As global warming skeptics often portray climate activists as being akin to religious fanatics, the US president's initial intention to skip the UN Climate Action Summit on Monday in favor of a religious freedom meeting was not short of symbolic irony.

That he appeared in the auditorium for the climate summit for 15 minutes was a surprise, but since he appeared to be dozing, all it did was convey how dismissive he is of the climate science evidencing we need to act now to curb rising global temperatures.

Not to mention that he showed no hesitation in taking one question after another on Iran after arriving in the meeting room, turning the multilateral climate discussions into a solo performance justifying his policy toward Teheran.

His somnolence during the climate speeches was at odds with his attendance as host of the meeting on religious freedom — convened by the United States in the UN Headquarters in New York simultaneously with the climate summit — where he listened attentively to US Vice-President Mike Pence's attack on China's religious freedom.

The carefully-scheduled religious meeting served at least three purposes, providing the US leader with a decent excuse to sidestep the climate meeting, an effective way to garner support from evangelical Christian voters in the US and another opportunity to exert pressure on China.

The two meetings thus conveyed the unmistakable messages that the US is increasingly keen to fulfill its "urgent moral duty" to stop crimes against faith if it can use that as a means to put pressure on China, and the rest of the world must consolidate their shared belief that the challenge of global warming can be met in the knowledge that the US will be acting against their efforts.

That only those countries taking the bravest and most revolutionary actions in tackling the pressing issue of climate change, less than one-third of the 197 signatories of the Paris climate pact, were invited to speak at the summit, showed the determination of the UN that the platform should not be derailed by a debate about the reality of global warming but an endeavor to further synergize global efforts.

The touching speech of Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden, should have rung the alarm bell for both the North and South worlds that if they remain divided, and continue to avert their eyes from the unprecedented and irreversible melting of glaciers worldwide, their growth miracles will be only fairy tales.

The complementarity of countries, in technology, environmental capacity and funds, should be coordinated and tapped to make the fight a joint campaign, rather than a lone fight.

But as long as the US insists on transplanting its belief in exceptionalism to the climate cause, the dire warnings of not just activists such as Thunberg but also scientists from around the world will continue to be a lullaby for those who prefer to doze than act.