Cap and Trade Will Make Oil for Food Look Like Chump Change

by Duane Lester | December 7, 2009 11:07 pm

I hate to break this to you, but the whole goal of the cap and trade plan isn’t to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide.

It’s to level the economic playing field. Not my words, by the way. Those are the words of former French President Jacques Chirac. EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstroem said the Kyoto Protocol “is not a simple environmental issue, where you can say scientists are not unanimous. This is about international relations, this is about the economy, about trying to create a level playing field for big businesses throughout the world. You have to understand what is at stake and that is why it is serious,.”

I do understand what is at state. Trillions of dollars.[1]

With that kind of money being handled by the honest folks at the United Nations, the same straight shooting folks who brought us the Oil for Food scandal, we are talking about graft on a massive scale[2]:

The UN already has an offset system known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), set up by the Kyoto Protocol. Based in Bonn, the CDM has approved 1,938 projects with about 328 million metric tonnes of annual carbon offsets, called Certified Emissions Reductions, or CERs. The current value of the CDM offset market is a relatively paltry $6.5 billion, with Britain buying about 28 per cent of the total. But that amount could soar if a deal is sealed following “Hopenhagen”.

The Clean Development Mechanism sounds like a solid system: projects have to be certified by a board of governors elected by the governments involved. But it has already been criticised for certifying projects that do not cut greenhouse gases below “business as usual” (cuts that, in the jargon, do not provide “additionality”.)

Michael Wara, a Stanford law lecturer and leading critic of the mechanism, testified to Congress this year: “There has been and will continue to be substantial crediting of business-as-usual behavior within the CDM.

“This crediting of counterfeit emissions reductions is likely to be a hallmark of any real offset programme. The crux of the problem is the inability in practice to tell which of the many applicants for carbon offsets are telling a genuine story regarding emissions reductions, and which would have installed cleaner technology even in the absence of the carbon market.”

The lesson of the Oil-for-Food scandal is that such a system almost begs decision-makers to make politicised, if not outright corrupt, rulings.

The Guardian reports[3] that carbon trading will possibly be twice as big as oil, coming in around $3 trillion worth of transactions a year. The Oil for Food program handled $64 billion.

Remember, the people at the UN took bribes so Saddam Hussein could build more palaces while Iraqi children starved. Now they are still taking bribes so some countries can sell carbon credits they didn’t create. You can only imagine what kind of slimy, under the table, nod, nod, wink, wink, deals will be made with your money in the mix.

While your energy prices are skyrocketing, bureaucrats from Russia and other countries will be taking your money for nothing. Corruption the only thing you can count on from the United

Endnotes:
  1. Trillions of dollars.: http://www.allamericanblogger.com/9227/more-money-in-climate-skepticism-hardly/
  2. on a massive scale: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/world_agenda/article6947116.ece
  3. The Guardian reports: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/29/carbon-trading-market-copenhagen-summit

Source URL: https://rightwingnews.com/uncategorized/cap-and-trade-will-make-oil-for-food-look-like-chump-change/