US & Qatar Force EU Climate Policy U-Turn – End of the ESG Era?

While former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock calls for a fight against climate-driven global apocalypse at COP30, Brussels is being forced into political restraint by pressure from the US and Qatar. On the horizon, the end of the EU’s grand climate machinations is becoming visible.

November 13, 2025, could mark a turning point in European Union history. We may have witnessed the beginning of the end of European climate socialism. 

Media coverage of the day in Parliament downplayed its significance, focusing instead on the reform of the supply chain law, while fundamental changes unfolded at a different level.

Politically, the event cannot be overstated; perhaps it should even be called a singularity in recent EU policy: The European Parliament paved the way for a dramatic dilution of corporate reporting obligations under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the so-called due diligence rules (CSDDD). The unstoppable march toward a climate dictatorship has been abruptly halted.

The End of the ESG Machine

Advocates of the ESG doctrine—under which private industry is forced by lawmakers to integrate party-circulated environmental and social standards into corporate governance—suffered their first major setback. Reporting and due diligence obligations for companies have been so weakened that previously required climate-aligned transition plans at the corporate level are now eliminated. Responsibility for violations of the remaining rules now rests with national authorities, not Brussels, freeing multinational supply chains from massive oversight. The economy can, to some extent, escape the regulators’ grip—good news.

For companies in the fossil energy sector, new market incentives emerge: exports to Europe can be conducted more easily, as regulatory hurdles are lowered and bureaucratic reporting requirements drastically reduced. Overall, the adjustment allows companies greater flexibility in supply chains, reduces the compulsion to invest in renewable or CO₂-neutral projects, and makes European markets more attractive to fossil energy exporters.

Reality Check

The EU Commission has recently faced mounting pressure from both Washington and the key LNG supplier, Qatar. US Trade Secretary Howard Lutnick had months earlier called on US companies to simply ignore Europe’s ESG framework if it significantly impeded operations—a direct affront to Ursula von der Leyen, who likes to portray herself as the morally superior, untouchable guardian of EU trade.

Together, these forces launched an offensive to bring Brussels’ climate defense to its knees, where cognitive dissonance had taken hold and the undeniable drift of geopolitical power was being ignored.

We have clearly entered the era of resource dominance. Europe imports roughly 60% of its required energy. Its irrational war on baseload energy sources such as nuclear and coal has only deepened dependence.

In Brussels and EU branch capitals, the lesson is now unavoidable: being a resource-poor trading partner in negotiations reveals how Europe’s capital base has been massively weakened by EU policy. Europe has lost its historic dominant position. US President Trump, during negotiations with the EU, merely displayed what behind closed doors was already clear to everyone.

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Exposed: How Qatar Bankrolled America’s Campus Chaos

In the wake of the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel, Western nations saw an explosion in anti-Israel, antisemitic encampments on colleges and universities.

The protest at Columbia, which lasted throughout the spring of 2024, often turned violent and destructive, with students vowing to “defend” their encampment from police. At California Polytechnic University, student rioters took over a building and barricaded it against police.

For many Americans, this surge in antisemitism and rioting was more proof that Western colleges and universities are nothing more than hotbeds of Leftist radicalism and laces of indoctrination that teach students to hate America and Western values.

However, the problem runs much deeper than woke campus ideology and Leftism. There is a well-funded, coordinated effort by radical Islamists to infiltrate and undermine Western democracies, using religion and “Islamophobia” as a cover for the ultimate goal: the destruction of Western civilization in favor of a global Islamic caliphate.

And much of it, especially the unrest and indoctrination at colleges and universities, is funded by Qatar.

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Trump Signs Order Giving Security Guarantee To Qatar After Israeli Attack

President Trump has signed an executive order pledging to provide Qatar with a security guarantee similar to NATO’s Article 5, a step that came after Israel bombed the country, which is a major regional ally of the US and hosts about 10,000 US troops.

Trump’s order says that the US shall “regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States.”

It states that the US “shall take all lawful and appropriate measures — including diplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military — to defend the interests of the United States and of the State of Qatar and to restore peace and stability.”

The order marks the first time an Arab country is receiving such a strong security guarantee from the US, something that Saudi Arabia has long sought. “Saudi Arabia thought that to get a defense pact with the United States, it would require normalizing relations with Israel. Qatar managed to get a partial defense pact with the United States by getting attacked by Israel,” a former US official told Axios.

