Patrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire
Correspondent in Copenhagen
December 10, 2009
New developments at the UN’s International Summit on Climate Change have threatened to further side track a meaningful Treaty next week in Copenhagen.
Known as the Danish Text Leak , a story that broke two days ago by the UK’s Guardian Newspaper, it details a secret agreement that effectively disbands the Kyoto protocol‘s original plan to have so called ‘developed’ nations like the US and Europe foot the bill for global emissions reductions, as well contravening the UN’s own traditional mission to provide a “balance of obligations”. In surreal fashion, this secretive group calling themselves “the circle of commitment” and whose members are said to include high ranking individuals from countries including the US, UK and Denmark, compiled a secret draft plan which hands control of “climate change finance” to none other than the World Bank.
Currently in Copenhagen for the Summit and to chair the Climate Sense meeting, Mark Rucker, Executive Director of CFACT explains, “It’s a shame it had to be leaked but it’s not that surprising. The UN and IPCC have been doing things behind closed doors. This goes to show that a double standard has existed for some time, with one that is clearly biased against developing countries.”
Rucker adds, “Developing countries genuinely need to develop their energy resources for their people.”
The Danish Text leak also points to another reality across the Atlantic. Many suspect that this draft document was a last ditch work-around to pacify long time opponents of Kyoto in the US, in hopes to ram through a Cap and Trade Bill through the House and Senate in 2010.”
Opponents of the US Cap and Trade legislation have always had two major objections to it; 1) Handing over money to the UN. This problem is effectively neutralised by giving the World Bank power over all things financial. 2) US critics of Kyoto have always contended that it was too soft on Developing World nations, leaving the First World to bare the load for emissions reductions. Their secret agreement would not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, but would allow rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes per person.
The text leak represents the latest desperate politically and economically motivated move and will likely signal the death knell of this long anticipated Copenhagen Summit.
Critics of Global Warming Alarmism and government Cap and Trade schemes will also seize upon Danish Text Leak revelations as further proof that the real driving force behind the climate change movement are not environmental activists, but transnational corporations and a cartel of international banks.
A recent article in Bloomberg details how banks like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs have already placed themselves to ride the carbon bubble by selling their newest and most exotic financial instrument yet- the Carbon Derivative. Conservative estimates put the U.S. cap-and-trade market at anything from $300 billion to $2 trillion, and the carbon derivative market in the hundreds of trillions by 2020. In the Bloomberg piece, George Soros, who already has positioned interests in carbon exchange industry, openly admits that Wall Street money managers will seek to manipulate cap-and-trade markets. “The system can be gamed,” says Soros during a talk at a London School of Economics seminar in July. “That’s why financial types like me like it- because there are financial opportunities.”
Bad science followed by bad policy
It’s no surprise to people who have been following Climate Gate and the IPCC’s attempt to whitewash the serious incident during its opening statement on Monday, that bad science can only be followed by bad policies. With power broking and deal making left up to a relatively small group of officials and countries at the UN’s Summit, few who have followed their exploits are at all surprised that COP15 has come to be known for its massive failure in addressing the fundamental issues surrounding the climate change debate. Across town from the UN’s main venue at Copenhagen’s Bella Centre, another(somewhat more sober) meeting was taking place.
Jens Robdrup, a Danish journalist helped to organise the Climate Sense conference held in conjunction with US-based CFACT . He explains why it is a priority to bring together some of the leading skeptic voices in climate science and economics during the Copenhagen Summit, “Personal freedom is being threatened by what world leaders are attempting here and there is little or no coverage in the mainstream press about opposing views. If the truth is suppressed and there is no debate then there is no democracy.”
The Emperor’s Clothes
Craig Rucker sums it up saying, “Here in the City of Copenhagen, famed for the great storyteller Hans Christian Anderson, we can’t help but be reminded that propaganda can make you view the world in strange ways. Propaganda makes you see clothes on a naked emperor, it makes you see man-made climate change in a world where nature rules our temperature. Let us remember the voice of the child who cries, “but he has nothing on.”
If only we could see through that innocent child’s eyes and know that the global warming emperor has no clothes.
READ MORE CLIMATE CHANGE NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Climate Files