transition with funds from the West, they have also issued lofty demands related to climate finance.

Ahead of the UN summit this week, a group of African and Arab countries formed the so-called COP27 Coalition, issuing a series of demands for wealthy nations. Among the demands, the coalition said the West should provide finance, technology and capacity while repaying their "climate debt" through a system of reparations.

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"If we were to stop using all fossil fuels today, the world would grind to a screeching halt because fossil fuels are in literally every aspect of life," said Anthony Watts, a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. "They're in clothing and textiles, plastics, lubricants, fertilizer."

"These politicians like John Kerry don't understand how the real world works," Watts continued. "So, they make these pronouncements without really understanding what they're asking for. If they got what they were asking for, the world would crash."