The zero-return climate policy: How trillions in U.S. spending achieves immeasurable temperature change

By willowt // 2026-09-02

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Eliminating all U.S. fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions would lower global temperatures by just 0.24°C by 2100, even under alarmist assumptions.
State-level temperature reductions are too small to measure, with no state reaching even 0.031°C of avoided warming.
NASA data confirms carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere reflects heat back into space, cooling rather than warming.
Real-world physics shows CO2’s warming effect diminishes as concentrations rise, with saturation limiting further impact.
Policymakers face trillions in costs for a climate benefit that is hypothetical and immeasurable.

The unaudited promise

For decades, Americans have been told that sacrificing economic prosperity—through carbon taxes, fuel mandates and clean energy subsidies—would avert a planetary crisis. Yet a new analysis reveals that even eliminating every ton of carbon dioxide from U.S. fossil fuel use would yield a temperature reduction so small it cannot be observed or measured. The report, conducted by Advancing American Freedom and using the United Nations’ own climate models, exposes a uncomfortable truth: The multitrillion-dollar reordering of America’s energy system delivers virtually no climate benefit. This finding, combined with NASA data showing carbon dioxide cools the upper atmosphere, challenges the foundational claims of climate alarmism and raises urgent questions about why policymakers continue to enact economically destructive policies based on unproven assumptions.

The negligible impact of U.S. emissions cuts

A report titled “Fifty States, Virtually No Impact” by Kevin Dayaratna puts the question through computer simulations used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Even accommodating the IPCC’s most extreme assumptions—including the fantasy that U.S. emissions cuts began in 2020 and became permanent—the analysis found that eliminating all energy-related fossil-fuel carbon dioxide from the United States would reduce projected global warming by only 0.24°C by 2100. By 2050, the reduction would be just 0.11°C. State-by-state results are even more trivial, with no single state reaching even three-hundredths of a degree of avoided warming. The report’s message is stark: a state legislator voting for UN-style climate policies would impose catastrophic economic costs on constituents in exchange for a temperature reduction that cannot be observed or felt. When even the most favorable assumptions produce no measurable benefit, the entire premise of unilateral emissions reduction collapses.

Real physics vs. pseudoscientific assumptions

The absurdity deepens when stripping away the IPCC’s disputed technical assumptions. Real-world physics demonstrates that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, exhibit diminishing returns in their warming effect as atmospheric concentrations rise. At current levels of 420 parts per million, the infrared absorption bands for CO2 are already largely saturated, meaning additional molecules contribute progressively less to warming. Using realistic assumptions, the amount of warming averted by 2050 if the U.S. eliminated all emissions would be just 0.0084°C—a number so small it is indistinguishable from natural variability. In 2025 comments to the Environmental Protection Agency, Dr. William Happer, professor of physics emeritus at Princeton University, called the IPCC’s assertions “badly flawed science.” He noted that greenhouse gases from the Industrial Revolution to the present have not caused catastrophic warming, extreme weather, or harm. Most observed warming since 1750 reflects natural recovery from the Little Ice Age, with greenhouse gases contributing only a fraction. Happer urged the EPA to inform the public that increasing carbon dioxide emissions will benefit people worldwide with more food and cheap energy, with only a trivial effect on temperature.

NASA data contradicts the greenhouse myth

A 2013 NASA study from the Langley Research Center further undermines the carbon dioxide narrative. Using data from the SABER instrument aboard the TIMED satellite, scientists tracked infrared emissions from Earth’s upper atmosphere during a solar storm in March 2012. They discovered that carbon dioxide and nitric oxide—both labeled “greenhouse gases”—actually reflect up to 95 percent of solar radiation back into space, cooling the planet rather than warming it. “Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” said James Russell of Hampton University, a lead investigator for the study. “When the upper atmosphere heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.” This finding directly contradicts the core proposition of greenhouse gas theory, which claims more CO2 means more warming. Instead, the data suggests these gases protect the Earth from absorbing potentially devastating amounts of solar energy.

The shifting boogeyman

The climate narrative has proven remarkably flexible over the decades. In the 1970s, Time magazine cover stories warned of “The Big Freeze” and a coming ice age. By the late 1980s, the threat shifted to global warming, with covers proclaiming “The Heat Is On” and “Be Worried, Be Very Worried.” Today, the catch-all term “climate change” allows alarmists to attribute any weather event to human activity—a strategy that CNN’s technical director once admitted is designed to scare the public, noting that “fear sells.” This rhetorical flexibility serves a larger agenda. The United Nations’ Agenda 21 and its Sustainable Development Goals explicitly aim to change the economic development model reigning since the Industrial Revolution, as declared by former climate chief Christiana Figueres. Paired with the threat of central bank digital currencies and carbon credit scores, the climate crisis narrative provides the justification for unprecedented government control over energy, food and personal freedom.

Rejecting the vacuous gestures of an antihuman ideology

The return on trillions in subsidies, regulatory compliance costs, higher electricity prices and lost economic growth is hypothetical, minuscule temperature changes that mean nothing. Policymakers must weigh energy decisions against real-world physics rather than political expedience. Priorities should turn toward affordable and reliable energy supplies—the foundation of modern prosperity—over the vacuous gestures of an ideology that demands sacrifice without measurable reward. As Dr. Happer advised the EPA, the public deserves to hear the real science: carbon dioxide benefits life on Earth, and its impact on temperature is trivial. Sources for this article include: WattsUpWithThat.com AdvancingAmericanFreedom.com NaturalNews.com