Part 4 BREAK DOWN: The U.N., ICLEI & The China Solution

Series:
BREAK DOWN: The U.N., ICLEI & The China Solution Part 1
BREAK DOWN: The U.N., ICLEI & The China Solution Part 2
BREAK DOWN: The U.N., ICLEI & The China Solution Part 3
BREAK DOWN: The U.N., ICLEI & The China Solution Part 4
BREAK DOWN: The U.N., ICLEI & The China Solution Part 5
BREAK DOWN: The U.N., ICLEI & The China Solution Part 6

And yet in various other sections are statements of:

“6.6 By 2020, protect and restore water-related ecosystems, including mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes.

11.3 By 2030, enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries.

15.1 By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements.

15.2 By 2020, promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests and substantially increase afforestation and reforestation globally.

15.4 By 2030, ensure the conservation of mountain ecosystems, including their biodiversity, in order to enhance their capacity to provide benefits that are essential for sustainable development.

15.5 Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity, and, by 2020, protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species.”^[3]

Based on section 1 of the 17 UN SDGs poverty is to be eliminated and yet with sections 6.6, 11.3, 15.1, 15.2, 15.4, and 15.5, etc., poverty can never be eliminated due to government(s) removing the right of “ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources.” To use one’s land to prosper one must be able to re-envision their land, property and natural resources. If the owner cannot, they will not prosper and they will either remain in poverty or will be driven into poverty under the auspices of these goals.

It has been expressed that the main factor for the flooding (2013 – 2019), along the Ottawa River through to the Great Lakes, with continuing and consistent high-water levels, is climate change. It is not, when one considers statements made regarding Plan 2014 and its implementation. “Plan 2014” was brought in to purportedly eliminate and to regulate water levels. As expressed by the authors of this “Plan,” and those who have read the “Plan,” that “Plan 2014” will do more damage than that of the “Plan 1958-DD”.

When water levels on the Great Lakes are higher the tributaries, of these Lakes, are also have higher water levels (cause and effect), contributing to damages and/or injurious effect on private properties along the sides of said tributaries.^[4]

It is also stated, in Plan 2014, that this has more to do with creating wetlands, than it has to do with climate change,^[5] or the purported protection of the environment.

But now the various nations, involved in the UN SDGs, should also be looking at their National Security. With the appointment of Mr. Liu Zhenmin of China in 2017, until 2022, being replaced by Mr. LI Junhua^[6] (China) in 2022, as the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs to advise the Secretary General of the UN on all development-related issues, including climate change, internet governance, and financing for development.

There should be, particularly, over the past 10-20 years, serious concern as to where the UN is headed. One can only stress the implications of this appointment especially when the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, in his 2020 “Sustainable Development Outlook 2020 Achieving SDGs in the wake of COVID-19: Scenarios for policymakers” report states:

“Developing countries have several options for financing the implementation of SDG 1.3. This includes re-allocating public expenditures; increasing tax revenue;^[7] expanding social security coverage and contributory revenues; official development assistance; eliminating illicit financing flows; and managing debt, including borrowing or restructuring existing debt (Ortiz and others, 2017).

For example, governments could replace high-cost, low-impact investments with others offering higher socioeconomic return identified by undertaking public expenditure reviews, while also reducing spending inefficiencies and tackling corruption. This could include shifting budget allocations away from military expenditures to social protection programmes. Military expenditures in developing countries account for some 40 per cent of the average cost of the social protection floor package (ILO, 2017a). Another option could be to curtail illicit financial flows, which account for some 10 per cent of GDP in many developing countries, a staggering amount when compared against the necessary investments in social protection floors.

The financing of the social protection floor goal (SDG 1.3) is thus affordable to most low-income and lower middle-income countries. In others, there would be need for additional international support.”^[8]

With the debt load in Canada^[9] and with reported to be cutting $1 billion dollars from our National Defence,^[10] one needs to question if this is part of the promotion from the UN to fulfill Canada’s SDGs?

The key to this questioning of the UN SDGs is the relationship with the UN and the appointed Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs. Mr. Liu Zhenmin is said to have been “deeply involved for 10 years in climate change negotiations including the conclusion of the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement,” “started his career in China’s foreign ministry in 1982,” “served in the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations Office,” “guides UN Secretariat support for the follow-up processes of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development,” and “Advises the United Nations Secretary-General on all development-related issues, including climate change, internet governance, and financing for development.”

Based on the deep ties Mr. Liu Zhenmin and Mr. Li Junhua have with China and with the geo-political, economic and societal issues many nations are having with the non-democratic nations, including China, over the past few decades, should Canada be implementing and/or entering into any agreements with the United Nations? And is this what certain members of CSIS were speaking of, when the information pertaining to foreign actors interfering with all levels of government?^[11]

Governments, on all levels, in Canada, need to be aware that not only is our national security in question, but the financial stability of this Nation is also in question. The UN SDGs already seem financially draining or there would not have been recommendations that nations withdraw funding from their military to fund these programs. It was also stated:

“An effective green recovery package should also include levying or increasing carbon taxes and winding down fossil fuel subsidies, allowing the market price to provide signals that encourage sustainable consumption and investment. The historically low oil price — a result of collapsed demand in the midst of the pandemic — has made introducing a carbon tax and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies more palatable to the public, thereby entailing less political cost. It can be shown that even a substantial carbon tax of $54 per metric ton of CO2 — a level that falls within the estimated range required to meet the Paris Agreement — would only lead to an increase of less than 50 cents per gallon for gasoline in the United States, which would still keep the gasoline prices at very low levels.”^[12]

“Developing countries have several options for financing the implementation of SDG 1.3.This includes re-allocating public expenditures; increasing tax revenue; expanding social security coverage and contributory revenues; official development assistance; eliminating illicit financing flows; and managing debt, including borrowing or restructuring existing debt (Ortiz and others, 2017).”^[13]

And is this merely the United Nations that is promoting this movement? We all need to understand who the participants are and that they could be undermining the entire governance structure of Canada, as well as all Western Democracies, with their actions under this plan.