According to the White House, the order was signed on Monday, September 29, the same day Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and had him apologize to Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani for the strikes on Doha, which killed six people, including five low-level Hamas officials and one Qatari security officer.

Trump has claimed that he was unaware of Israel’s plans to bomb, but according to Israeli officials, Trump was notified about the plan beforehand and did not oppose the strikes.

While Trump’s executive order is seen as a response to the Israeli attack on Qatar, it could also be an effort to shore up the alliance with Doha ahead of another potential war with Iran. During the 12-Day War, Iran attacked the US’s Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar in retaliation for the US bombing of its nuclear facilities.

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Turkey wary of Israeli threat following airstrike on Hamas in Qatar

An Israeli strike on a meeting of Hamas officials in Qatar has cast a cloud of growing concern across Turkey that it could be the next target.

Turkish Defense Ministry spokesman Rear Adm. Zeki Akturk warned in Ankara on Thursday that Israel would “further expand its reckless attacks, as it did in Qatar, and drag the entire region, including its own country, into disaster.”

Israel and Turkey were once strong regional partners, but ties between the countries ran into difficulties from the late 2000s and have reached an all-time low over the war in Gaza sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack in southern Israel. Tensions also have risen as the two countries have competed for influence in neighboring Syria since the fall of Bashar Assad’s government last year.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been a long-standing supporter of the Palestinian cause and of the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The Turkish president has criticized Israel, and particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with strident rhetoric since the start of the Gaza war, accusing Israel of genocide and likening Netanyahu to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Hamas officials regularly visit Turkey and some have taken up residence there. Israel previously accused Turkey of allowing Hamas to plan attacks from its territory, as well as carrying out recruitment and fundraising.

Erdogan is close to Qatar’s leaders and Turkey maintains strong military and commercial ties to the emirate. He is due to travel to Qatar this weekend for an Arab and Muslim leaders’ summit.

After Israel’s attacks on the territory of Iran, Syria, Yemen and now Qatar, Ankara is bound to be concerned by Israel’s ability to freely use the airspace of neighboring states.

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Qatar Pressures Arab Allies To Close Embassies In Israel: ‘The Gloves Are Off’

Qatar is leaning on Arab countries who have embassies in Israel to close them, as diplomatic retaliation for this week’s brazen Israeli airstrikes on Doha, which killed several Hamas leaders – including Khalil al-Hayya – and a Qatari security official.

Specifically, the United Arab Emirates is being pressured to shutter its embassy in Tel Aviv. The UAE was an initial signer of the Trump-brokered Abraham Accords. It officially inaugurated its embassy in July of 2021 as part of the historic normalization deal.

Washington has been hoping to expand the accords to other Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, but with the Gaza war raging, this seems definitely off and nowhere on the horizon.

“The gloves are off,” a Gulf diplomat speaking with Haaretz said. The UAE has vehemently condemned the attack on Qatar, and  summoned the Israeli deputy ambassador, David Ohad Horsandi, to complain of “outrageous attack” which violated Qatar’s sovereignty. 

Haaretz has suggested that Qatar might even alter its security ties with the United States. “Qatar’s prime minister told the White House his country would now re-evaluate its security partnership with Washington,” Haaretz reported.

“From Doha’s perspective, accusing Qatar of hosting Hamas leaders is seen as a knife in the back and could affect continued cooperation with Mossad as well as other interactions between the emirate and Israel,” Haaretz added.

The oil and gas rich GCC countries had throughout the decade-plus long Syria proxy war cooperated closely with Israeli intelligence, past reports have said.

But the Gaza crisis has strained all of these past ties, which mostly focused on countering Iranian and Shia influence across the Middle East, and Assad became prime target number one for regime change – given his deep cooperation with the Iranians.

Yet even the Saudis have by and large mended relations with Iran. While the royal family pays lip service to defending Palestinians, it is the common populations of Gulf states which tend to be more hardline in the pro-Palestinian cause.

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By bombing Doha, Israel once again undermined America’s credibility and standing

President Donald Trump told reporters outside a Washington restaurant this evening that he is deeply displeased with Israel’s bombardment of Qatar, a close U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf that, at Washington’s request, has hosted Hamas’s political leadership since 2012.

