Venezuelan dictator
Nicolás Maduro
showed up at the annual United Nations climate summit in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm El-Sheikh last week blaming capitalism for environmental degradation in the developing world. Naturally Mr. Maduro’s solution is for rich countries to hand over money to poor ones—like his.
It’s tempting to dismiss the 27th Conference of the Parties, or COP27, as little more than an international convention of John Kerry-type gas bags letting off hot air. Not good for the world’s emissions score but otherwise meaningless.
Nevertheless, those who work for a living in the developed world might want to pay attention. Mr. Maduro, who is an egregious polluter, is asking the U.N. to help him and his fellow socialists in Colombia and Brazil pick your pocket in the name of the environment. As he put it in comments to journalists on his arrival in Egypt, he wants the “powerful” nations to commit to a plan “to finance the recuperation of the Amazon.”
Mr. Maduro had already left the gathering of global grifters when President Biden—who wants the U.S. to buy Venezuelan oil—arrived on Friday. But video circulating on social media showed Mr. Kerry shaking hands and politely engaging, via a translator, with the Venezuelan earlier in the week.
French President
Emmanuel Macron
not only greeted Mr. Maduro warmly but chatted with him briefly about France’s interest in helping the region. Mr. Macron came off looking small and, frankly, foolish.
If human lives matter at all to the international community, Mr. Maduro ought to be barred from its meetings. Under his rule, dissidents are imprisoned in dungeons, student protesters are beaten and sometimes killed, and food supplies, controlled by the government, are used as a political weapon.
A U.N. human-rights report released in July 2019 found that detainees were subjected to torture, including “asphyxiation, electric shock, broken bones, being hung by their limbs, and being forced to spend hours on their knees.” They are frequently denied medical care, it said.
In March 2020 the Justice Department charged Mr. Maduro and 14 other current and former high-ranking Venezuelan officials with having “partnered with the FARC to use cocaine as a weapon to ‘flood’ ” the U.S. The U.S. is offering a reward of…
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