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UN Launches Climate Financing Group to Disburse Billions to World's Poor
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announced plans today to create a powerful new climate change entity that will help mobilize billions of dollars to help the poorest nations battle climate change.
In December, wealthy countries agreed to provide $30 billion in "fast-start" financing from 2010 to 2012 as part of the Copenhagen Accord, struck in the eleventh hour of the Denmark talks. They also agreed to a goal of ramping up that sum to $100 billion by 2020.
So far, none of the fast cash has been disbursed and country-level pledges remain vague.
The new Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, headed by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, will have 10 months to recommend new sources of finance, along with a mechanism to guide the handouts.
The effort could win poor countries' trust in the run-up to global climate talks scheduled for December in Mexico.
"The advisory group's work will help build momentum towards a successful negotiation of a comprehensive climate change agreement," Ban said.
The climate group will have equal representation from rich and poor countries. Other heads of state named to the group are Guyana President Sam Hinds and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. Members will also include high-level officials from central banks and experts on public finance and development, the UN said.
The UN is "assembling the best experts from every part of the world," said Brown.
Zenawi said he is "optimistic" that the work of the advisory group "will make it possible for the developing world to join the developed world in Mexico for a final and binding treaty on climate change," assuming "the promises made on finance will be kept."
For most poor nations, the Denmark summit was a flop. It ended in a barebones voluntary accord with no overall emission targets and no legal power.
In lieu of the low-ambition result, "finance has become the crucial element of the Copenhagen Accord," Zenawi told reporters.
With billions being dangled in front of developing nations, around 50 poor states have agreed to formally associate with the accord, but that does not imply trust in the UN process.
"Even those who have welcomed the accord and its provisions on finance have nevertheless expressed a high degree of skepticism about the practicality of these provisions," Zenawi said.
"Such deeply felt skepticism is perhaps understandable given the many promises of financial assistance to the developed world that have not been kept."
Vague Cash Commitments
One main task of the advisory group is to raise resources in such a way "as not to put unnecessary pressure on the already overstretched budgets of the developed countries," Zenawi said. We will not "put undue pressure on the rich."
Currently, pledges coming from the world's wealthiest states fall short of the accord goals, and some contain stringent conditions.
For example, Japan has pledged to add $15 billion over three years to the $30 billion pot of short-term funding, with a catch: Negotiators must first agree to a new climate treaty.
The European Union has said it will contribute roughly one-third of the total sum. Zenawi showered praise on the UK and the EU for "giving clear assurances" that they would pay their fair share of the money on time.
However, environmental groups have accused Europe of plucking that climate aid from previous development budgets and calling it new funding.
The Obama administration has said it supports the long-term target of providing $100 billion by 2020. On fast-start financing, the U.S. has so far committed $1 billion to fund efforts to stop forest loss in developing nations, part of a $3.5 billion plan hashed out with Australia, France, Japan, Norway and Britain.
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The Obama administration is doing by far more than the other..
The Obama administration is doing by far more than the other governments in the world and more than past administrations in the US for sure. it supports the long-term target of providing $100 billion by 2020.
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required finance
after settling in the business will return back
Its only money and power.The pseudo-science does not matter
Periodic (with long periodicity) temperature increase due to reduction in Earth-Sun distance is the large part of the temp change -- but very few are willing to highlight this natural cause. Global warming happened during the Dino age as well and they did not have any industry as far as I know.
Also why focus on CO2 only?
What about the pollution and toxification of the environment by mining/industrial/farming/pharma activities?
What about the petrolium companies killing the Amazon?
What about quantifying the total environmental damage done across countries in recent history (only last 50 years will do) in terms of trillions of dollars and charging the companies that casued it? If we did it then most large multinational industries in US/EU will be bankrupt several times over. Will the "governments" in "developed" countries have the ball to be honest and fair and slap this in? No. They are slaves to these large corporations.
So, what exactly is "climate change" hype about?
If you study it in detail and think for a while you will reach the answer.
It is just yet another "theme" getting built by the "masters of the universe" to create a new flow of money, profits and control. They desperately want to build another large "market" that could be traded (tens of trillion in market capitalization). Another funny money bubble. Already carbon credit trading has started as a full-fledged speculative activity in EU and elsewhere.
What do you think speculators like George Soros has got to do with climate? People like him (that includes me also) want this market to be built, legalized and structured. Then he can trade the carbon credits and derivatives and options built on top of that. We may even get to see "eco-financial" engineering that will come up with even arcane complex derivatives products for trading. Umm... my mouth is watering. I can't wait to trade those billion dollar carbon futures in NYSE.
Do these powerful entities of the financial world really care about the future of this wonderful blue-green planet and the little souls that inhabits it? Do they care at all about educating and uplifting billions of people from grinding poverty in a sustainable way? Do they want to reduce the huge ecological footprint of large consumers of this world?
No. They just want a new "green global economy" (read as a tradeable market powered by a "green hype bubble"). Remember the Tulip mania?
CO2 emission is measurable, tradeable and can be conveniently fudged to mint money out of nothing. Hence the focus on CO2. Other forms of poisons does not matter. Or may be Soros and his likes will find more brilliant means to trade other poison emission down the line as well?
Let me take my trader's hat off for a while and ask all of you to stop this clever madness. Ask for scientific proof, ask for open objective debate on the different forms of climate poisoning and what needs to tackled how. Ask for the analysis of the long term economic impact of this madness. Understand what is man-made and what is natural.
Why trade carbon credits? Simply tax the polluting entity and be done with it. Oh, no, in that case there is no "market" !
Thirty years from now someone will write a new version of John Perkins' book Confessions of a Economic Hit Man.
The title may read "Confessions of a Green Hit Man - How we squeezed the last trillions of juice from the society" .
Be worried, very worried for the future of our kids and planet.
Also be prepared to profitably trade this new market once the exchanges are setup.
PS. In case you failed to notice it, in the "developed" world, the elected governments no longer make the decisions. Powerful financial/industrial entities tells the governments what to do. Welcome to the neo-medieval age.
www.paragkhanna.com/2008/12/neomedieval_times.html
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