In just 14 days in
December 2009, those at the United Nations’ conference of the parties
(UNCOP) climate change meeting in Copenhagen excreted 40,000 tons of CO2
into the atmosphere, more than 60 of the world’s smallest countries
produce in an entire year combined!
As many as 40,000 protestors, over 30,000 delegates and almost 100 world leaders slept on the streets or in luxurious 4 Star Hotels, rented 1,200 limos and 140 private jets. The US delegation was almost 200 people, not including President Obama and his entourage of 500.
So, I must ask, “Did they really ALL have to go to the UNCOP in Copenhagen?”
$Millions in Hot Air
To offset the hot air
produced at just this one UN meeting, Denmark is forced by UN treaty and
EU law to pay $17.50/ton, a cool $1 million in taxpayer funds, for
40,000 tons of UN-certified emissions reductions (UNCERs). Annually,
Denmark’s citizens must pay $2 million buying 115,000 tons worth of
UNCERs for UN Project #1901, 20 new brick making businesses in
Bangladesh. Over the lifespan of Project #1901, 20 years, Denmark will
pay at least $40 million.
Go to www.gefonline.org
and search by “brick”. UN Project #1901 is one of three such projects
in Bangladesh, India and China. These three projects are valued by the
UN at $51.7 million in taxpayer funds transferred via the UN from
developed countries such as Denmark to these developing countries.
Every UN meeting generates
more cash. More protesters equal more carbon equals more cash. Never
mind selling T-shirt to conventioneers. There’s definitely more money in
selling carbon credits.
Take a look at the 777
climate change projects in developing countries; projects that we in
developed countries are paying billions for. http://www.gefonline.org/ And the climate change treaty is only one of dozens of UN-administered treaties.
In Bangladesh, you can buy
the UNCERs for $15.20 per ton from UNGEF-certified brick businesses. So
Denmark’s 115,000 tons worth of UNCERs, at $17.50 per ton, will generate
$5.29 million in gross profits over 20 years for the owners of 20 brick
businesses and their financiers in Bangladesh (per capita income:
$1,500/year). Without ever making a single brick. Risk free.
A cut goes to the Industrial and Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IIDFC) (79% privately owned) via a $10.85 million line of credit with the World Bank, with funds from — you guessed it — developed countries.
The UNGEF also hands out
millions in grants to supervise, monitor and sell these projects while
keeping about 10% as agency fees.
“Green” jobs – at the expense
of blue and purple and orange jobs – depends on billions of dollars
moving from the U.S. via the UN to “developing” countries. The bricks in
Bangladesh are a very thin facade.
“Mitigation” means buying
more UNCERs. “Transparency” equals more bureaucratic jobs for UN
mandarins tracking and filing more paperwork. And financing means
taxpayer dollars moving from the developed world to Bangladesh, China
and India with lots of people taking a cut along the way. It’s all very
white collar and three piece suits.
So let’s ask that question again:
“Did they really ALL have to
go to the UNCOP in Copenhagen?” In Bangladesh, China and India, at the
World Bank and the UN, the answer is Yes! Yes! Yes!
Brick Making: UN-style
But the IIDFC, the carbon
finance company that has the $10.85 million credit line at that World
Bank, tripled this to almost 9 tons of CO2 annually from 6,000 small
kilns. Both reports estimate that using modern, more efficient kilns
would reduce energy use and therefore emissions by half. Neither report
mentions that, based on basic capitalist principles — to save energy
and labor while increasing the bottom line — over a 20-year period all
these small kilns will eventually be upgraded.
But the UNGE Project #1901
will replace the small kilns with mega-sized brickfields covering 4 to 5
acres each but requiring only 88 operators per brickfield. There is no
mention of training or resettlement costs for kiln workers displaced by
these large subsidized projects competing against the thousands of
small kiln operators. Costs for transporting bricks to where the demand
is located are not factored into the project in calculating CO2
emissions. And there is no recognition of the impacts these large-scale
projects will generate after a 20-year lifespan.
So, in additional to making a
profit from making bricks – IF they make any bricks — 20 Bangladesh
brick makers and their investment consortium will make $5.29 million
for modernizing, something they would have done anyway over time, just
probably not on this scale.
Now double that figure, as predicted by the carbon marketers.
But wait…
The UN Development Program (UNDP) estimates it costs $50,000 to build a large brickfield plus $400,000 in “back process” – whatever that is. So the total cost to build 20 new large-scale brickyards in Bangladesh is only $9 million.
It would be far cheaper for
the developed countries to transfer humanitarian aide to Bangladesh,
China and India to build bricks than to participate in this ridiculous
UN program.
But then, nobody would have
to go anywhere at all and everyone at the UNGEF and the UNDP and the
World Bank and all these government agencies would have nothing to do.
They’d have to find jobs making bricks. And burgers. And widgets.
No more exotic meetings. No more 4 Star Hotels. No more limos and private planes.
But just think of all the fossil fuel we would save!
And that is how you shit a brick, UN-style.
NOTES:
Facebook tour of the UNCOP in Copenhagen — lots of great pics plus links to more indepth info.
Citizens and elected officials seeking more info will find the Chamber of Commerce’s special section on climate change policy an excellent starting point.
The climate-change travesty. By George Will, Washington Post, Dec. 6, 2009.
None dare call it fraud. By Paul Driessen, Oct. 19, 2009.
Charles Krauthammer summed it all up nicely.
Full text of President Obama’s speech and WSJ analysis and the agreement our President signed on behalf of the United States.
You can REALLY get a feel for the size of our President’s entourage from this video, which shows fleets, yes, fleets of vehicles, for a President Obama visit to Copenhagen earlier this year.
List of delegates
from all over the world, including the U.S., which sent pages and pages
and pages of delegates. Did they really all have to go?
As for the delegates? Lots of limos! No one took the free shuttle bus.
I’ve actually been to Copenhagen several times and love the city. Take a cybertour of Copenhagen.
I predict future happiness
for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors
of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. – Thomas
Jefferson
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What if…..
What if CO2 emissions from
6,000 PCs in Duluth could be reduced by half by replacing them with one
big 5-acre computer in Des Moines run by just 88 people? Think of what
we’d save in CO2 emissions!
We’ll establish another UN
bureaucracy with green jobbers to monitor this mitigation plan! And
we’ll finance it all – and a make a ton of money – with an annual fee
per ton of CO2 emissions saved – paid by New Yorkers required by law to
pony up, year after year after year! We’ll ignore the CO2 generated
shipping documents printed in Des Moines to the people in Duluth.
Along with the Teamsters, NGOs and bureaucrats, New Yorkers will be thrilled by this plan since these are green jobs and, after all, we’re saving the planet!
And what could possibly be better than that?
NOTE:
May 2010 report on Heartland Institute conference on climate change.