All you need to know about the United Nations climate change confab wrapping up its two-week pity party in Lima, Peru, is that lots of countries would split $100 billion—or more—annually if they can only push enough guilt on the developed economies.
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And it’s fair to say the developed economies are willing stooges. They have agreed to that $100 billion goal by the year 2020. The plan calls for the UN’s Green Climate Fund to dole out that money to lots of countries.
If big corporations were handing out all of that money to groups expressing the same concerns, liberals and the media would immediately claim a conflict of interests. But they don’t see any conflicts when it’s governments and the UN giving it away.
The stated purpose for the income redistribution is to help countries adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. In essence, many of the developing countries care so much about global warming because we are paying them to care.
But don’t be surprised if some of that money gets redirected to more pressing issues, like secret foreign bank accounts or new jets to fly government ministers to important climate change meetings.
However, even as the larger economies have been quick to express their collective guilt for alleged future environmental calamities—Secretary of State John Kerry has decided to fly down to Lima to confirm U.S. culpability—they’ve been a little slow to pony up the money. The Green Climate Fund says the countries have only pledged about $2.3 billion so far. The Lima conference is supposed to create more pressure to shakedown additional pledges. And it worked, hold-out Australia finally agreed to pledge $165 million.
President Obama, who is weighed down with climate-change guilt, has duly promised the U.S. will provide $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund. The Fund has not included that pledge on its website yet. Maybe they know that an Obama promise is as worthless as, “If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance.”
Of course, when you’re trying to create a crisis mentality, why stop at $100 billion?
The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) just released a report asserting that adaption and mitigation costs for developing countries could be as high as $150 billion by 2025-2030, and between $250 billion and $500 billion by 2050. That’s meant to make the $100 billion annual pledge level look cheap.
The recipient countries claim the developed countries owe them the money because they emit more carbon, but on a per-person basis the developed countries are more efficient than many.
According to the World Bank, the U.S. comes in 10th in per-person carbon emissions. Australia is 12th and Canada is 15th. Those with the highest per-person carbon emissions are mostly middle-eastern oil-producing countries.
So don’t be surprised if by week’s end you hear media reports claiming that the Lima conference wrapped up with virtually every country agreeing on the devastating effects of climate change and the urgent need to spread around hundreds of billions of dollars to fight’s its effects. Just remember than most of those countries are being paid to agree.