“I am not thrilled about it. I am not thrilled about the whole situation,” Trump said, denying that Israel had given him advance notice. “I was very unhappy about it, very unhappy about every aspect of it,” he continued. “We’ve got to get the hostages back. But I was very unhappy with the way that went down.”

Trump may indeed be upset, but the Israeli Prime Minister is casting him in the same light as Biden: issuing indignant statements over Israeli actions that blatantly undermine U.S. interests, actions that almost certainly could not have occurred without Washington’s tacit consent, while offering no hint that Israel will face consequences for allegedly defying the United States.

To make matters worse, Qatar’s foreign minister revealed that Washington’s so-called warning came not before the Israeli strike, but only after Doha was already under fire.

“The attack happened at 3:46,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Jassim Al Thani said. “The first call we had from an American official was at 3:56 — which is 10 minutes after the attack.”

Whether Washington knew of Israel’s war plans, colluded in them, or whether Trump is truthful in claiming ignorance, the outcome is the same: Israel has dealt a severe blow to American credibility.

What value does an American security umbrella—or even the hosting of a U.S. base—hold if the United States either conspires in an attack against you, or proves unwilling or unable to prevent one?

That is the question now confronting every U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf, all of whom have staked their survival on American protection. Given how Washington has stripped away every meaningful constraint on Israel since October 7, 2023, their leaders should have known this day was inevitable.

Personally, I do not believe the United States should extend security guarantees—implicit or explicit—to any state in the Middle East. The region is no longer vital to U.S. interests, and America is already dangerously overextended. Existing commitments should be reassessed and, where necessary, rolled back. But this must be done deliberately and on Washington’s terms—not sabotaged by Israel—because the point of the exercise goal is to strengthen the credibility of America’s essential commitments, not to erode U.S. credibility across the board.

Adding insult to injury, Israel has undercut not only the credibility of America’s security guarantees but also its diplomatic standing. This marks the second time this year that Israel has exploited the cover of U.S.-led diplomacy to launch unlawful military action—the first being its strike on Iran in the midst of nuclear talks in June.

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Israel attacks Hamas leadership in Qatar

he Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday it has attacked Hamas leadership in Doha, Qatar.

“The IDF and ISA conducted a precise strike targeting the senior leadership of the Hamas terrorist organization,” the Israeli military group posted on X. “For years, these members of the Hamas leadership have led the terrorist organization’s operations, are directly responsible for the brutal October 7 massacre, and have been orchestrating and managing the war against the State of Israel.

The leaders of Hamas, the Palestinian group with which Israel has been at war for nearly two years, have had their headquarters outside of Gaza for years.

“Prior to the strike, measures were taken in order to mitigate harm to civilians, including the use of precise munitions and additional intelligence. The IDF and ISA will continue to operate with determination in order to defeat the Hamas terrorist organization responsible for the October 7 massacre,” the IDF also posted on X.

The attack reportedly happened late Tuesday afternoon local time. 

A senior Hamas official told CNN that their negotiators were targeted. Hamas’ chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya met with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani in Doha on Monday.

A senior Israeli official told CNN that among those targeted was Al-Hayya.

“We are awaiting the results of the strike,” the official said.

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Trump Says He Gave Iran Permission to Bomb U.S. Base in Qatar and…Well, Mostly Crickets?

When political scientist Seth Masket shared this story on Bluesky yesterday, I couldn’t believe it was real. The right-wing Washington Times reported that at a press conference at the NATO Summit in the Netherlands on Wednesday, Trump revealed that he had given Iran permission to bomb the U.S.’s Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar in retaliation for the American bombing of their nuclear sites. 

“They said, ‘We’re going to shoot them. Is one o’clock OK?’ I said it’s fine,” Trump said. “And everybody was emptied off the base so they couldn’t get hurt, except for the gunners.”

I poked around for other major coverage of this extraordinary admission, and landed only on a transcript of the press conference. And yes, amid a characteristically meandering monologue, Trump actually said that he let a foreign adversary bomb an American military installation. But this story has pretty much come and gone with virtually no attention and certainly none of the outrage commensurate with what Trump said.

Let’s consider what Trump’s verbal diarrhea here could mean. Suppose he is (for once) telling the truth. Wouldn’t that represent the most shocking dereliction of duty one could imagine for the commander-in-chief? (A high crime or misdemeanor, perhaps?) Is he saying he let Iran get its retaliation out of its system with what he called “a very weak response” to bring an end to hostilities? Perhaps Trump simply was rambling incoherently as he basked in his new “daddy” glow at NATO.

