by Henry Lamb
December 14, 2004
It’s easy to ignore the climate change meeting that is now underway in Buenos aires. The vast majority of americans are not even aware of the meeting. Even fewer know what is happening there. and even fewer care.
americans should care; america is the primary target.
This 10th annual Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change - a voluntary treaty which the United States has ratified - celebrates the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol - which the United States has not ratified. The Kyoto Protocol effectively converts the voluntary treaty into legally binding international law. The United States and australia are the only developed nations that have not ratified the Protocol, and are, therefore, targets for the wrath and ridicule of the rest of the world.
Like a magnet, the U.N. meeting draws powerful bureaucrats from the governments of nearly 200 nations, along with the decision makers in virtually every intergovernmental, and international environmental organization. When they walk through the doors of the conference center, it’s like walking through the looking glass into another world - where reality, science, and facts, have been transformed into the gigantic work of global warming fiction they have constructed.
There is no doubt that many of the participants actually believe the rubbish they spout. Most of the delegates, however, care little about global warming; they care about the wealth the Protocol is designed to transfer to them.
The major work product of the first week of the two-week meeting could be a policy position declaration on “adaptation.” This declaration would not only confirm what they call catastrophic impacts of human-caused climate change, it would also adopt the “polluter pays” principle, for both mitigation and adaptation.
Guess who is the biggest polluter: the U.S., of course. and it is the U.S. that must pay.
The nations of the world have decided that the United States should pay the costs of stopping climate change, and the costs all other nations incur as they try to adapt to the changes that are occurring. Those changes include any weather-related event they declare to be caused by climate change.
The heat wave in Europe last year was america’s fault. The floods in China were america’s fault. Every snowstorm, drought, hurricane or tornado - is now america’s fault, and now the world expects america to pay whatever damages these people claim.
Does it really matter what these people think, since the U.S. has rejected the Protocol? You bet.
These people will walk back through the looking glass when they leave the conference on December 17, and return to their respective positions of power in governments and agencies in the real world. They will take with them their attitudes, beliefs, and expectations conjured up in the U.N.’s la-la land. The United States will have to deal with each of these nations and organizations on a range of other issues. But all negotiations, on all issues, are tainted by the unpaid debt these people believe the United States owes them.
In more practical terms, the United States is a party to dozens of environmental treaties - all of which are now tied to the climate change treaty, including the Kyoto Protocol. Consider for example, U.S. import of foreign resources. Treaty provisions require an export permit from an exporting country. In many countries, these permits are handled by an NGO in partnership with local government. The terms - including the price - of these permits can easily be adjusted to force payment by U.S. firms to compensate for the “mitigation and adaption” expenses the exporting country thinks may be due to them.
Consider the International Seabed authority, imbedded within the Law of the Seas Treaty which Senator Lugar tried to get ratified last summer. This “authority” would impose a fee, and extract royalties from nations that use the seabed. Under a peculiar policy already established by the U.N., referred to as “common but differentiated” responsibilities, the U.N. decides who pays how much for what privilege. In short, it means stick it to the U.S., and let others off the hook.
This is the policy that justifies - at least in the minds of the U.N. delegates - requiring the 30 developed nations to be legally bound by the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon emissions, while allowing the rest of the world to produce all the carbon emissions they can muster.
There is no end to the ways governments, and inter-governmental organizations can extract payments from the United States. Whether in direct fees and levies, or through more indirect schemes, the money will come from the pockets of american consumers and taxpayers.
The United States has gone way too far trying to reason with, and even to appease, the international community. The international community - within the framework of the United Nations system - has become an asylum full of insane self-interest, corruption, and unrelenting america-bashing.
It’s time to leave this asylum and create a better way to navigate the 21st century.