Developing Countries Say Rich Countries Must Step Up the Fight Against Climate Change, But the Copenhagen Agreement is Really a Plan for World Government

Developing Countries Urge Deep Climate Cuts

November 4, 2009

Reuters - Developing countries said on Wednesday they risked "total destruction" unless the rich stepped up the fight against climate change to a level that even the United Nations says is out of reach.

Keeping up pressure at U.N. climate talks in Barcelona, the poor insisted that developed countries should cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 -- far more than on offer.

The Sudanese chair of the Group of 77 and China, representing poor nations, said that even the most ambitious offers by the European Union were far too weak for a new U.N. climate pact due to be agreed in Copenhagen next month.

"The result of that is to condemn developing countries to a total destruction of their livelihoods, their economies. Their land, their forests will all be destroyed. And for what purpose?" said Lumumba Sanislaus Di-Aping of Sudan.

"Anything south of 40 (percent) means that Africa's population, Africa's land mass is offered destruction," he told a news conference.

So far, developed nations are planning cuts averaging between 11 and 15 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels to slow climate change that could lead to more droughts, floods, rising sea levels, more powerful cyclones and a spread of disease.

But even the United Nations says that cuts of 40 percent would involve too wrenching a shift. African nations resumed negotiations in Barcelona on Tuesday after a one-day partial boycott following agreement on more focus on cuts by the rich.

"I think to get to minus 40 is too heavy a lift," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters. Such a shift would require "going back to the drawing board" and would economically "come at a huge cost," he said.

But Di-Aping said "in real and absolute terms (the effort) is minimal." He said rich nations spent billions of dollars on solving the financial crisis or on defense.

De Boer said there was a chance of deeper cuts.

"I can see some progress being made to make the numbers more ambitious," he said. He said that he hoped Russia and Ukraine especially would look again at their planned cuts.

Cuts of 40 percent as demanded by African nations "would be extremely difficult," said Anders Turesson, head of the Swedish delegation which holds the European Union's rotating presidency.

"Even if the European union went down to zero it would be extremely difficult," he told Reuters. He also said that it was key that the United States should put a figure on the table for U.S. cuts by 2020 in Copenhagen.

The United States is the only nation outside the existing Kyoto Protocol for curbing industrialized nations' emissions by 2012 and the Senate is debating a bill that would cut emissions by about 7 percent below 1990 levels...

Copenhagen Agreement is a Plan for World Government

November 1, 2009

The Wall Street Journal - We can only hope that world leaders will do nothing more than enjoy a pleasant bicycle ride around the charming streets of Copenhagen come December. For if they actually manage to wring out an agreement based on the current draft text of the Copenhagen climate-change treaty, the world is in for some nasty surprises. Draft text, you say? If you haven’t heard about it, that’s because none of our otherwise talkative political leaders have bothered to tell us what the drafters have already cobbled together for leaders to consider. And neither have the media.

Enter Lord Christopher Monckton. The former adviser to Margaret Thatcher gave an address at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month that made quite a splash. For the first time, the public heard about the 181 pages, dated Sept. 15, that comprise the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—a rough draft of what could be signed come December.

So far there have been more than a million hits on the YouTube post of his address. It deserves millions more because Lord Monckton warns that the aim of the Copenhagen draft treaty is to set up a transnational “government” on a scale the world has never before seen.

The “scheme for the new institutional arrangement under the Convention” that starts on page 18 contains the provision for a “government.” The aim is to give a new as yet unnamed U.N. body the power to directly intervene in the financial, economic, tax and environmental affairs of all the nations that sign the Copenhagen treaty.

The reason for the power grab is clear enough: Clause after complicated clause of the draft treaty requires developed countries to pay an "adaptation debt" to developing countries to supposedly support climate change mitigation. Clause 33 on page 39 says that "by 2020 the scale of financial flows to support adaptation in developing countries must be [at least $67 billion] or [in the range of $70 billion to $140 billion per year]."

And how will developed countries be slugged to provide for this financial flow to the developing world? The draft text sets out various alternatives, including option seven on page 135, which provides for "a [global] levy of 2 per cent on international financial market [monetary] transactions to Annex I Parties." Annex 1 countries are industrialized countries, which include among others the U.S., Australia, Britain and Canada.

To be sure, countries that sign international treaties always cede powers to a U.N. body responsible for implementing treaty obligations. But the difference is that this treaty appears to have been subject to unusual attempts to conceal its convoluted contents. And apart from the difficulty of trying to decipher the U.N. verbiage, there are plenty of draft clauses described as "alternatives" and "options" that should raise the ire of free and democratic countries concerned about preserving their sovereignty.

Lord Monckton himself only became aware of the extraordinary powers to be vested in this new world government when a friend found an obscure U.N. Web site and searched through several layers of hyperlinks before discovering a document that isn't even called the draft "treaty." Instead, it's labelled a "Note by the Secretariat."

Interviewed by broadcaster Alan Jones on Sydney radio Monday, Lord Monckton said:

"This is the first time I've ever seen any transnational treaty referring to a new body to be set up under that treaty as a 'government.' But it's the powers that are going to be given to this entirely unelected government that are so frightening." He added: "The sheer ambition of this new world government is enormous right from the start—that's even before it starts accreting powers to itself in the way that these entities inevitably always do."

To see a YouTube video segment of Lord Monckton’s address go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMe5dOgbu40

Plus, here is a later Fox Business interview with Lord Monckton, in which he further expands his thoughts:
http://tinyurl.com/foxbusiness-monckton

Critics have admonished Lord Monckton for his colorful language. He has certainly been vigorous. In his exposé of the draft Copenhagen treaty in St. Paul, he warned Americans that "in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy and your prosperity away forever." Yet his critics fail to deal with the substance of what he says.

Ask yourself this question: Given that our political leaders spend hundreds of hours talking about climate change and the need for a global consensus in Copenhagen, why have none of them talked openly about the details of this draft climate-change treaty? After all, the final treaty will bind signatories for years to come. What exactly are they hiding? Thanks to Lord Monckton we now know something of their plans.

Janos Pasztor, director of the Secretary-General's Climate Change Support Team, told reporters in New York Monday that with the U.S. Congress yet to pass a climate-change bill, a global climate-change treaty is now an unlikely outcome in Copenhagen. Let's hope he is right. And thank you, America.