While the American people were busy licking their wounds from the Presidential elections at the end of last year, the United Nations (UN) was busy creating a vehicle to redistribute wealth utilizing Climate Change.
According to an article from the BBC, in November at the UN DOHA 2012 Climate Change Conference, a decision was made that ‘rich’ nations should compensate ‘poor’ nations for the affects of Climate Change:
UN climate talks in Doha have closed with a historic shift in principle but few genuine cuts in greenhouse gases.
The summit established for the first time that rich nations should move towards compensating poor nations for losses due to climate change.
Developing nations hailed it as a breakthrough, but condemned the gulf between the science of climate change and political attempts to tackle it.
The deal, agreed by nearly 200 nations, extends to 2020 the Kyoto Protocol.
It is the only legally-binding plan for combating global warming.
The deal covers Europe and Australia, whose share of world greenhouse gas emissions is less than 15%.
But the conference also cleared the way for the Kyoto protocol to be replaced by a new treaty binding all rich and poor nations together by 2015 to tackle climate change.The final text “encourages” rich nations to mobilise at least $10bn (£6bn) a year up to 2020, when the new global climate agreement is due to kick in.
According to the text of this decision, what will be considered eligible for compensation is vague at best since it will cover not only supposed economic impacts of climate change but non-economic as well. Which, as demonstrated by the quotes in the BBC article, has opened a whole can of worms:
“It is a breakthrough,” said Martin Khor of the South Centre – an association of 52 developing nations. “The term Loss and Damage is in the text – this is a huge step in principle. Next comes the fight for cash.
“What helped swing it was [US President Barack] Obama asking Congress for $60bn for the damage caused by [Hurricane] Sandy,” he said.
Saleem ul-Huq, from the think-tank IIED in Bangladesh, told me the text should have been firmer, but he said: “This is a watershed in the talks. There is no turning back from this.”
Nick Mabey, from the UK think-tank E3G, said: “This agreement really opens a can of worms – it might be applied to countries damming transboundary rivers, for instance. It could be very significant in future.”
Those who assume that this decision is an add on to the Kyoto agreement, which the United States hasn’t officially adopted, and therefore might exempt the US from participation are incorrect based upon the article:
No US veto
The US had been adamant that this measure would be blocked, and the EU nearly vetoed it, too.
Todd Stern, the US head of delegation here, was seen for much of the past few days walking in circles near the tea bar on his mobile phone to Washington. He told me: “We don’t like this text, but we can live with it.”
The key to US agreement was the positioning of the Loss and Damage mechanism under an existing process promising to mobilise $100bn a year for poor nations to adapt to climate change.
Facing tough budget decisions at home over the “fiscal cliff” it was essential for the US to avoid the impression that it was giving away more cash at this time.
While this agreement does not begin to redistribute the wealth of ‘rich’ countries to ‘poor’ ones immediately; it does set the stage for future redistribution based upon anything, economic or otherwise, that can be blamed on the fiction of human created Climate Change. Which is indeed…. One Giant Can of Marxist worms.
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