In his address to the General Assembly of the United Nations, President Donald Trump claimed that “the UN has such tremendous potential” but was not using it. What did this mean? The UN officially is a member’s organization, a meeting place for diplomacy. Did Trump want to go beyond this and see a UN as a powerful organization operating on its own? The UN has grown into a massive bureaucracy, with over 130,000 people. Secretary-General António Guterres speaks for the UN as if it were the prototype for a world government. Autonomous UN agencies like the International Criminal Court, World Trade Organization, and International Seabed Authority already behave as if they are global governing bodies able to act against national states. As a nationalist, Trump could not have been calling for the UN to further expand to fulfill its ‘potential.”
The UN is a sanctuary for third-ratestaffers and pseudo-intellectuals from around the world on the lam from reality. A giant, well-funded faculty lounge. Trump mentioned how the UN is “creating new problems for us to solve.” By supporting mass migration, “the United Nations is funding an assault on Western countries and their borders... every sovereign nation must have the right to control their own borders.” And on the climate issue, “I’m telling you that if you don’t get away from the ‘green energy’ scam, your country is going to fail.”
The “climate crisis” seemed to give the UN an issue larger than the perennial conflicts of traditional geopolitics. An issue that could give the UN global authority to fix. It created the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 to “save the planet” and “equitably” share the benefits of “sustainable” (i.e., limited by Green regulations) development. This mission would give the UN control of the global economy (climate includes everything) and thus the power to rule the world.
Coinciding with the opening of the General Assembly, Climate Summit 2025 was held as the major UN event leading to the annual Conference of the Parties that claims (without merit) to set “legally binding” rules for the global economy. The 30th COP will open November 10 in Belém, Brazil. It will likely fare no better than the previous 29 meetings, and not just because the Trump administration rejects everything about it. I have discussed COP27, COP28 and COP29 elsewhere, which all failed even with the support of the Biden Administration. Suffice it to say, national interests still dominate over the globalist dreams at the UN. And the most important national interest is improving the living conditions of citizens within countries that are secure and sovereign.
At the Climate Summit, only one-third of nations representing half of global greenhouse emissions output have submitted their national goals or targets for 2035, and these have been called inadequate. Firm pledges have only come from 53 countries accounting for 14% of emissions. The big news was China announced a target of a 10% cut in emissions by 2035, but still would not reach net zero until 2060, a meaningless date for the world’s largest emitter (29% of the world total) who is still building a new coal-fired powerplant every four days, along with nuclear and solar to meet its rapidly expanding energy needs by every means possible.
The Green agenda runs contrary to national goals. It is the creation of ideology not science. Its anti-capitalist rhetoric and socialist policies are obvious, but its Marxist content is only the tip of the iceberg. The Left hates capitalism because it creates wealth, not just at the top but throughout society. It’s the rise of an affluent middle class that includes most of the working class (indeed, anyone who is productive) that most inflames their hatred. The Left has long sought ways to draw people away from the idea of progress and thus away from an economic system that generates progress. They denounce advertising for creating false wants among consumers who should be happy with less. The appeal of “hippie” culture did not last. Gen Z fears it will not live as well or have the opportunities that were available to its parents. Around the world the young protest limits on growth in power and water resources, health care, and education even when mouthing Green slogans that block growth.
A no-growth economy would require a government to “fairly” distribute what resources were available. That is the socialist hope within a Green New Deal. The unlimited growth of capitalism driven by human innovation and the desire for a better life cannot be argued away. People will not voluntarily give up their dreams, so they must be told that those dreams are impossible. The first attempt was the “limits to growth” notion, particularly in regard to energy. But innovation solved those problems. But to the Left there are no legitimate technological solutions. Consumption must be reduced, and ultimately human and animal populations as well. Everything modern civilization does contributes to the “climate crisis.” We will literally burn as in Hell if we don’t’ abandon our sin of progress. It is a secular word of God that must be obeyed on penalty of planetary death. If you can’t win an argument, draw a gun.
This does not come from Marx. The German radical is but the ugly stepchild of the real French Devil who created today’s Left, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His most famous quote is “Man is born free but is everywhere in chains.” This is not merely a criticism of the monarchial governments of his time, but of civilization itself.
In his Discourse on Inequality, he disputed Thomas Hobbes’ claim that in the state of nature, life was “nasty, brutish and short” because of a lack of civilization with its laws and social behaviors that made both freedom and progress possible. Rousseau believed that the state of nature was peaceful and idyllic, free of the false desires that led to competition and violence, or simply to being chained to employment. People would be much happier living in harmony with nature, dancing with joy through a simple existence like the North American Indian tribesmen who had no real government or indoor plumbing.
This is the school of anarcho-primitivism that is the real heart of the modern Left. In this ideology, the Industrial Revolution was the opening of the Hellmouth. The Green agenda is one of deindustrialization, the abolition of the division of labor and specialization (more chains of hard work), the abandonment of large-scale organization (business and state) and all technology that merely enslaves us further in the corrupt web of a soul-killing prosperity.
This concept of the “noble savage” is not just seen in Green circles. The protests against Israel as a “settler state” in a Middle East where Israel has existed since ancient times reflects the anti-civilization narrative that runs through leftist academic circles. The Left hails “indigenous people” as a better model than the Western nations that built global empires, creating advanced nations like the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, kickstarting progress throughout Latin America, and spreading not only technology and liberal values across the world but introducing the very idea of progress. To make this claim, they have to admit that the narrative has to shift from “improvement and reform” to the embrace of primitive culture. We must “decolonize” history to free ourselves for regression. We cannot enjoy our affluence and freedom because it was attained by immoral means.
Yet, I bet we will continue to enjoy life and continue to strive for more and there is nothing the UN or Harvard can do to change that elemental drive of humankind. That’s a core belief of modern conservatism.
William R. Hawkins is a former economics professor who has worked for several Washington think tanks and on the staff of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. He has written widely on international economics and national security issues for both professional and popular publications including for the Army War College, the U.S. Naval Institute, and the National Defense University among others.
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