Václav Klaus, former President of the Czech Republic and Chairman of the Global Climate Intelligence Foundation (Clintel), delivers his inaugural speech on the 4th (local time).

Dr. Václav Klaus, former President of the Czech Republic, has been officially inaugurated as the chairman of the 'Global Climate Intelligence Foundation (Clintel)', an organization that challenges the global climate crisis discourse, on the 4th (local time).

The new chairman, Klaus, is well-known in Europe as a figure who has been one of the most outspoken critics of the climate crisis narrative. From a politician's perspective, he has argued that the essence of the climate discourse is an ideological agenda that leads to economic damage and restrictions on freedom.

With his assumption of the chairmanship, Klaus succeeds Professor Guus Berkhout, who co-founded Clintel with Dutch scientist and author Marcel Crok in 2019 and served as its first chairman.

Klaus's views on climate change can also be seen in his 2007 op-ed in the British financial daily, the Financial Times (FT).

He began by stating, "As someone who has lived most of my life under communism, there is an issue I cannot help but point out." He continued, "The greatest danger that threatens the prosperity of today's liberal market economies is not communism, but rather an ambitious environmentalism. This ideology of environmentalism seeks to replace humanity's free and spontaneous development with a kind of centrally controlled, or rather, a globally controlled plan," he criticized sharply.

What Chairman Klaus emphasized can be applied to the present moment, and climate change-skeptical scholars consistently point out that this shows the climate debate has made no progress.

In his farewell speech, former chairman Professor Berkhout emphasized, "The driving force behind climate change is not human activity, but the immense power of nature." He also pointed out that water (including all its states: gas, liquid, and solid) plays a much more significant role in influencing the climate than carbon dioxide.

He further argued, "The most effective and humane way to reduce damage and casualties from extreme weather events is to adapt to the climate. Climate mitigation policies that aim for unrealistic emission reductions have never saved a single victim or prevented a single dollar of damage."

In his inaugural address, Chairman Klaus stated, "It is our duty to counter the irrational, populist, and clearly unscientific climate crisis narrative." He emphasized, "We must explore new ways to bring about change, and this is something that all of us, not just individuals, must do together."

Specifically, he said, "We plan to expand our activities globally and at the national level. We will play a more active role in public discourse. We will seek supporters who share our views. In this process, we have no intention of centralizing our future activities. We will ensure the independence of national branches and various initiatives worldwide and welcome their active engagement."

Clintel, an independent foundation headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is the leading organization behind the 'World Climate Declaration,' which proclaimed to the world that 'there is no climate crisis.' Currently, over 2,000 scientists and experts from more than 40 countries have signed this declaration, including Chairman Klaus and Professor John F. Clauser, the 2022 Nobel Laureate in Physics.

In 2023, Clintel published 'The Frozen Climate Views of the IPCC,' a critical review of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s Sixth Assessment Report from 2021. This book has also been published in German, French, Dutch, and Danish.

The newly appointed chairman of Clintel, Dr. Klaus, is a Czech economist and politician who played a key role in the transition process of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic after the collapse of communism. He served as the Minister of Finance of Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992, acting as a principal architect of economic reforms and privatization after the communist regime. He subsequently served as Prime Minister of the Czech Republic (1993-98) and President of the Czech Republic (2003-2013).

Since 2012, Chairman Klaus has also been the founder and director of the think tank Václav Klaus Institute. His publications include "Blue Planet in Green Shackles," which has been translated into 18 languages.

Editorial Department, Hanmi Ilbo