Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced today that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not be traveling to Glasgow to participate in the COP26 international climate change conference. Peskov would not even confirm that Putin would speak remotely, by videoconference connection, when asked by the press. He only offered: “The Russian side will be [represented at the conference], of course, we are in contact with the organizers, which is why we will tell how it will be [organized] later…. We should understand the format, in which it will be possible to speak at the videoconference, at which moment and so on. There are many factors here that we have to discuss with the organizers.”

Reuters headlined its account: “Russia Says Putin Won’t Fly to Glasgow, in Blow for Climate Talks,” and commented ruefully: “The no-show by the leader of the world’s fourth-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases is the latest setback, with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also uncertain to attend.”

But it gets worse for the Green New Deal Malthusian gang. NPR reported (to their chagrin) that the same governments that have made “lofty commitments” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, “are still planning to extract huge amounts of energy from fossil fuels,” according to a new report from the United Nations. The report published Oct. 20 details how the largest fossil fuel producers plan to carry on using coal, gas, and oil. According to this report, it will more than double the amount of fuels in 2030.

Nor do they have the U.S. in their pocket. Although President Biden is bending over backwards to “show the flag” as an “environmental warrior” at Glasgow, he is being stymied by the steadfast resistance to his attempt to abandon coal by two Democratic senators, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and now Montana’s Jon Tester, both of whom are opposing Biden’s tax on carbon dioxide and methane emissions. “I’m not a big fan of the carbon tax. I just don’t think it works the way it was explained to me,” Tester said.