CanadaFreePress | Klaus Rohrich | Nov. 30, 2007
Anyone who still believes that the Kyoto Accord is about actually reducing so-called greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere is in dire need of therapy. Kyoto is now and has always been about redistributing wealth. Recent statements by countries such as Brazil and India have confirmed this to be the case as developing nations are taking the position that climate change was caused by industrialized countries and should therefore be remediated by those countries.
Next week’s UN-sponsored 13th Conference of Parties (COP13) to be held in Bali, Indonesia (Where else would a UN conference be held in December?) will have representatives from developing nations demanding that Europe and North America foot the bill for the lion’s share of reducing carbon emissions, while developing countries be allowed unlimited emissions, presumably until reaching economic parity with the West. Or, as Omar Rivera, a functionary in Cuba’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, has put it, since industrialized countries are “most responsible” for the changing climate, those nations have a “moral obligation to finance the adaptation plans and actions in developing countries.”
I find it ironic that any official of the Cuban government would talk of “moral obligations”, but that’s fodder for another column.
Currently China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gasses. The country has plans to open or two new coal-fired generating stations per week over the next few years, which will add the equivalent of carbon emitted by some 3 billion Ford Expedition SUVs per year to the atmosphere.
India isn’t far behind China and Brazil isn’t that far behind India in spewing CO 2 into the atmosphere. The combined carbon emissions of developing nations exceed those of the West by a large margin, yet they demand to be exempted from emission reductions and they maintain that the cost of any reductions should be borne by the West.
So let me see if I understand this correctly: The world as we know it is in danger of being destroyed (according to Al Gore and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon) unless carbon emissions are greatly reduced, but the cost of reducing these emissions should be borne by industrialized nations and developing nations can continue to create carbon emissions until they achieve economic parity, or at least have their initiatives to reduce carbon emissions paid for by wealthier countries.
This position is akin to the passengers of the Titanic refusing to get into the lifeboats unless the first class passengers do all the rowing. It’s also good evidence that those who are skeptical of anthropogenic climate change are on the right track because if the situation were really as dire as the climate change hysterics claim, then it wouldn’t really matter who pays for the carbon emission reductions, so long as there is a dramatic reduction.
But the Kyoto Accord is not about climate change. It is about a massive transfer of wealth from industrialized countries to developing countries. And the stridency with which the UN and developing countries are demanding that “saving the world” be paid for by the West, shows us what the Kyoto Protocol really is: a poorly thought-out and patently transparent extortion racket that not even the dumbest mobster would attempt to pursue.
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