To be continued in Part 5 of BREAK DOWN: The U.N., ICLEI & The China Solution…

Footnotes

[1] UN 169 SDG TARGETS

[2] UN 169 SDG TARGETS

[3] UN 169 SDG TARGETS

[4] “…The system, especially the St. Lawrence River downstream from Ogdensburg, has changed dramatically since the Moses-Saunders dam was built. As a result, the lower river below the Moses-Saunders dam is much less sensitive to changes in water level regulation than the lake and upper river. This is because regulated releases are very diverse, spanning an even greater range than natural releases. Furthermore, the lower river hydrology is influenced not only by the outflows from Lake Ontario, but also by the Ottawa River and local tributary flows.” Final Report by the International Lake Ontario - St. Lawrence River Study Board to the International Joint Commission March 2006, Options for Managing Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River Water Levels and Flows, p, iv.

[5] “Tradeoffs in Managing the Natural and Developed Shore

There are challenges to balancing healthy coastal wetlands and property damage along the Lake Ontario shoreline. In its 2006 report, the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Study Board found that Plan 1958DD came close to minimizing damages for Lake Ontario shoreline property owners but had reduced the diversity of plant types along the shore and populations of animal species that feed on and live in the environments affected by the reduced water level ranges.

The Study Board and Working Group produced a range of regulation plans that met the Treaty’s requirements but that produced different levels of benefits among interests. No plan, however, could completely overcome this inherent conflict. Plans that restored a significant measure of coastal ecosystem health did so with more natural lake levels. More natural levels, by contrast, increased damages to vulnerable shoreline development. An alternative such as Plan 2007, which relaxed the compressed summer levels Lake Ontario while keeping autumn and winter levels unnaturally low, resulted in a slight reduction in coastal damages on average, but did little to reverse the harm to the environment.

In selecting a new regulation plan, the IJC chose to strike a balance between the two objectives. Plan 2014 produces a large improvement in coastal ecosystems in return for a small reduction in the benefits provided in the 1956 Order for those shoreline property owners who need to maintain shore protection to limit erosion and flooding.” Lake Ontario - St. Lawrence River Plan 2014, Protecting against extreme water levels, restoring wetlands and preparing for climate change, p. 34.

[6] “Mr. Li began his career at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in 1985. Since then, he has served in various capacities, including as Director General of the Department of International Organizations and Conferences, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China (2013-2019), Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of China to Myanmar (2010-2012), Deputy Director General of the Department of International Organizations and Conferences (2008-2010), Minister Counselor (Political), Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations (2003-2008), Division Director and Counselor in charge of UN General Assembly and Security Council Affairs (2001-2003), Second and First Secretary, Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations (1997-2001). Third and Second Secretary, the Department of International Organizations and Conferences (1992-1997) and Assistant to the Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of China to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok (1986-1992).” (Mr. Li Junhua, Under-Secretary-General)

[7] UN 169 SDG TARGETS:

“17.1 Strengthen domestic resource mobilization, including through international support to developing countries, to improve domestic capacity for tax and other revenue collection.

Strengthen domestic resource mobilization, including through international support to developing countries, to improve domestic capacity for tax and other revenue collection.

17.1.1 Total government revenue as a proportion of GDP, by source

17.1.2 Proportion of domestic budget funded by domestic taxes”

[8] “Sustainable Development Outlook 2020 Achieving SDGs in the wake of COVID-19: Scenarios for policymakers,” p. 33-34.

[9] The federal government reported a federal deficit of $1.13 trillion at the end of the 2021-2022 fiscacanadal year(opens in a new tab), an increase of 8.2 per cent from the previous fiscal year.

Adjusted for current inflation, Canada’s total provincial and federal debt increased from $1.1 trillion to $2.1 trillion between 2007-2008 and 2022-2023, according to a study by the right-wing think tank Fraser Institute(opens in a new tab).

Despite the government’s increased expenditure during the pandemic, this alone is not the primary cause behind the country’s debt problem.

(What's Canada's current federal debt and where's the government spending money? --CTV News)

[10] “The Liberal government is looking to cut almost $1 billion from the annual budget of the Department of National Defence (DND) — a demand the country's top military commander says is prompting some "difficult" conversations within the military.” Federal government looking to cut $1 billion from National Defence budget (CBC: Federal government looking to cut $1 billion from National Defence budget)

[11] Canada's spy agency suspects that cabinet ministers in two provinces are under the control of foreign governments, CBC News has learned.

Several members of B.C. municipal governments are also under suspicion, Richard Fadden, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told CBC News in an exclusive interview.

"We're in fact a bit worried in a couple of provinces that we have an indication that there's some political figures who have developed quite an attachment to foreign countries," Fadden said.

"The individual becomes in a position to make decisions that affect the country or the province or a municipality. All of a sudden, decisions aren't taken on the basis of the public good but on the basis of another country's preoccupations."

He said the politicians and public servants see it as a long-standing relationship and have no idea they are being used.

"There are several municipal politicians in British Columbia and in at least two provinces there are ministers of the Crown who we think are under at least the general influence of a foreign government." (CBC: CSIS: Some politicians under foreign sway)

[12] UN Sustainable Development (Goals) Outlook 2020, Chapter II. Achieving prosperity in the wake of COVID-19 p. 23.

[13] UN Sustainable Development (Goals) Outlook 2020, Chapter II. Achieving prosperity in the wake of COVID-19 p. 33-34.