It’s rarely a good thing when world leaders in a groupthink mood decide to act quickly. On Saturday, the “international community” who met at the UN Summit on Climate Change in Paris reached an agreement. Most of the world’s leaders have pledged to lower their countries’ emissions rates. The pressure is on for developed countries to pay out a collective $100 billion a year to poorer countries to help them adapt to a supposedly swiftly heating planet — a handout that will do nothing for the global thermostat.

Indeed, the real climate agenda is not about climate at all, but rather an effort from the leftist elite to “level the economic playing field,” giving countries like China and India a pass while shaming and bankrupting the United States. Case in point: Barack Obama’s loathing and regulation of the fossil fuel industry is causing massive economic headaches for regions of the country whose lifeblood is black gold. “Forgive us for looking through the legacy smoke,” wrote The Wall Street Journal editorial board, “but if climate change really does imperil the Earth, and we doubt it does, nothing coming out of a gaggle of governments and the United Nations will save it. What will help is human invention and the entrepreneurial spirit.”

While the best qualities of human resourcefulness are ignored (because they require Liberty), Secretary of State John Kerry is appealing to the baser methods of human motivation to keep this accord in place. The man who once said climate change was a weapon of mass destruction wants to whip fellow countries towards the fight against nature with shame and international condemnation because it’s “the most powerful weapon in many ways.” Shame and mockery is all they’ve got left.