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Trump Thanks Iran for Early Notice on Retaliatory Attack on US Base in Qatar

President Trump on Monday thanked Iran for giving the US notice of its plans to launch a retaliatory attack on the US’s Al Udeid base in Qatar, saying it prevented casualties.

Iran’s military launched the attack on the US base in response to the US bombing of three of its nuclear facilities. Trump called the Iranian retaliation “weak,” suggesting he’s not planning to respond.

“Iran has officially responded to our Obliteration of their Nuclear Facilities with a very weak response, which we expected, and have very effectively countered. There have been 14 missiles fired — 13 were knocked down, and 1 was ‘set free,’ because it was headed in a nonthreatening direction,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“I am pleased to report that NO Americans were harmed, and hardly any damage was done. Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE. I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured,” the president added.

Trump said that now Iran has the chance to “proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region” and that he will “enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same.”

In another post, Trump also noted that there were no Qatari casualties. “Regarding the attack today at the American Base in Qatar, I am pleased to report that, in addition to no Americans being killed or wounded, very importantly, there have also been no Qataris killed or wounded,” he said.

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Federal Contractor Shuts Down Smear Campaign Accusing Tucker Carlson of Being Funded by Qatar

A federal contractor involved in the controversy has flatly debunked a smear campaign accusing Tucker Carlson of being a Qatari puppet.

The Jerusalem Post reported in May that Qatar, a known supporter of terrorist groups like Hamas and a close ally of the Iranian regime, ramped up its outreach to right-wing media by over 50% following Donald Trump’s landslide 2024 election victory.

The news outlet cited a report from The Washington Examiner, which analyzed U.S. Justice Department records, that Qatar orchestrated a high-profile interview between Carlson and Qatar’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani.

Qatari agents paid a US firm $180,000 per month for this interview to materialize, it added.

Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings revealed that Lumen8 Advisors LLC, a little-known legal consulting firm, played a role in arranging the meeting between Carlson and Thani.

Anna Jacobs, a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, told The Washington Examiner in response to the Carlson interview: “Qatar wants to further cement ties with Trump for many reasons, including to defend itself against Republican attacks for its relationship with Hamas and Iran.”

Carlson was far from Qatar’s sole target in its goal to hold influence over conservative media. Doha engaged with conservative news agencies such as Fox News, the New York Post, Just the News, and The Daily Mail. In some cases, favorable coverage shortly followed.

Critics are concerned that Qatar is trying to soften its image in the eyes of America, keeping in mind that it is known for having ties with the Iranian regime and with terrorist groups such as Hamas.

America First investigative reporter Laura Loomer didn’t hold back, sharing screenshots of the FARA filings and accusing Carlson of participating in “paid propaganda.” Loomer torched Carlson on X, saying:

Here’s the screenshot from the FARA documents filled out this year that prove Qatar paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for an interview between @TuckerCarlson and the Prime Minister of Qatar (the same Qatar which funds HAMAS) regarding the “war with Iran”.

This was a paid propaganda piece in which over $200,000 was paid by the Embassy of the State of Qatar for Tucker to interview a Qatari official all while knowing HAMAS is an Iranian proxy and funded by Qatar.

Qatar funds Islamic terror all around the world and they think they can just pay everyone off to make them turn a blind eye. The Qataris are global funders of Islamic terrorism and their money has been used to murder American citizens.

These are not good people.

Tucker Carlson wants you to think his thoughts on Iran are based and original, but he’s literally participating in paid for interviews by the Qataris, who are funding and providing pent houses and luxury lifestyles to the leaders of HAMAS in DOHA.

Tucker should just be honest that he’s a mouthpiece for genocidal Muslims.

His media company was literally funded by a MUSLIM investor who is half Pakistani and half Iranian and who spends a lot of time in Qatar. And trust me when I say a lot of people in pro-Trump circles are very uncomfortable with this.

Tucker is controlled by Muslims. People need to wake up and stop pretending like this is a conspiracy theory.

Qatar and Iran are buying off conservative podcasters to push pro-Islamist, anti-American and anti-Israel talking points to undermine President Trump.

Conservative titan Mark Levin praised Loomer’s exposé, simply stating, “Well done.”

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