We hold these Truths to be self-evident...
My favorite economic analyst, Washington’s Blog, documents what’s developing in disclosure of the provisions within the Copenhagen Framework, including Enron-like skimming of non-wealth producing “trades.” I provide a summary that the global temperature data and revealed e-mails seem to fully falsify the premise for the global taxes.
I recommend Washington’s Blog as a daily visit. Here is his post, in full:
Friday, December 11, 2009
But - according to top experts on climate and cap and trade - the regulatory framework being rammed through in America and internationally won't actually reduce carbon to any meaningful degree. See this, this, this and this.
Now, the Independent notes that the Copenhagen framework uses Enron-style accounting tricks to give the impression of cutting carbon, without really doing so:
The first week of this summit is being dominated by the representatives of the rich countries trying to lace the deal with Enron-style accounting tricks that will give the impression of cuts, without the reality. It's essential to understand these shenanigans this week, so we can understand the reality of the deal that will be announced with great razzmatazz next week ...
A study by the University of Stanford found that most of the projects that are being funded as "cuts" either don't exist, don't work, or would have happened anyway. Yet this isn't a small side-dish to the deal: it's the main course ...
Trick one: hot air. The nations of the world were allocated permits to release greenhouse gases back in 1990, when the Soviet Union was still a vast industrial power – so it was given a huge allocation. But the following year, it collapsed, and its industrial base went into freefall – along with its carbon emissions. It was never going to release those gases after all. But Russia and the eastern European countries have held on to them in all negotiations as "theirs". Now, they are selling them to rich countries who want to purchase "cuts". Under the current system, the US can buy them from Romania and say they have cut emissions – even though they are nothing but a legal fiction.
We aren't talking about climatic small change. This hot air represents 10 gigatonnes of CO2. By comparison, if the entire developed world cuts its emissions by 40 per cent by 2020, that will only take six gigatonnes out of the atmosphere.
Trick two: double-counting. This is best understood through an example. If Britain pays China to abandon a coal power station and construct a hydro-electric dam instead, Britain pockets the reduction in carbon emissions as part of our overall national cuts. In return, we are allowed to keep a coal power station open at home. But at the same time, China also counts this change as part of its overall cuts. So one tonne of carbon cuts is counted twice. This means the whole system is riddled with exaggeration – and the figure for overall global cuts is a con.
Trick three: the fake forests ... the Canadian, Swedish and Finnish logging companies have successfully pressured their governments into inserting an absurd clause into the rules. The new rules say you can, in the name of "sustainable forest management", cut down almost all the trees – without losing credits. It's Kafkaesque: a felled forest doesn't increase your official emissions... even though it increases your actual emissions.
There are dozens more examples like this, but you and I would lapse into a coma if I listed them. This is deliberate. This system has been made incomprehensible because if we understood, ordinary citizens would be outraged. If these were good faith negotiations, such loopholes would be dismissed in seconds. And the rich countries are flatly refusing to make even these enfeebled, leaky cuts legally binding. You can toss them in the bin the moment you leave the conference centre, and nobody will have any comeback.
Comments
Catch up with the modern world already.
Great article and info. I'll be taking a look at Washington's Blog on a more regular basis.
I'm not really surprised at some of this. As far as I understand it, the cap & trade had Ken Lay (of Enron) help set it up.
This reminds me of the way the WorldBanksters used GATT to rob other trillions.
Except that the article didn't seem to give any examples to warrant the claim in the headline of "trillions in taxes." In fact, since Ronald Reagan there's been a steady stream of tax cuts and it's not likely that such will ever change.
Edward_the_cat:
You need to click the word “trillions” that has a link to see the multitude of media reports on this publicly disclosed cost analysis. This is an openly discussed cost. As to tax cuts, the economics teacher in me points out that our disposable income is what counts. When real wages rise less than inflation, our purchasing power decreases. Official figures for inflation do not adequately measure our real costs of living, especially housing. The middle class is being squeezed while we continue fascist economic policy to enable financial elites to gamble in banking and with the proposed carbon credits. Monetary reform is the policy solution; I have several articles on that topic.
"Official figures for inflation do not adequately measure our real costs of living, especially housing."
All too true, but not well-conveyed by the reference to taxes. Tax cut plans generally do benefit the superrich, while being packaged in a way which makes them appeal to the lower classes. That's a major reason to be wary of jumping on the hype about taxes. I actually doubt very much that Obama (let alone Jeb Bush in 2017) will really explicitly raise taxes very much, if at all.
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